Day 185 - The Golden Bear — Captain Father John

Miles cruised 19, fuel purchased 197 gallons, fuel purchased $726, this is our last fuel purchase in the Bahamas, slip fee $80, daily high temperature 80°f

Dinner at Grabber’s was outstanding. The restaurant seating is poolside next to the beach. The view of the boats in Fisher’s Bay with the sailboat mast lights twinkling in the sky is magical. The food at these local restaurants has been gourmet. So well presented and tasty. These are not short order cooks. These restaurants must have chefs.

Dale’s whole grouper dinner.

It was dead calm overnight. Not a breath of wind. The good news is the Whale Passage will be flat, flat, flat. No air makes for a steamy night on the boat. It’s enough to make you want to run the generator and air conditioner all night long.

We departed Settlement Harbour on Great Guana Cay at 9:00 am and headed for the Whale Passage. At the same time a Nordhavn 72 called Trixie had pulled anchor and was on a converging course with us. Instead of getting ahead of them I hailed them on the VHF radio and asked if they would mind if we fell in line behind them. They must draw 8′ so they could show us the way. They agreed and off we went. It was a fine day to transit the Whale. Rollers from the Atlantic were 4 – 6 feet with a long interval in between.

Funally, someone came to collect our $20 mooring ball fee just before we departed.

As we approached Green Turtle Cay the Nordhavn Trixie continued on past the entrance to White Sound. They hailed us and advised they would be anchoring out. We headed into White Sound and lo and behold Mitzvah was exiting Black Sound on our starboard. I hailed Mitzvah and John advised he was headed to West End and would cross to the mainland on Monday.

We hailed The Green Turtle Club Marina and fueled up at Bahamian prices for the last time. OUCH! I looked across from the fuel dock and was amazed see to the Wesport mega yacht Sea Bear on the pier end next to where we will we be tied up. The last time Priscilla were onboard Sea Bear she was in Singapore at the Singapore boat show. Sea Bear is owned by the famous golfer the Golden Bear Jack Nicklaus. In each of his staterooms he has the memorabilia from his illustrious golf career. He has the golf balls he used when he hit holes in ones. He has the club sets displayed that he used to win major golf tournaments such as the Masters. According to Wesley the dockmaster the Golden Bear will arrive onboard on Easter Sunday. We were surprised to see the Sea Bear in the US since the one we were onboard was owned by a Chinese land developer. He hoped that by purchasing Jack Nicolaus’s boat that Jack would agree to design a golf course for him. The Sea Bear we toured in Singapore was a Westport 132. The Sea Bear at the Green Turtle Club is a only a Westport 112′.

Sea Bear and Changing Latitudes side by side.

The Golden Bear. He had blonde hair in his youth.

Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed “The Golden Bear”, is a retired American professional golfer. He is widely regarded as the greatest professional golfer of all time, winning a total of 18 career major championships, while producing 19 second-place and 9 third-place finishes in them, over a span of 25 years.[1] Nicklaus focused on the major championships (Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, Open Championship, and PGA Championship), and played a selective schedule of regular PGA Tour events, yet still finished with 73 victories, third on the all-time list behind Sam Snead (82) and Tiger Woods (79).

We will spend one more night at Green Turtle Cay and then cruise 50 miles to Great Sayle Cay on Monday. We will spend the night on anchor at Great Sayle Cay and on Tuesday transit 110 miles across the Gulf Stream on Tuesday and end up in Stuart, Florida.

Bonus photo – Happy Easter

Carl (Chef) Wooden – quote of the day.

“Little islands are all large prisons; one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.” – Richard Francis Burton

Sir Richard Francis Burton (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian and African languages.

Burton’s best-known achievements include a well-documented journey to Mecca, in disguise at a time when Europeans were forbidden access on pain of death; an unexpurgated translation of One Thousand and One Nights (commonly called The Arabian Nights in English after early translations of Antoine Galland’s French version); the publication of the Kama Sutra in English; and a journey with John Hanning Speke as the first Europeans to visit the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile.