Last Log at Sea

 

The dockhand at Ft. Pierce eagerly took this shot of us right after he tied Sacagawea up. We officially “crossed our wake on” March 17, 2025! Funny—he said he was the same guy who took the photo of us the day we left on March 2, 2024.

As we came to the end of our Bahamas excursion, I traveled for a week away from Sacagawea to my oldest nephew’s “kind of a cute wedding” (congratulations Amy and Joe!) in Southern California. To do this, I took a small commercial jet flight out of Grand Exuma to New Providence (Nassau). Flights out don’t coordinate so I had to stay a night in Nassau and fly the next full day to Southern California. Most flights to Nassau originate on the East Coast. I found it’s rare to meet someone from West of the Rockies vacationing in the Bahamas.

While the cat was away, Mike spent time playing online chess with our son A.J., visiting with Looper friends, and completing generator maintenance.

The very morning I returned to Sacagawea we lifted anchor and began a bittersweet trip North. It meant the last leg of the Loop and our time on Sacagawea. We carefully watched the daily wind reports in order to safely get back to Florida. 

Here was the final leg of our entire Loop. We went North from the Exumas and ended at Ft. Pierce, Florida. 

After we crossed from the Exumas to New Providence Island (Nassau), the next seven days were too windy to continue, so we took a pause in the large town of Nassau. First, we stayed at a small resort on the South side. 

We never did this exact form of relaxation on the Loop. Lying on a chaise at the beach! As you can see, Mike was an expert at this, anyway. We stayed a couple days at a nice resort which was a base for Moorings rental catamarans that we saw in the Exumas. 

We had made a three-day reservation at the most famous tourist stop at Nassau: Atlantis Resort. However, due to excellent boating conditions, we arrived two days early. So, we cruised the known anchorages around Nassau Harbor—we had heard of Loopers who anchored here. We found it as wake-filled and busy as New York Bay in front of the Statue of Liberty. So we bit the bullet, opened our wallet, and asked Atlantis Harbor for an early arrival. Our goal there was to have a good time at Atlantis and clean Sacagawea(1).

At a lookout point I scanned the architecture. Its style was hard to pin down. Disney Castle meets Greece…? In this video you’ll see the 150-foot-plus yachts of this harbor and little Sacagawea, the smallest boat: 

Mostly Mike spent a couple days of walking through the Disney-esque vacation development of Atlantis. It had many pools for families, teens and tots. It also had small beaches and family-friendly restaurants. 

An unexpected feature at Atlantis: a rope bridge held together with knots. This appealed to Mike’s inner child—he jumped up and down, making the bridge move.

There were multiple aquariums that featured strange=looking sawfish, rays and other tropical fish(2). No trip to Atlantis is complete without a stroll through the shark tunnel:

Water “rides” made Atlantis special. There were serious water slides and kiddie-water slides as well. I tried the River Rapids and bailed out halfway through! Mike continued to do the ride—I think six times altogether. Here’s a video of one of the mellow areas:

A miraculous, three-day window of settled weather began to hold at the end of our Atlantis stay. We felt so fortunate that we wouldn’t need to wait at the mid-stop locations for a week or more, which was very common. 

The first jump was from Nassau to the Berry Islands. The second jump: Berry Islands to Grand Bahama. The third and final jump was Grand Bahama to the St. Lucie entrance to the Florida ICW. At Berry and Grand Bahama we anchored and never left the boat! We were pretty beat each evening from long hours underway. 

The final day required an early departure—before sunrise. Here were our buddy boats leaving before us:

All these hops just meld together in my mind. The waves were a modest one to two feet. Thinking back, we saw almost no birds. No dolphins. We saw perhaps three or four huge jumping fish that were long, skinny and flashing silver (tarpon, perhaps?). We occasionally saw Atlantic flying fish. It’s amazing to see these fish pierce out of a wave and flutter over a hundred feet into another wave.(3) I saw a couple by-the-wind sailors which were cool. We passed the time by switching off at the helm (1.5 hours on, 1.5 hours off), listening to a book and completing crosswords. And, let’s be honest, snacking. 

As the Florida coast appeared, our excitement built. Entering through the breakwaters at St. Lucie was exhilarating after three long days returning from Nassau and six weeks in the Bahamas! I thought, “Will I ever boat in the Atlantic Ocean again?” 

At this juncture between the Atlantic and the ICW, Mike was piloting and the channel became narrower and shallower—with more boats vying for space! It was a Friday afternoon. Fishing and day-tripper boats were releasing wakes left and right of us. Also, we were pushing against a strong, 3 MPH ebbing current which slowed our progress and made it challenging to keep a straight line. Mike was in full concentration mode. It was not time to relax and celebrate yet.

We were relieved to leave the St. Lucie channel, turned South at the ICW, and stopped for a last ever, two-day, anchorage, on Sacagawea. Per usual, Mike was at the helm and I was on the bow. I dropped the hook at Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge right along the ICW. 

We didn’t see any wildlife, per se, but it had a long, virtually unused beach with piles of colorful shells. We looked out on to the Atlantic and admired the thunderheads in the distance. We saw white dots of boats along the horizon, just like everyone sees from beaches, everywhere. 

We had two multi-week marina stays reserved: at Ft. Pierce (so we could officially end our Loop) and at Stuart. Here, we would show Sacagawea to many potential buyers.

We were treated to flowers from our local Looper friends and enjoyed a last Looper potluck at the marina’s event room. Everyone was asking us, “how do you feel” and “what is your next adventure?” 

I’ll tie it all up for you in my final travelogue.

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) Salt that accumulated on boats in the Bahamas was quite crusty. I’ve never seen so much salt on Sacagawea. 

(2) Atlantis was breeding endangered sawfish. How in the world did these evolve?

(3) Flying fish leave the water and fly to escape predators.