Let’s GO GO! Follow Me to Abaco! Route Planning: St. Augustine to Abaco, Bahama
Speed, Distance, and Time Computations
In American Sailing’s 104 Bareboat Cruising Certification, one of the navigation skills is: Plan a coastal passage from origin to destination, plotting courses, distances, and waypoints. While en route, keep a written log and plot DR positions on a chart, and calculate estimated times of arrival (ETA) to waypoints. For fun, here’s an upcoming plan for a trip from St. Augustine, Florida to the Abacos in the Bahamas.
This plan was put together by another boater with a faster boat, so I would have to adjust a bit, as 7 knots is just out of my reach normally. It’s fun to put those time – speed – distance formulas to work on such a fun project! The next article will be provisioning for meals for four – another 104 skill – that must match up to the trip shown below with attention paid to rough offshore days’ food prep requirements.
Staging the boats down to Fort Pierce
Shove-off will be at 10:30 am Sat morning. We can do our final Publix run before shove-off but off the dock, run the coast to Lake Worth Inlet and hang a left eastbound!
With Memorial Day on Monday 5/30 we can spend Sunday night in FP if we want, provision with non-perishables on 5/30 and return home Monday afternoon after provisioning!
This trip is two weeks and four days total. If you start and stop at Ft. Pierce City Marina (Sat. 6/4 to Sat. 6/18) then it’s two full weeks for those with only two weeks off. Looks like fun!
| Date | Destination | Departure | Distance | Speed | Time | Arrival | Location | Days | Phone |
| Sat 5/28 | SA to Ft. Pierce- Staging | 5:00 AM | 160NM | 5 knots | 35 hrs | Sun 5/29 3:00 PM | Ft. Pierce City Marina | Overnight | 772-464-1245 |
| Thurs 6/2 | SA to Ft. Pierce- Staging | 5:00 AM | 160NM | 5 knots | 35 hrs | Fri 6/3 3:00 PM | Ft. Pierce City Marina | Overnight | 772-464-1245 |
| Sat 6/4 | Ft. Pierce to Old Bahama Bay | 10:30 AM | 102 NM | 4 to 4.5 knots | 25 hours | Sun 6/5 11:00 AM | West End OB Bay Marina | Overnight | 888-983-6188 |
| Mon 6/6 | OB Bay to Great Sale Cay | 6:00 AM | 67 NM | 5 knots | 13 hours | Mon 6/6 7:00 PM | Great Sale Cay Ancorage | 2-days | |
| Wed 6/8 | Great Sale to Allans Pensacola | 8:00 AM | 28.5 NM | 5 knots | 7 hours | Wed 6/8 2:00 PM | A. Pensacola Cay Anchorage | 1-day | |
| Thur 6/9 | A. Pensacola to Nunjack Cay | 8:00 AM | 18.5 NM | 5 knots | 4 hours | Thur 6/9 12pm | Nunjack Cay Anchorage | 1-day | |
| Fri 6/10 | Nunjack to Green Turtle Cay | 8:00 AM | 7 NM | 5 knots | 2 hours | Fri 6/10 10:00 AM | Green Turtle Club Marina | 2-days | 1-242-365-4271 |
| Sun 6/12 | Green Turtle to Great Guana | 10:00 AM | 15 NM | 5 knots | 4 hours | Sun 6/12 1:00 PM | Fishers Bay Anchorage | 1-day | |
| Mon 6/13 | Great Guana to Hope Town | 9:30 AM | 12NM | 5 knots | 2.5 hours | Mon 6/13 12:00 PM | Hope Town Marina | 2-days | 1-242-366-0003 |
| Wed 6/15 | Hope Town to Spanish Cay | 7:00 AM | 40 NM | 5 knots | 8 hours | Wed 6/15 3:00 PM | Spanish Cay Anchorage | 1-day | |
| Thur 6/16 | Spanish Cay to Great Sale Cay | 8:00 AM | 37NM | 5 knots | 7 hours | Thur 6/16 3pm | Great Sale Cay Ancorage | 1-day | |
| Fri 6/17 | Great Sale to Memory Rock | 7:00 AM | 48NM | 5 knots | 9 hours | Fri 6/17 4:00 PM | Memory Rock Anchorage | 1-day | |
| Sat 6/18 | Memory Rock to Ft. Pierce | 5:00 AM | 73NM | 7 knots | 11 hours | Sat 6/18 4:00 PM | Ft. Pierce City Marina | 1-day | 772-464-1245 |
| Sun 6/19 | Ft. Pierce to Port Canaveral | 6:00 AM | 62NM | 5.5 knots | 11 hours | Sun 6/19 5:00 PM | Ocean Club Marina | 1-day | 321-783-9001 |
| Mon 6/20 | Port Canaveral to SA | 11:00 AM | 109NM | 5.5 knots | 20 hours | Tue 6/21 7:00 AM | Camachee Cove Marina | Overnight |
I Don’t Go Anywhere Without:
- North American Rescue CAT tourniquets.
- PierShare to rent your dock out or rent a dock.
- BoatUS for your boat towing insurance! Code: “HEWAF88”
- Thank you Bill for being the Best Sailing Partner EVER!
