Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for once again sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in Meander‘s wake! For more of this excellent photography, type Allard in our Homepage search window for letters from previous cruises.

Hello everyone – After our 2022 cruise to the
Bahamas, we decided to downsize a bit; a smaller
boat would make it easier to find transient space in
marinas as we cruise, and a newer, smaller boat
would also lessen some of the maintenance. Our
existing boat was a 34 year old 65’ Tollycraft, one of
the best boats we have ever owned. She sold very
quickly, and then our search began. We did not find a
replacement until early summer of 2023, so we
missed the opportunity to visit the Bahamas last year.
We have a number of new readers who have just
joined us in receiving this letter, so we hope that those
of you who have been regulars will understand that
we will cover some of the basics.

This is the new Meander: she is a 47’ Grand Banks.
For those familiar with boats who recognize the
Grand Banks name, the company has built thousands
of boats over the years; for a long time their boats
were displacement boats, meaning that they cruised
at about 7-9 knots, or approximately 10 mph. Grand
Banks then hired the noted naval architectural firm of
Sparkman and Stephens to redesign the hull, allowing
it to achieve higher speeds – and to plane – which
means instead of pushing through waster, the boat
would rise up and ride on top of the the water.

The Grand Banks we found is a 2009 model, with twin
500HP Cummins diesel engines. She has bow and
stern thrusters, a fly-bridge, stabilizers, a generator,
and a watermaker – for making drinkable fresh water
from salt water – important in the Bahamas. During sea
trials, she topped out at 24 knots, or a bit over 27
mph. She will also cruise comfortably at 9 knots, at
significant savings in fuel costs. We’ll mostly cruise at
a slower speed, especially with diesel fuel in the
Bahamas over $6.00 a gallon.

The new Meander – a 47’ Grand Banks Heritage EU.

We departed for Bahama this year from the east coast
of Florida, around the N.Palm Beach area. The
crossing to our first stop in the Bahamas (Port
Lucaya) is around 78 nautical miles. It takes the
better part of a day to make this open ocean passage,
and if you don’t watch the weather carefully, it can be
a nasty, rough passage. This year there were weather
fronts continually, bringing high winds, so we had to
wait about 2 weeks for a decent weather-window. We
made the first two thirds of the crossing at a leisurely
8-9 knots, but for the last portion we “opened her up”
and ran at 16-17 knots, as shown above. Quite an
exhilarating run, especially since at this speed the
engines drank 40 gallons per hour. Since we had a

second day of calm weather, we departed Port
Lucaya the next morning to make a second long
crossing to the Berry Islands.

A view off the stern of our boat, on the trip from
Lucaya. During such an open water ocean crossing,
you have to continually contend with huge ships;
avoiding them is important. This one was headed
right towards us, but then changed course to pass to
our stern, He was correctly following the international
rule for such situations, since we were crossing in
front of him from his starboard (right) side.
Regardless of the “rules” we always keep out of their
way. Some of the largest such ships can take several

miles to even stop.

The beauty of the Bahamas is unmatched – waters
which we have often described as “gin clear”, and
spectacular beaches with magical colors. Our regular
readers know that what we most love about the
Bahamas is the people; they are warm, friendly, of
great humor and just delightful. They operate at a
different pace and newcomers take a while to adjust.
Very little is urgent in the Bahamas.

Our first layover is in the Berry islands, one of favorite
places in all the Bahamas. This is the Beach Club, on
the north shore of Great Harbour Cay, overlooking
one of the best beaches anywhere. We’ve spent
many an afternoon at this place, having a wonderful
lunch of cracked conch and some cold Bahamian
brewed Kalik beer.

This is Clinique, with her magnificent smile, who has
been our waitress at the Beach Club over many
years. She proudly showed us a picture of her lovely
daughter Chastinique. Such beautiful names.

Even Paradise has its flaws. Unfortunately for the
several hundred people who live on this small, remote
island, they have been enduring “road torture” for over
a year. Based on numerous trips to this island, we
have seen that the roads are always filled with
potholes which can break car axles and throw bikers
to the ground. Over a year ago, the government
undertook a major program to repave all of the roads
on Great Harbour Cay. A contractor arrived, and
stripped the asphalt from almost all of the roads,
leaving an ever worse condition than they started
with. In the above photo part of the road has been
stripped (the light color at the top of the photo), and
you can see the huge pothole in the foreground, in the

yet unstripped road. While you can’t see it in this
photo, there are even more potholes in the stripped
roads, and they are much more difficult to see as you
approach them. The local people are incredibly
frustrated. Several reasons have been given for the
incredible delay, but it is accepted as a normal
expectation for the workings of the Bahamian
government, with its lack of concern for the well-being
of the Bahamian small “out islands”. There are just not
enough votes on this island.

This is Freddy, one of the dockhands at the Great
Harbour Cay marina. He’s excellent at assisting
boats to dock, in tying up the lines and deploying
fenders. He is a genuinely good person, warm and
friendly, but he does have the odd habit of talking to
himself most of the time. That doesn’t interfere,

however, with his excellent work. In defense of
Freddy, with increasing frequency I find that I talk to
myself too. And none of it makes much sense.
Thanks for joining us on this first leg of our cruise.
Warmest regards to you all.
Greg and Barbara
Copyright Greg Allard, 2024