When you first arrive in the Bahamas it’s scary to actually see the bottom. Where I come from if you see the bottom that’s a bad thing. You just ran aground!
Here water color is a great way to gauge depth even at a distance. If it’s purple there is no bottom reflection at all, it’s super deep. Coming from Florida we passed areas that were almost 3,000 ft deep, the only light reflection in the water are refracted wave patterns from the surface. Light shimmers at geometric angles as you see deeper and deeper into the abyss.
The shallower it gets the lighter shade of turquoise it gets (over sand) until you start to see a sand color to it. I draw 3′ so even water showing some sandy color is just fine for SYL. If I see a sandy colored patch I check my depth gauge, and if there’s not much change of color from where I am to where I’m going I know the dept in front of me before I get there.
Dark green water means there’s grass on the bottom, the best way to tell how deep it is by sight is noticing how quickly objects on the bottom move. If they seem to waft by with some distortion to the bottom features it’s fine. If you see the grass clearly… moving by evenly. . It’s shallow.
The third color is brown… that’s a reef! If it’s brown, go around no matter how deep it is.
It’s raining today, we are lazying about tied to the dock this morning. It’s pizza night here in great harbor. I put my order in yesterday for a large meat lovers! It will be fun to sit and share with other cruisers at the pavillion.
Sea Yawl Later
Rusty