I sure hope The Sands get the rooms figured out for you all. I know it's a lot of planning, preparation, and excitement for these trips. It certainly appears you'll have to earn it a bit more then we did crossing in June.
@Rod5 this may read as redundancy and I totally get your point because if you read these threads and never been in the ocean you'd be scared to death but I think that's a point to a degree. I think the goal is to set reasonable expectations, especially for those crossing for the first time because youtube videos are misleading to what is actually felt and experienced. This probably isn't meant for you but hopefully will help someone doing it for the first time. For those crossing soon please don't take it condescending as that's not the intention, but everyone should have zero expectation of a comfortable ride. I was a little surprised to see the results of the poll
@Bruce made when a large number choose comfortable conditions. I don't think that's a reasonable expectation unless you live close by and can pick a weekend and go at will. It is extremely rare to find comfortable seas riding in a jet boat and that's certainly the case when it's a planned date months in advance. Granted I've only crossed the stream 6 times which is a limited data set, but of those 6 this year was the only time I would call it comfortable. There were trips we made comments like "that wasn't that bad", however it was far from comfortable. The reality is you're taking a small vessel, fairly light vessel, across a very large body of water. If it's you first time, you need to set your expectation and the expectation of your crew that it's going to extremely rough. Hopefully it will not live up, but more then likely especially crossing your first time, you'll think it's really bad. I've mentioned it several times, but my crossing in 2017 was the most annoying rough ride to date for me personally. It wasn't the biggest seas I've seen but the toughest. Let the clip play out a bit and you'll hear constant disconnect and hard slaps along with a lot of spray. My wife was on the boat and while they didn't bury the bow and take waves over, they all were pretty much soaked from spray. To put this into perspective a little, I didn't get a singe drop of water above my knee until we were approx. a half mile out of FL on our return this year. In 2017, I felt like a drank half the ocean and I was pretty beat arriving in Bimini. The seas were absolutely 2ft with short period and a strong head wind. Video never does it justice but it was rough. We were able to safely without breaking anything, or tearing anything up run 20ish mph. It took us 3 hours. After last years crossing that's when I confirmed to myself that if I couldn't run upper teens at a minimum I need to turn back and give it another shot another time. To counter
@swatski a bit, I'm not sure it's capabilities rather willingness and expectations. If you're expectation is for you and crew to take an ass beating for several hours then you'll likely be satisfied. If you watch these youtube videos and think your local lake gets that rough at times I think you're setting yourself up for a major surprise. Lastly, if you get out there and 5 miles in your running 10mph its ok to turn around and give it another shot later on that same day or another day. The reward of the adventure and clear Bahamian waters are worth it. Take it all in and enjoy it as not many people have the opportunity to do what you're about to accomplish.