This is not a skiff story but the same size. In 1977 at age 19 I sailed from Tarpon Springs Florida to the keys and then across to the Bahamas as far south to Conception Island and then returned to Florida via the Abaco’s. The little sloop seen here is just under 18’x6’x16” long, built in 1/2” plywood. I sailed her engineless the entire way crossing the Gulf Stream using a norther for free wind going over and Northeaster to cross back over. I cruised the islands fishing for Bonefish and everything else exploring all the creeks, flats from the Berrys ,Exumas, Long Island, Cat island, Eleuthera, the Marls of Abaco, and the rest of the Abaco’s in a time when you cast to Bonefish it was like casting out into an epic movie scene of the overwhelming hordes about to pounce on my white jig. I stayed 8 months, never spent my $130.00 cruising cash. Those days are long gone but I share this photo to show that most any skiff can go there, camp cruise the islands and still have great adventures.
Wow
Man, I can’t imagine that kind of adventure. How long did it take you to cross?
The first leg 10 hours 9 hours, coming back wind died off when all most to Florida, took 14 hours.
I have crossed engineless 87 times, average time is 9-10 hours but sometimes a bit less.
North winds biggest seas, NE winds can be big seas but not the worst.
NW winds if crossing over to Bahamas stream is fine. All other wind directions fine……
But in a skiff you have to wait for a calmer wind, best would be before a frontal passage with SW -W or NW wind direction or best no wind.
I joke about it from time to time, but I truly hope you write an autobiography.
You truly have been on an epic journey, Chris. Thanks for sharing. 
Wow thats Quiet impressive for a young Buck,we should call you Columbus instead of Chris ,
so tell us it really is flat isn’t it 
did you sail to the edge or see any monsters large enough to devour ships …as the old stories told …what was your main form of navigation back then ? compass, sextant along with charts, and the knowledge of the stars and sun ? Which makes it that much more impressive 
back in the day when i was a shrimper about your age we used Loran TD’s
This is amazing.
Somewhere I took a wrong turn early on, apparently..lol.. What a journey. +1 for the autobiography,
Now this is a story worth telling!
Man that is super cool! I bet we all wish our younger days were that interesting!
When I was 19 I got no further than Daytona beach. Back then I didn’t know what a bonefish was
Great story Chris. Thanks for sharing 
As for monsters I was rundown by the US Navy destroyer #58 as I was singlehanding my 32’ yawl in the Atlantic on my way to the West Indies.
It was at night 500 miles south of Bermuda wind blowing 35 knts, I was running under wind vane and just the jib. Pitch black out. What I thought was a rouge wave turned out to be me ramming the bow of this battle ship running in a war game without running lights on. Long story short version is my boat went over mast at horizontal but popped back up. I could not see the stars astern from the ships stern blocking out the sky as it kept on going. I yelled into my VHF…WTF? An officer came back with “did we hit You?” So yea I hit a sea monster and survived to sail on.
As for navigation in the Bahamas I grew up early age knowing celestial navigation taught to me from my dad. Using a sextant only gives you a line of position so you take sites 3+ times through out the day advancing these line positions with your DR log numbers to form a triangle which is where you will be somewhere in this triangle. So because there’s so many reefs etc I used a small compass, kept my DR log, read the bottoms when in shallow waters used my cheap AMFM radio signals to hear a station and find its null to aid navigation as bearing lines…usual old school navigation.
GPS came along and I am now rested all the time, no more continual log writing calculations etc.
Sum ■■■■■….well they turned around and followed me with full flood lights on me. Seas were 8-10’ I went forward and my 8’ bowsprite was sheared right off dragging along in the seas with side stay rigging holding it to the boat. Boat was my latest build a shoal draft plywood n glass yawl, drew 18” of water.
The caption said there was a fleet out there playing war games, I asked for my position because was using sextant back then, was within 5 miles of my DR plot. I told them to leave me alone, they said just to contact the Treasury Dept, tell em was destroyer # 58 and give em a bill for damages. I believe in taking care of myself, so never pursued this. Thanks for the photo though. Errrrrr
DR = Dead Reckoning for all you spoiled GPS users. I used to know how to use celestial navigation back in the 80s. Learned it in courses I took at the local community college. Other than that, we used Loran-C. I had an opportunity to hop a Zapata Marine supply boat out of Galveston. We would have gone through the Panama Canal , up the west coast and on to Alaska. It was a delivery job, so it would have been pretty cush, probably just standing watch and routine maintenance. I turned it down due to short notice, like be at the dock tomorrow morning kind of short notice.
I read this and my brain translated DR to Dominican Republic. 
My DR is more likely a WAG…(wild ass guess)
Crazy story! Pretty amazing that your able to be so close using the stars!
I dont think I knew the Bahamas existed when I was 19. It also never occurred to me that you could build a plywood boat and just go somewhere.
When I was 19 I was deep into university study… I wish I had taken a year off to do something like this.