Comer Channel, Exuma, Bahamas

A common route to follow when going to the Jumentos Cays is due west from Thompson Bay in Long Island, through the Comer Channel, and then south west to Water Cay, in the Jumentos. With Taia's 6-foot draft, Comer Channel was a bit of a question mark for us. Chart data in the channel shows depths of barely 6 feet at MLLW.

The obligatory online research landed me on the Passage Reports section of the Bahamas Cruisers Guide web page. There I found a table with information that is extremely useful when planning a passage such as this one. The table shows specific waypoints along the route, along with the time S/V Onward was at those waypoints, the depth they saw, and the tide state at Nassau. I'm putting up a similar table here in the hopes that it will be useful to other cruisers.

Three of the waypoints I show on the table, Comer East, Comer Channel, and Comer West, are the waypoints shown on the Explorer Charts. The other two waypoints are roughly the half way points between the Explorer waypoints.

We transited the channel from east to west on 22/April/2014, arriving at Comer East at 1045. All depths and tide states are expressed in feet. The Minimum Depth column shows the minimum depth we saw transiting from one waypoint (in the previous row) to the next (in the current row).

	Time	Nassau Tide	Depth	Min Depth
Comer East 23°20.80' N 75°19.87' W	1045	+0.7	8.3
Halfway	1103	+0.9	7.5	7.4
Comer Channel 23°19.50' N 75°24.00' W	1127	+1.2	7.8	7.1
Halfway	1204	+1.5	8.4	7.8
Comer West 23°20.25' W 75°31.50' N	1242	+1.9	11.5	8.4