Bahamas Trip

Arrived Bimini and leaving today May 5, 2010 for points east. The cut and paste feature that I thought would work is not working. Running out of time to depart slip without another day's fees. Will add the detailed information at next stop.

Below is the cut and paste version:

Saturday, May 1, 2010

1630 left Sundowner’s Anchorage heading north to Pumpkin Key. Anchored for the night near Ocean Reef. Spent the night and part of next day rearranging provisions and preparing the boat for the Gulf Stream Crossing. Left in the afternoon heading for Carysfort Reef. Arrived at Carysfort in the late afternoon and tied up to a mooring ball on the northwest corner for dinner. What a mistake!! We thought that the waters would be calmer behind the protection of the reef and they were……but!! With a southeast wind coming around the reef - we had a washing machine agitator going on with 3 ft waves. We moved moorings just before dark but to no avail! Have you ever tried to sleep in a washing machine???

We left Carysfort Reef at 0630 (later than earlier planned because of the waves and we were afraid to begin the crossing in the dark). This turned out to be a good call - wave height was 5-7 on the reef and five footers for the first hour. We had planned to stick our nose out there to be sure that we were ready for whatever the Atlantic had to give us - and we were good with the conditions - always willing to turn back if necessary. We began with SE 20 knot winds predicted to decrease and we began the trip with everything reefed to the max until we got comfortable. We eventually shook out all the reefs and Alibi stopped rolling so much - we set sail for Bimini. We calculated the course based on everything we had read and were accounting for about a 2.5 knot Gulf Stream flow (because of the SE winds for several days). Turns out that we underestimated the actual flow of the Gulf Stream but with the direction of the winds, we couldn‘t compensate any more - we ended about eight miles north of Bimini and had to tack back.

We arrived at Bimini at around 5:30 and by the time the anchor (note singular) was set it was about 6. Darrell took off in the dinghy with our important papers to get us cleared through Customs. After about a mile hike he found out they were closed and would reopen at 9AM. He reloaded Roxy in the dink and took her for a little exercise and potty break. After they were gone about 30-40 minutes, Ann heard something on the VHF radio that sounded like Alibi. It was Darrell calling. He said the dinghy was out of gas. What were we to do - Ann on the “big boat” all alone and Darrell & Roxy on a dock with security telling him he had to leave. After a fretful few minutes trying to figure out what to do - Darrell finally came up with a solution and it got him back. After Darrell’s arrival at Alibi - we were concerned that the changing tide might have us grounded - since we only had one anchor out. Darrell’s brother had called and since we don’t know Ann’s password to voicemail, we had to just go ahead and call him. After a short conversation, the phone went dead in Darrell’s hand. Since we were concerned about the tides, he didn’t try to call Mike back - sorry guys!

So we weighed the anchor (singular) and drove the “big boat” out a narrow channel in the dark. Not a great idea to navigate this course at night. Ann finally had to drive the boat out because she is better at following “bread crumb trails” left by GPSs and Darrell is better at night vision so we combined our two strengths to get us out into deeper water. Now, where is there a good anchorage for us to spend the night? None. We call a marina on the radio and go back in the same channel we just left (not recommended to do at night or in a west wind situation). Got her docked - Ann was even challenged at this because we were so tired!! We stayed at Bimini Sands Marina for the night - beautiful, clean and all the amenities of a US marina.

Darrell went to customs in the morning after a very restful night. We spent the day at the marina cleaning the boat, cleaning Darrell and Ann and Roxy, and resting. As we write this we are contemplating the next portion of our journey. After studying the charts and guide books, its off to navigate the Bahama Banks for about 16 hours of sailing to more islands (probably Great Harbor Cay).

P.S. For those who were skeptical when we bought a pressure canner and talked of canning meat: we have had spagetti with the hamburger and we had brisket with potatoes, garlic and onions last night that was so tender we cut it with a fork!