So despite my usual format of chronicling our adventures chronologically, I am going to break from form here and combine our posts from where I left off (our trip to get to Little Palm Island) to here (Bimini, Bahamas). We were in Key West for quite a while, more on that later in the blog, but we had absolutely ROTTEN internet! I tried to post about our stay at Little Palm Island no less than 6 times, and every time the connection went dead… could be because we were sitting out about 1/2 a mile from shore in a mooring field, so I suppose in most regards, the fact that we even got “some” internet access was amazing, but it did lead to much frustration on keeping the blog updated! All that being said… Little Palm Island…
We had called ahead to make sure that it would be OK for us to arrive a little earlier than we’d originally thought we’d be able to get to Little Palm Island - no problem of course. That was the theme of our entire stay at Little Palm Island. What an AMAZING place it is. The motto there is “Do Nothing, Time is too Precious to Waste”, and they really take that to heart there. We followed the directions that had been given to us by the dockmaster and at about 11AM we were approaching our desingated slip, with a welcoming crew there to help us with tie up… unfortunately, our 5′1″ draft was deeper than the pathway to the slip… just sand, but we weren’t able to get our boat to the slip - apparently there had been some exceptionally drastic tides over the previous week, and our timing was such that we were coming in just after low tide. Chris - who seems to be the concierge of the resort - hailed us and directed us to turn around and tie up at the Sunset Dock which was just around the bend. We easily pulled up alongside, and Chris and one of the other guys secured us up against the dock. We got ourselves pulled together… one of the funny things about arriving somewhere on your own sailboat is that you are effectively bringing your whole “house” along with you, and given the variance we’d seen in the weather, we hadn’t really packed our overnight bag for our arrival. Just after we pulled up, the resort’s boat the Woodman pulled in, and Chris went to assist the passengers with their arrival. Most of the guests went with their luggage up to the resort, except for one other couple, Richard and Janet… who were from Boston!! They were returning for a 20th anniversary (I think I have that right) and we were pulled together enough by that point that we got to walk up to the resort and get a tour with them, as neither of our rooms were quite ready. I would swear to you - although it still hasn’t come to me from where - that I had met them before, Richard in particular. We chatted about Boston a little as we got a tour of the resort’s beautiful grounds, and after Richard and Janet settled in on the beach for a few moments to await their rooms, Chris took Brian and I over to the Quarterdeck, where he let us take a refreshing shower in the changing room and then we settled in by the pool while we waited for our room to be ready - but really I should say suite! Chris came and collected us from by the pool and we walked along the palm fronded, meandering sand paths to the most exquisite guest suite I have ever seen. We were in Woodpecker Suite - a thatched roof bungalow, with a wrapped porch looking out over the water, a living room, that by simply sliding the glass doors open transformed into an open air living room, a spacious bedroom with a butterfly net enclosed king-sized bed (that you needed a step to climb into), and a bathroom larger than our entire boat footrpint - with a two person jacuzzi spa and a stall shower that had three sets of jets capped by a rainshower! Oh and an outdoor enclosed shower! Every detail, every amenity had been thought of, to the wooden letter sign that said Hunter at the crook in our staircase leading to the porch, to the chilled bottle of champange set out awaiting us, the ultra plush robes and slippers, and loads of towels! Chris walked us through our suite, showing us the amenities (and how to use the great but super complicated espresso maker in our room) and then left us, encouraging us to make use of the resort’s many amenities… including a life-sized chess game where folks who work at Little Palm actually move the pieces for you while you sit in throne like chairs! Brian and I just looked around in awe - we didn’t even know where to begin, except that we were both starving, so we headed back over to the pool area bar, where they serve lunch until 4:30, and grabbed a sandwich and a mojito. We strolled along the beach, sat for a while in some of the deluxe lounge chairs in a secluded little corner and just relaxed. We had made a reservation for 7:30, and after a swim in the pool, we headed back to our rooms to change for dinner.
Like everything else at Little Palm Island, no detail has been missed when it comes to the food - it is outstanding. We were able to get a fantastic seat outside, right on the water’s edge and fairly close to the outdoor firepit (which is very cool, fire bubbles up through a water fountain, something to do with propane, but it’s beautiful and romantic and soothing). We had an absolutely AMAZING dinner, the best lobster risotto I have ever had hands down, and we shared a fantastic bottle of wine and some beignets for dessert - absolutely to die for. We were so relaxed that we decided after sitting by the fire for a little while we should return back to our room and turn in early so that we could make the most of our next day there. We’d signed up to go SCUBA in the afternoon, a much needed refresher since we just got our certification in April, and we’re planning lots of diving while we’re in the islands.
We got back to our room to find that we’d received a lovely turn down service, along with a little present of some seashells - a lovely touch. It was so glorious to be able to sleep in a king sized bed, that didn’t move while we slept (or rather the whole building didn’t move while we slept) and with really enough room for Bri and I who are both tall.
We slept like babies, getting up in the morning to find a newspaper outside of our room, had a lovely cup of latte on our porch in the super plush robes, and then dressed for the day and made our way up to the restaurant for breakfast - amazing! After breakfast, we took one of the resort’s little powerboats and went for a ride around the island and got to take a look through the bird sanctuary - we saw a great blue heron, tons of cranes, mockingbirds and all kinds of birds I couldn’t identify. Really neat! We also saw a sea turtle, swimming lazily along which was really cool. After our boat ride we lounged by the pool, taking a brief swim, and then went back to our suite to gather up our dive gear, which we dropped off at the quarterdeck before heading over for lunch. Despite it being a little rough, the dive was still on, so we headed back to the Quarterdeck and Dive Shop to meet up with the divemaster.
We had an absolutely amazing two dives with Bob and Larry… on our way out to Looe Key we saw a spotted eagle ray jumping and flying out of the water - really cool! We were the only folks on the dive, so it was a great experience and a wonderful refresher for us. I had been quite nervous about diving on our own with our new Brownie - since the last dive’s we’d done were our qualifying dives in April. We saw all kinds of amazing sea life on our dives-nurse sharks, a Golliath Grouper (which is HUGE!), a Hawksbill Turtle, Lion Fish, a Grey Angelfish and tons of parrot fish and gobies. Really beautiful! Despite the fact that it was somewhat rough topsides, it was clear and beautiful under the water and warm - which was lovely.
After our dives we made use of the hot tub before heading over to the boat to check on Skipper, feed her, and make sure that we’d “battened down the hatches” as we could see a weather front approaching us. During dinner the thunderstorm struck, with an accompanying downpour - it made for a very romantic background in our window seats in the restaurant. We had an absolutely amazing dinner and then took the remaining wine back to our room, where we sat in the living room and watched the storm play across the water.
We awoke the net morning, sad that we were leaving Little Palm, but completely relaxed and refreshed. We pulled ourselves together, and went up for another delicious breakfast. We went and checked on Skipper, and did a couple of little preparations to be able to leave, then availed ourselves of one last multidirectional super hot shower in our deluxe accomodations, before calling the Quarterdeck to let them know that we were set to check out. They arrived to take our bags to the boat, and once we were settled, gave us some much needed assistance to get off of the dock (as the wind was coming directly at our side) and we glided out into the channel and headed further south to Key West.
We had a great sail to Key West doing about 6kts with about half of the Genny out, and we turned into Key West’s channel at about 4 in the afternoon. We had to make our way up the channel (to the North) and around an island to reach the mooring field at Key West Garrison Bight, where we were planning to stay to wait out the Northern winds. As we turned back to the south, coming around the island, we were stopped by a guy on a jetski, who directed us out of the channel as the Navy had divers down in the channel doing a training exercise… not a huge deal except that by this point it was starting to get dark, and we were concerned about getting a mooring ball secured before it got too dark. We navigated into the mooring field, where we’d been directed to pick up any ball except for one with a red tag on it, as those balls were a part of the scheduled maintainance… tons of balls, should be fine right? wrong, the first three we approached had the dreaded red tag on them. We finally found a mooring ball that was ok, and I snagged it with the boat hook on the first pass… except I got the hook stuck in the ball, and ended up snapping the hook! C**P!! As we made another pass to try to grab the broken off hook, still caught in the mooring ball, our neighbor Drew, from the boat next to us, came zipping over in his dinghy and offered to give us a hand. Thank goodness, I didn’t know how we were going to pull this off without the hook! He got us securely affixed to the mooring ball with the required two lines, and after many thanks, returned to his boat for the evening and we settled in for the night. Thank goodness we were on a mooring ball, because the wind was really gusty, and from the North - the one disadvantage to being in the mooring field rather than at anchor was that the mooring field is protected from all sides except the North, so it was a pretty rough night, but the anchorage had been extremely crowded, and from accounts later, there were a half a dozen boats in the anchorage that dragged either ashore or into other boats in the following days.
We spent the next two days on the boat waiting for the wind and waves to die down before going ashore, but we spent that time well, taking care of reorganizing some of our stuff, and doing some projects that we’d wanted to take care of - like getting the salt water sprayer re-hooked up. Finally on our third day, we went ashore - did our official check in with the city marina, and then dinghied over to the dingy dock and walked into town. We had a great time exploring downtown Key West, eating lunch at a little place that was shaded by vines, and walking to the Sunset Pier to watch the sun go down (with about 200 other people) before heading over to a Cuban restaurant we’d found where we had a wonderful dinner before going back to the dinghy and back out to our boat. We sat tight for the next day, completing a few more projects, and went back into town the following day. We’d had the thought that we would rent an electric car (there are tons of them there) but they wanted $140 for half a day!!! so instead we rented tricycles… which was pretty hilarious in and of itself. I was a disaster on mine for about the first 45 minutes… they don’t steer like a bike, you don’t lean with them… so while Brian was riding along like a pro, and doing tricks like getting it up on only one of the rear wheels, I was concentrating REALLY hard on not falling off! I did get the hang of it, and we went and ran some errands, including a trip to West Marine for a replacement boat hook - which they were great about… it was one of those “unbreakable” ones, so they gave us a new one on the spot without any question. We then rode out to the other end of town to the grocery store for some provisions which we loaded into the portabote, and after negotiating with the guys to keep the trikes for another day - since we hadn’t finished all of our errands, and the wind still hadn’t begun its swing South, we returned back to the boat.
The next morning we got up early, finished up a few things and some storage on the boat, and headed back into the marina where we picked up our trikes and went off to finish up our errands. On our way, we did make a special stop at the Southernmost Point in the US, just to say that we’d been there. We went back past the marina and over to a BJs like grocery store where we picked up the last of our food provisions, and then to Conch Republic Liquors, where we were able to get some more wine (with the help of a great and knowledgable guy named Hector) to bring with us on our journey. We loaded all of our stuff into the Portabote, returned our trikes, got one last shower at the marina, and made our way back out to our boat, where we stored the last of our provisions… we’re provisioned really well :), had a delicious steak dinner that Bri cooked on the grill, and then turned in early so that we could get on our way first thing in the morning. The wind was finally starting to shift South, and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss this window to cross over.
We awoke in the morning to a mild breeze from the South YAY!! and since the chop had died down, we were able to easily pull in the mooring ball and cast off. We made our way up the channel and around the island, and then back down to the sister marina Key West Bight Marina, where we pulled in to fuel up, get our last water, collapse and secure the Portabote and mail a couple of things. We cast off of the dock a few minutes before noon, and headed out the channel.
We knew early on that this was going to be a good trip… we saw all of our happy omens on our way out of Key West. The Dorothy Moran was there! to bring in a ship that was coming down the shipping lane (so we had to stay outside of the channel but there was plenty of clear water so no issue there) then we saw a dolphin, and shortly their after a sea turtle! Bri and I joked that all of our lucky omens had showed up to see us off. Sure enough, we truly could not have had an easier crossing the only thing that would have improved it would have been for us to be able to sail without the motor, but given that the wind was light, and not fully southerly (more easterly) we ran the engine for our entire trip across. That said, all of my dread about crossing the Gulfstream was for naught. Although we had a little tossing around, this was the calmest passage we have made thus far on the trip, and for a good while, with the Genny out and the engine running we were doing a consistent 8.5kts to our destination! Bri napped in the afternoon, and then relieved me at about 6PM so that I could do the same. He woke me up at 1AM to switch and told me that he’d seen lots of cruise ships crossing to Miami, but hadn’t seen anything for quite a while. I relieved him at the helm, and luckily for us, the autopilot is working beautifully, so I was able to sit upstairs on watch, letting the autopilot drive, and read my book. I stayed on watch until 7AM (finishing my book) and only saw two boats in that whole time, one cruise ship who was heading to the Bahamas that crossed well off to our starboard, and another sailing vessel who we overtook. When Bri relieved me at 7, I went below to nap for a little while, and awoke as we were approaching Bimini.
We put up our Q flag (quarentine) and our US flag, and picked our way into the channel and up to the customs and immigration at the government dock. We tied up, and went through the easiest customs and immigration I have ever been through - no issues with our kitten, no actual boarding - and then cast off and motored down the channel to our anchorage right next to the Bimini Bay Resort (new resort on the island) where we dropped two hooks, suited up in swimsuits, and took our Brownie over to the beach for a walk off test dive with the Brownie. Fisrt swim of the trip, and it was glorious! We came back to the boat and grilled up some steaks and asparagus we’d bought in Key West… then popped open the bottle of champagne that John W had given us in New London that we’d been saving for just this occasion! We toasted eachother, and our successful arrival in the Bahamas! Finally we’re in the Caribbean!!!