Lynne | 
02 28th, 2009| 
Hoffman’s Cay/Devil’s Cay was a beautiful, although very rolly anchorage. We had come in and tucked in somewhat behid Fowl Cay to get some additional protection from the winds and the surge coming off of the “Tongue of the Ocean” - the waterway we’d entered into the harbor from. Unlike Bimini, and even Great Harbor Cay, the islands surrounding the anchorage are unpopulated, and for the most part seemingly untouched by man. Our first full day there, the boys set up the hookah and dove around the shallows exploring the fish and looking for lobsters. Given that the wind was somewhat Northerly, it was a little too cold for me to want to be in the water. Aside from a few baraccudas and many conchs, the guys reported back that there was not much to see in the waters around our anchorage, and that the current was quite strong - two additional deterrents for me going for a swim. Our second day at the anchorage, we decided to load up in the dinghies and take a ride over to the beautiful pristine beaches to wade around, and to hike up the trail on Hoffman’s Cay to see the famous blue hole (see pictures). Supposedly there’s a Giant Grouper that lives in the blue hole, but all that we saw were some mollusks and a lone jellyfish (which again was a deterrent to getting into the water). We hiked right down to the water’s edge and peered in, and took a little time to explore the cave formations that have carved out over time as the water has erroded the limestone around the hole. On our way up, Martijn went slightly ahead of us, reaching the lip of the blue hole well before the rest of us, and much to everyone’s amusement, I got a chance to demonstrate my Payne genes - letting out a whoop of surprise when he threw a rock into the hole from the top and startled the bejeezus out of me. We were all having a good giggle about it for the next few hours as it had echoed wildly in the cavernous area. Once we were all back at the top, we took one of the other trails leading off and wandered down to the beach - which turned out not to be the route to the ruins as we’d hoped. As the water was quite warm and appeared to be shallow, we decided we’d walk along the craggy shore back to our dinghies… not such a good plan. Ultimately while the guys picked their way along the shoreline, Brian went and collected our dinghy and circled over to pick Cate and I up to bring us back to the beach. We poked around a little while longer, then climbed into our dinghies and circled around to the other side of the island where we explored on the beach for a little while, then headed back to our boats for the remainder of the evening.
The next day we had planned to make the almost 2 mile dinghy ride to Flo’s Conch Shack on one of the neighboring cays. We tried hailing them before we left, but figuring that we would be there around lunch time, it shouldn’t be an issue to get there and meet these folks, who according to the guidebooks are wonderful hosts, and have some great stories about the area as well as a delicious rum punch. Cate, Brian and I loaded into our dinghy, while Martin and Mike went in Renaissance’s and we set off on our long ride… which became even longer as we had do circle around an extra set of cay’s to be able to actually reach Flo’s due to the sandbar in between which exposes at low tide. Mike and Martijn went over the sandbar, walking the dinghy through the shallowest bits, and we all arrived at the same time at Flo’s… only to find it empty except for a few dogs and some chickens. What a disappointment! We waited for about an hour in the hopes that they would return, and while there played with trying to catch some of the crabs that were scuttling around on the piles of conch shells (Cate was the only one who was successful), and finally we gave up and climbed into our dinghies to head back to the anchorage. Unfortunately, we’d timed the tides wrong, so we had thought we’d be able to cross the sand bar on our way back… not so. The tide was still falling, so we had to turn around and go back the long way around the other cays and back to our boats. We made one stop at a beautiful little cay a little further down from our anchorage, where we collected scores of shells just by walking along the beach, and then returned to our boats for yet another rolly evening at anchor. The next day we took one more exploratory dinghy ride to a small island where we’d noticed a beautiful beach with a chair positioned right underneath a huge coconut tree. While the guys explored the caves, Cate and I took a walk around the island (which is quite small) in the shallow water, and collected some more shells. Unfortunately, the wind had still not abated, so we were unable to do our bonfire as we’d planned, and we were all anxious to move on, so we decided to make an early night of it in the hopes that we would be able to set out the following morning to sail either to Nassau or at least to Chubb Cay before the next weather front came through. When we awoke the next morning however, we still hadn’t seen much abatement in the winds, but as we wanted to make it to Nassau before the next front, we decided that we would be making the trip straight there rather than stopping in Chubb as we’d first thought. After brief discussion, Martijn decided that he was going to head off regardless, and we planned to all meet up in Nassau. As we watched him pitch and roll out through the channel, we all thought to ourselves, hmmm perhaps best that we’re not departing today. I hailed Martijn shortly after he’d cleared out of our view, and thus out of the tricky cut out of our anchorage to share some info I’d just found in our books about coming into Nassau, and he responded that he thought it best that we all stayed put as it was quite rough even out of the cut, and that he thought another day waiting for the winds to subside was advisable. We concurred, and agreed that we’d all catch up in Nassau the following day. We settled in for a very low key day at the anchorage and all turned in early so that we could set off for Nassau early in the morning.
We found ourselves the last of our little armada of three in our departure from Bimini, our several nights at anchor with two anchors down had produced a nice twisting of the two anchor lines. With a little effort from both Brian and I, we managed to unwrap our secondary anchor’s rode from around the primary, allowing us to easily pull both anchors aboard once we’d gotten the tangle undone. By the time we’d completed this, both Renaissance and Rotop were well into the channel leading out of Bimini. With Brian at the helm, I quickly got both anchors stored and secured for our trip to the Berry Islands. Our plan was to sail out to North Rock, and then turn down into the Great Bahamas Bank where we could anchor on the Bank for the night and then make our way down to Little Whale Cay or Chubb Cay in the morning. We had been expecting to have pretty strong winds that would allow us to easily make this course, although we were expecting that the waters might be somewhat rough given that the proceeding two days had been a pretty strong Northerly breeze. As we rounded the point and came out of Bimini’s channel, we found that the winds and waves were not quite as expected. Both Rotop and Renaissance were well ahead of us, and we radioed ahead to them to confirm that they were still game to move on, which they both were. Poor Cate was below, feeling quite seasick, which left Michael at the helm without much help - Renaissance has a tiller and no autopilot or self steering mechanism, so whatever ground we covered that day we wanted to ensure that we were taking a prudent course that would be managable for them. We established hourly radio checks - just so that we were all in good contact and so that we could make decisions about how to proceed as the day went on. We’d gotten a later start than we’d hoped or planned due in part to Renaissance’s battery issue, and for us due to having to untangle our anchors, but we were out of Bimini’s harbor before 10AM, which gave us a good long day to cover the miles we were hoping to cover.
At about 3PM the wind had continued to shift around to the Southeast, forcing us off of our preferred anchorage spot, and after some discussion, the decision was made to alter course - falling off a bit - so that we would instead head for Great Harbor Cay, at the top of the Berry Islands - it would make for a much longer trip, but as Michael was game for it, and it would make for a slightly more comfortable sail for all of us, we all fell off and made our way to Great Harbor. All of us were making great speed, averaging 6.5kts or more. Renaissance is slightly smaller than we are, and Rotop is both slightly smaller and heavier as she’s steel, so by the time that we made this course shift, we had caught up and passed both of our sailing partners. Also at about this time we all managed to catch some fish! Martijn and Michael both caught a Spanish Mackerel apiece (Martijn had cooked and eaten his by the time we dropped anchor) and although Michael got his filleted while underway, by the time we reached our anchorage he ended up tossing it overboard as he hadn’t been able to cook it and the smell was bothering Cate who was feeling quite ill from our prolonged ride. As for us, Brian caught a Black Grouper which we threw back (high risk of cinguaterra) and another fish that slipped the hook JUST as we were about to bring it aboard. All in all we had an epic run, covering close to 80nm before finally reaching our anchorage at Great Harbor Cay at about 11PM. A long and exhilarating sail (and exhausting for poor Mike), and once we’d all dropped anchor, we checked in for one last time for the night and all hit the hay for a good night’s sleep.
We awoke in the morning to find ourselves in a beautiful anchorage - craggy shoreline interspersed with beautiful sandy beaches and crystal clear water. Mike and Cate had gotten up earlier than we, and had sounded their way in closer to the shoreline to get additional protection from the land as although we were anchored within the cove, we were still somewhat close to the mouth of the harbor which afforded more surge from the ocean than was really comfortable. Mike buzzed up in their dinghy and suggested that we do the same, as he’d found plenty of depth and the bottom was quite sandy affording good holding for our anchor (which does not like seagrass at all!). We followed his lead, as did Martijn, and found ourselves well protected and in phenomenal water for a swim. Mike and Cate went ashore to do a little exploring and came back reporting that this island was used by the Norwegian Cruise Lines as a stop for their cruise ships… we knew that it was used for one of the cruise lines…just not which one. Cate opted to stay on board while Brian, Martijn, Michael and I all piled into Renaissance’s dinghy (we knew we were staying for only a day, two at most so didn’t want to deal with setting up the Portabote) and went for a swim in the beautiful water (Mike having been assured by the Norweigan staff that it was no issue for us to explore the island as long as we respected their guests’ privacy - and there was no ship there that day… so not an issue at all!). We beached the dinghy and went for a wonderful snorkel where we saw all kinds of colored reef fish, a ton of conch (Brian found a huge one that we kept the shell from), baracudas, lion fish (not good - wish we had known then that the Bahamians want us to kill them if we see them - they’re an invasive species from Asia that are destroying key reef elements) and most exciting of all… Spiny lobsters!! Mike and Brian had some good luck that day tickling them out from under a coral head/spearing them so we had a fantastic dinner that night - conch salad and lobster tail served over rice. Delicious!!!
The next day the wind was still not cooperating. Brian and I awoke to the sound of our fishing line spooling out… we’d thrown some conch bits on a hook and dropped it over the side. I ran topsides just in time to see a huge fish break the water… and our line :(. Mike took the dinghy around the corner of the harbor and came back reporting 4′+ swells, so we opted for spending another day exploring in Great Harbor Cay. This day there was a cruise ship that had come in, so compared to the peaceful atmosphere of the previous day, we were “treated” to the sound of jetski’s racing around in the anchorage in the morning. We decided to go ashore, as the folks from Norwegian had told us that there would be shops set up for the cruiseline guests and that we were welcome to check them out. We made the hike up and over the hill to the facility, finding the beach on the other side to be PACKED with cruiseline guests. We did a little exploring of the shops (little of interest to us but it was fun to see). wW walked back to our boat and set up the hookah so that we could do a little more diving. Unfortunately we don’t really have enough weights for three of us to dive, and since Michael and Brian were having such a great time, I gave them my weights and just continued snorkeling around and enjoying the wonderful water. No fish for us that night, since by the time the guys were done with their dive, it was too late really to go out and snorkel for spearfishing - besides we were all fished out!
The next morning we awoke to find that the seas had calmed some, and the wind had started to clock around to the north slightly, allowing us to make our next hop down the island chain to our next stop at Hoffman’s Cay. We decided to depart around noon for our short hop of about 15 miles. Martijn had gone ashore to take some pictures of the “airport” (see pictures) and to do a little more exploring before heading out, and told us that if he wasn’t back by 1 to head out and he’d catch up with us (as we’d all agreed on our anchorage the night before) so at 1 Renaissance and ThreeSheets weighed anchor and set off. We’d no sooner cleared out of the channel then we caught sight of Rotop’s mast coming around the bend just behind us. All in all we had a lovely sail down to Hoffman’s Cay, although the entrance was a little daunting as the water has a tendency to be quite surgy. We pulled in at about 4PM and dropped anchor near Renaissance (who ended up moving soon thereafter because the location was too rolly for their boat) and awaited Rotop’s arrival.
Bimini has been wonderful, but it’s time for us to move on! We’ve got a good weather window that will allow us to make it to the Berry Islands within two days travel, so we’ll be pulling hook shortly and moving along. That said, I am yet once again laggard in my updates.
The day we arrived in Bimini, we finally got a chance to play with the Brownie - we loaded it into the dingy and took it over to the beach adjacent to our anchorage, and set the system up then did a little walk off of the beach into 15′ water where we played around with the system and worked out what our weighting should be with this equipment. After an overnight trip and a good long swim, which felt wonderful, we were pretty tuckered out, so we made a quick dinner and turned in early for the night.
The next morning we awoke to find that the other boat that had been sharing the anchorage with us had departed in the wee hours so we were solo in this pretty anchorage next to the new Bimini Bay Resort. We decided we’d do a little exploration of the island after lunch, so we putted over to one of the beaches and beached the Portabote then ambled along Bimini’s lone main street and into Alice Town… not much to see but there had been a wedding that day, and the happy couple and their entourage passed us about 4 times driving up and down the street, balloons tied to their car, and honking to the whole town who applauded every time they passed. When we returned to our dinghy, we found that another boat had joined us - and we putted by and “gave a knock on the hull” to say hello. Turned out to be a really great couple, Michael and Kate, who are a little younger than we are, but are on the same kind of journey as us, engaged and making the most of a layoff (from advertising as well!) they decided to travel on their boat for about six months. They invited us aboard for a drink, which turned into an evening of hanging out and having a great time and dinner together. We all retired for the night on the later side, with the thought that we’d regroup in the morning and perhaps do some exploration/snorkeling on the sand bar across the channel from our anchorage.
We spent the next couple of days relaxing and enjoying the great weather- snorkelling for conch, and hanging out. Turns out that I am good at spotting Conch when snorkelling - and although we didn’t kill any of them there was one point where I’d gathered up 5 large conch! We saw spiny black sea urchins, HUGE red starfish, lots of little Spanish Grunts and sea anemones - very cool! Kate and Mike had had a conch salad at Joe’s Conch shack, and were raving about it, and determined to make some - but we ultimately decided that the best approach was to buy the prepped conch from Joe, and then prepare the ceviche ourselves, rather than try to clean the conch’s ourselves, plus a northerly wind had cropped up, which made the temperature of the air much cooler than the water, so none of us was really up for a swim. We hopped in our dinghies and decided to go for a little walk in town, over to the ocean side to check out the beach and the half sunken wreck that was lying agains the rocks on the shore. Just as we reached the beach, we saw a really welcome sight - Rotop!! We waved energeticlly to Martijn as he picked his way up the channel, and when he was close enough, we hollered that we’d meet him at the customs dock (a mere 5 minute walk back into town). Brian, Mike and Kate stopped at the liquor store to pick up a Kalik for each of us, and one to welcome Martijn to town, and I continued over to the dock to meet up with him! Once Martijn had cleared customs, we directed him to where we were anchored, and then trekked back to our dinghies and made our way back to the anchorage where Martijn had already gotten himself anchored and the trusty Kayak out.
We had a wonderful evening all hanging out together, and started to formulate a plan for the next leg of our journey… we debated departing yesterday, but the wind hadn’t fully swung around to the right direction for our trip, so we spent yesterday doing projects - finally replacing the broken slat - actually our whole companionway door from a piece of salvaged plexiglass, installing a few hand rails, and just generally making ready for today’s trip. We all turned in early for a good night’s sleep before our early morning departure today - which has been somewhat delayed while we sorted out Mike’s dead batteries… now fixed, and our little armada is about to pull anchor and head off to the Berry Islands for the next few days. I suspect that our posts will be somewhat delayed and erratic from here out, as the availability of an internet connection is questionable, but I’ll keep on keeping a log, and will make posts when connectivity permits!
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!!!
