Bimini

Karen:

We anchored out on the west side of Bimini for the night after arriving close to sunset. In the morning, Michael finished our online paperwork and rowed me to shore. I took the passports and walked through town to the police station. Alice Town has a small town caribbean vibe - simple homes and small businesses with colour and pumping out music from the local bar even first thing in the morning. I walked at the edge of the narrow street as cars, trucks and golf carts passed me by. As I arrived at the police station, a local let me know that immigration had moved and was in a new building with social services just behind the old one. A school next door was letting out and the uniformed kids were loudly playing and shouting with friends. 

Checking in was quite straightforward. We told them we are staying for a month and we’ll need to extend that if our plans change. Great. I then walked down the road to customs, located a marina. There were a couple people ahead of me. When it was my turn, the official asked me where I had docked. I said we were anchored off of the west side of the island. He let me know this is not allowed and that we need to be at the dock in case they need to board our vessel - but just keep that in mind for next time. Few! We got our fishing license and a 3 month cruising permit. A short walk later and I was back on the beach radioing Michael to come pick me up. All in all pretty easy.

The beach we are anchored off is pretty lively, with a few beach bars, with chairs & umbrellas for rent. That day we got our snorkel gear out, and headed to the beach so Christian could get in the water, at least to his waist and keep his splinted arm out of the water. If that gets wet, it will melt and we are still 2 days from Nassau to be able to get medical attention. He was really good about holding his arm above his head. We even figured out how to get his face in the water, by getting him to lean over the back of the dingy, with his snorkel mask on, to take a look at the sea life. We snorkelled some rocks near the beach. This was Flo’s first time snorkelling, and she was captivated. We saw some colourful fish, and even a small Ray with a fish buddy swimming on top of him.  We found a few cool shells to add to our collection. We all felt bad for CK not being able to go swimming!  He waded in the water and did some shell & seaglass collecting.

We checked the weather and reviewed our plans. We have about 130 nm to get to Nassau, so 2-3 days. In between us is the Grand Bahama banks, which is a massive stretch of ocean, that is very shallow, so shallow you can anchor out there for the night if you need to. There is a good place to that calle ‘Mackie Shoal’ and we planned to stop there. However, there was some heavier weather forecasted in the next couple days and we need a 3 day window of good weather to make this passage. So we decided to wait until it passed to setoff. No problem, we were comfortably anchored and could take  few days to relax. 

We had a few visitors to our anchor spot from other sailors who are anchored in the more protected inside channel on Bimini, who came to ask us how we are doing on the outside. The plus side of where we are is that the water is crystal clear, you can swim over to the beach, and there is lots of room (not many other boats). On the inside, the anchorage can be tight. The downside is that we are exposed to the swell, which increased each day we were there. After some research, Michael decided to try out a swell bridle. He used a rolling hitch to attach a line to our anchor chain, and tied it to the port aft block. He then let out another 25 m of chain. We could then adjust how our boat pointed, and could position it into the swell, with the wind on our beam. This worked beautifully for a few days. But as the swell increased, our boat became much more rocky and rolly. We switched to sleeping in the salon. 

We decided to go ashore to use a laundromat to do our 3 weeks worth of laundry. I bagged it into 4 bags, we loaded up the dingy and all 4 of us set off for shore. The waves were a little bigger than previous trips. We approached the shoreline and attempted to ride the waves up onto the beach. Once we hit the beach, the waves then started coming in over our stern right into the boat, swamping the dingy and all our laundry!! Flo got out of the dingy and Christian got over the edge and then was knocked over by a wave, and was on his knees in the water, cast held high over his head. Michael and I were trying to pull the dingy higher up but it was VERY heavy with all that water in it! ‘Help him!’ I yelled at Michael. Christian someonehow managed to get back on his feet and up onto the beach with just a small patch of his cast that had gotten wet. That was close. We heaved and pulled the dingy higher onto the beach and bailed it out. The laundry bags weighed a ton, but luckily we only had a short way to go. 

We lugged our dripping laundry bags into the small and very busy building, where the still require you to wear masks. The ladies working there helped me get setup. They have a system there where you wait outside and they let you know when you need to change your loads over. Michael went for a walk with the kids to find a bakery and get us some lunch, fresh cinnamon buns which we ate beside a group of men playing dominoes under a tree. With our dry laundry, we walked back to the dingy and we had another exciting, although better coordinated entry. I rowed us off the beach and Michael took over to row us out against the tide to the boat. Success.

The next day, Michael and Flo set off for shore again to meet up with our friend Gary, who arrived at a Marina the day before. We had picked up a package for Gary in St Augustine, and had planned to meet up in Georgetown. But, because of our boatyard induced delays, we were now meeting him on his return trip to Brunswick. Christian and I stayed on the boat - we didnt want to risk our luck with his arm and the dingy/beach exit. So we had a chill day together, listening to podcasts and doing some drawing and painting, with the boat rocking pretty wildly back and forth, despite adjustments to the bridle. 

Flo and Michael had a 45 minute walk in the blazing heat to get to the Marina to visit Gary and his buddy Larry. Gary has a really well cared for Leopard 45 catamaran, that has AC, icemaker, and many coolers filled with cold drinks. Flo checked out the trampoline, enjoyed an icy cold coke and chatted with Larry, who also has a son named Christian. Michael discussed routes and got tips from Gary for our next leg.   On their way back, they tried to buy some milk and fruit,  but being Sunday many stores were closed. They were able to find a small shop open to get the milk and another coke for the road :)  They made it back just in time to dingy, which was bobbing around in the water - thankfully they had put an anchor out so that it was still attached to land!  They had a smooth exit from the beach back to the boat.

We were mentally gearing up to leave. The heavier weather was coming that would then clear to allow us to get going. We had a gorgeous chicken curry for dinner and had a movie setup with snacks and drinks for the evening. Thats when the ominous black clouds moved in. We could see the lightening strikes over Miami. Were they coming our way?  The answer was yes, most definitely. It started with a squall blowing hard across our decks (40kn?). Then heavy rain, thunder and lightning that lasted a few hours. It was intense! The boat rocked like crazy, it felt like we were underway, in serious weather. The rain eventually calmed down, but the rocking motion didn't stop. We had a sleepless night, playing musical beds, hoping for some relief. We removed the swell bridle in the middle of the night, attaching a ball so we could find it later, hoping that would ease the movement. It slowed down a bit in the morning. We knew we were too tired to start our passage, so we decided to move to another anchorage on the other side of the island, which would shorten our next leg a bit. We found a much more peaceful anchor spot and had a much needed great sleep.