When leaving Florida near Miami, you must cross the Gulfstream at 90 degrees to the current. This means that the current is going to carry you a considerable distance north. The slower the boat, the more you will be carried north. The good thing about using an autopilot is that it compensates for the drift and keeps you on a straight course to the destination. We eventually traveled about 55 statute miles and arrived there at around 2:00 in the afternoon.
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| No Name Harbor |
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| Biscayne Bay Lighthouse |
You do not make this trip with any wind coming out of the North. It beats against the current out of the south and makes "square waves" which are very uncomfortable and very unsafe if they get too high. We had approximately 2-3 ft waves and swells which was not too bad, but approaches the limit of what we want to venture out in. Although our "limits" have been slowly expanding as we learn both the performance of the boat and the strength of our stomachs.
Cindy's Observations: After our last crossing, knowing the boat will not turn over in 2-4 ft waves and or swells does help a lot for your mental state and physical tolerance. All you have to do is find your safe spot and plant yourself for the duration of the voyage. Make sure you keep your stomach fed (snacks), drink soda (bubbles) and roll with the flow. Keep your eyes busy, watch the horizon for anything of interest. Works for me.
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| Bimini! |
I was so awe inspired I could hardly contain myself! Let me try to describe the feelings I was experiencing. It felt as though the boat was hovering over the water. The color was so vivid, almost fluorescent. The water seemed to be non existent. You can see individual blades of sea grass 12 ft below. The water became invisible. As long as I live, I will NEVER forget this experience!
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| Entrance to Bimini Bay |
"Welcome To Bimini" the sign says.
We arrived in Bimini along with True North at 2:00 in the afternoon. Everyone had to stay on the boats while Dennis and I took the passports and immigration paperwork to the Customs and Immigration Office. I also had to pay the $300 for entering into the country, but we could stay for up to 6 months. Plus you get a fishing license for everyone on board.
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| Yellow "Quarantine" flag |
A quarantine flag must be flown until you clear customs and immigrations.
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| Cleared Customs and Immigration |
It's a go! We are clear to move about the country!
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| Bimini Blue Water Marina |
Another First. Bahamian flag now shows its colors on our boat. Rules are: It must be flown higher than the US flag during the entire stay in the Bahamas. Larry was not overly thrilled with this but dealt with it.
We had been concerned about how we were going to communicate with home while we were in the Bahamas. While in Miami, I paid someone to unlock my cell phone. This meant that it could be used by any carrier and not just AT&T. After our visit to the local officials, I went to the local phone company BATELCO and bought a Sim card for my phone. It came with a Bahamian phone number. I bought some prepaid minutes for the cell phone and a package that also let me use their 4G service for data. I already use the phone as a hotspot when in the states, so I continued to use it to check E-mails, pay bills and etc. It worked out very well.
Cindy's Observations: After being cleared from customs our first plan was phone service. We walked to the Batelco office passing by this memorial park for fallen servers in the military from the island.
Larry had disabled my cell phone data and was to be used only for emergency calls. I could send and receive text but was very limited to service. So, I kept it turned off more than on. We had sent out Larry's Batelco number for emergency contact. Bahamian calls would be local so getting info was stress free.
After that was the beach. And what a sight it was. Breath taking beauty. I could not fill my eyes enough. It was just as awe inspiring from land looking out to sea, as coming in. This stretch was called Radio Beach. You can't hear the loud roar of the surf or feel the strong breeze or taste of salt from the surf mist, but it is ever constant.
My mission was to comb the beach. Debi, True North, said sea glass could be found here. Conch shells were abundant. Most broken or harvested but still rewarding to pluck them out to see what treasure you might have. Yes, I did find glass and a few shells that were keepers.
We stayed in Bimini for 2 days because of weather. The trip to Nassau is going to be around 130 miles, much more than a days travel, so it was imperative that we have a good 24 hour window where the waves would be under 2-3 feet. Even 2-3 foot waves at night can be a little disorienting as we found out when we crossed the Gulf in December. We were already going to be a day or so late to pick up Tom (Cindy's Son) in Nassau, so we didn't want to wait too long. He was going to need to spend at least one night in the Airport or get a Hotel room.
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| SHARK!!! |
I was gazing into the water in the marina looking for starfish when this large object came into view. It was a shark! Later I was told that it was only a Nurse shark and not really aggressive toward humans. Still it looked pretty intimidating.
The morning of the 7th we started hearing talk about a bunch of boats that were going to be leaving that afternoon. We hurriedly got our plans together, refueled and readied ourselves to depart. We left Bimini along with True North at around 1:00 in the afternoon, went south around the tip of Bimini and headed toward Nassau.
There is a point about 75 miles from Bimini where the ocean goes from an average depth of less than 20 feet to a depth of 8000 to 10000 feet!! It is a narrow channel in between two chains of islands, the Berrys and the Grand Bahama Bank. All of the tidal current gets funneled through this channel at every change of the tide. When the wind opposes the current through such an area the makes for very large confused (any direction) waves called "The Rage". Sounds bad, and it is. All of this is to explain that we must arrive at this channel at slack tide. In this case that would be around 5:00 in the morning. So the problem is 2 boats (us and True North) traveling 75 miles, arriving at a place that could be dangerous,on time, and in the dark. No problem!! True North has done this before!
As it turned dark and True North turned on his navigation lights, Things started to happen on his boat. His radio got pretty bad and he had to start using another microphone and then his handheld. The nav lights started flickering and we saw colors of lights that he swears he doesn't have on the boat! When his alternator stopped charging I thought we might need to turn around. I asked him that when he started his auxiliary generator would the battery charge. He tried it and it did!! So we continued on. I knew my expertise would come it handy at sometime during this trip, so I told him that I would look at it when we got to Nassau. About that time, everything started working as it should. I think I was the only one that knew that we had just entered into the Bermuda Triangle. I just couldn't remember how far we were going into it, so I kept my mouth shut.
Needless to say the predicted 1-2 foot waves turned into 2-3 and then into 3-4 footers by the time we got to the channel. About the time we arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time, we met a large boat towing 3 or 4 barges coming in front of us as we were preparing to transit the channel. It's still pitch black, but all that steel shows up very well on radar.
After we got through the narrow channel without incident, it finally started to turn light. The waves subsided a lot, but we started getting swells in from the Atlantic sneaking in through the islands. A swell is a very slow rise and fall of the sea. It doesn't jar the boat but it kind of like getting stuck in an elevator going up and down 5 or 6 feet every 8-10 seconds or so. It's really noticeable when the boat in front of you starts to disappear down into a wave one moment and is then perched on top of another a few seconds later. We fought the swells into the Harbor at Nassau, where it finally got quiet. Other than almost getting run over by a Cruise Ship coming into the harbor, everything worked out OK. After our arrival they put out warnings that the swells were going to increase to 16 feet where we had been!!!
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| True North coming into Nassau |
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| Lighthouse at entrance to Nassau |
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| This one almost ran us over!! |
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| Waiting for the Cruise Ship to go by. |
We arrived at our slip at the Nassau Harbor Club and was met at the dock by Cindy's son. He had only had to spend one night in a hotel.
As we had some spare time on our hands, I decided to help Dennis try and find the intermittent problem with his alternator. We got out the books and studied them for a while and finally came down to a very corroded connection on the alternator. He cleaned the connection and replaced the terminal and everything started working as it should. All those hours spent under the hood of my car while I was younger was paying off.
We contemplated just staying in Nassau for the time Tom was there so we wouldn't have to worry about getting him somewhere to catch an airplane. After the second day a weather window opened up! We decided that if we left the next morning (Sunday) we could visit a few islands and make it to Staniel Cay in plenty of time for him to catch a flight back to Nassau where he could connect to the flight back home. If any of you decide to make this same trip, or go visit someone making this trip or any boat trip, I have two words of advice: "Refundable Tickets". You never can tell when you will arrive at a destination because of the weather. We have been very lucky on the whole trip so far.
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| Old Fort in Nassau |
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| Beach at east end of Nassau |
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| This is how mail gets to the other islands. |
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| Atlantis! |
After a quick bite we entered the aquarium after 6 pm. Free of charge past that time.
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| Lionfish |
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| Grouper |
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| Moray eel, very scary! |
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| Daylight in Atlantis Harbor |
This is how the very fortunate come to play. This is what the bean counters dream they could play with, by winning in the casino.
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| Nighttime in Atlantis Harbor |
On the way to Staniel Cay, we stopped at Shroud Cay and moored for the night and took a dinghy ride through the Mangroves.
Cindy’s Observations: Since this was Tom’s first time in open water on a small boat, I kept him busy. Checking charts and crab trap watch.
Tom’s first attempt at hooking a pendant.
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| Shroud Cay |
This is Tom attempting to underwater camera fish. Yes, he tied his UW camera to the line and video taped, surprisingly, some interesting footage of tropical fish and coral.
Early in the morning we took our dinghy ride through the mangrove to the other side of Shroud Cay to see the Atlantic.
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| Mangroves |
Our dinghy was not as powerful as the rage going out to sea, so we kept back a safe distance to view the beach, no shell shopping here today.
The next morning we only traveled a few miles to Hawksbill Cay and anchored where we spent one of the worst nights possible. It was as bad as any of our night crossings. The wind was coming from one direction and the waves from another. The boat rolled and pitched violently practically all night long and it wasn't just us. True North was also bounced around a lot.
Cindy’s Observations: Tom was certainly experiencing several adverse conditions on his short sea vacation. When objects fall off the shelves tied to a mooring ball, you know the waters rough. As Horace (True North) would say, “experience the EST wherever you go”. OK, so we did, the worstEST night sleeping on the boat ever. |
| HighEST point on Hawksbill Cay |
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| Going to the highest point on Hawksbill Cay |
After Tom pulled us in to shore we headed up to the highest point for a panoramic view.
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| View from the top |
Sunset at Hawksbill Cay
The next day we got a mooring ball at Warderick Wells Cay and spent a quiet night there. It is a beautiful calm "J" shaped harbor.
Cindy’s Observations: Warderick Wells is my next favorite place after Bimini. The 22 mile Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park was established in 1958. These are the park ranger facilities. It is one of 26 National Bahamian Parks. We hooked #22 mooring ball in the J. It was a beautiful anchorage.
Here we are at the top of Boo Boo hill. It is customary to leave your ships name on a piece of driftwood. We will be searching for wood to leave on our way back from Staniel Cay. There were 100s of signs left by visitors. One we knew from our voyage so far, Boot Scootin.
The Atlantic side had blow holes due to the erosion of waves.
Pat, Larry and Tom.
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| Barracuda! |
This barracuda was hanging around our mooring line waiting for a snack. Algae on the line was bait for his food source.
Cannot beat the sunsets
The next day we headed for Staniel Cay and anchored at an Island called "Big Major Spot" an Island just north of Staniel Cay. It was close enough that we could dinghy to the Marina there and do some sightseeing, pick up some groceries and get a hot meal that we didn't have to fix ourselves.
Cindys’ Observations: The unofficial greeting committee. “The swimming pigs” We dinghyed towards shore to feed the swimming pigs our food scraps. They come and greet every floating vessel coming in their direction. They can move extremely quick. We turned in fear of them overtaking the dinghy.
The Blue House grocery store.
Bougainvillea in bloom on the island
The bread "Yellow" house. Bahamian bread is sweet and tasty. Comes white, banana and coconut.
Rental cottages
This is the Thunderball Cave where the James Bond movie of the same name was filmed. It can be entered just under the rock shelf at the water at slack low tide. Unfortunately it was too rough for us to snorkel that day. Instead, Tom snorkeled around the boat and took more underwater videos which we enjoyed watching that evening.
Tom’s last sunset on the boat wasn’t a pretty one, but he was glad to have made the trip with us.
The weather was not the best, so he didn't get to do all we had planned, but we managed to get him to his airplane on time which was a major accomplishment.
The weather was not the best, so he didn't get to do all we had planned, but we managed to get him to his airplane on time which was a major accomplishment.
Cindy’s Observations: Yup, that is the airport and the blue lean-to is the terminal.
Tom’s last sunrise on the boat.
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| Tom waiting for his "Taxi" |
Since it was 2 mile dinghy ride with head winds which means you get wet, he opted for a water taxi for a dryer and quicker arrival to airport.
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| Water Taxi to the Airport |
I was sad to see him go the 15 th of March but enjoyed the short time he had with us. He said he would tell his friends about all his adventures. We watched as his plane flew over Big Major Spot, Nassau bound. We stayed 2 more nights at Staniel Cay before heading north.
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