Welcome to Bimini!

We were seriously beginning to think this day may never come. Well…at least for this season. We’d even started toying around with the idea of heading down to the Florida Keys instead if there wasn’t a decent weather window for crossing to the Bahamas soon. Of course the Keys would have posed problems of their own for us with our six-foot draft and the wonky weather as well. Fortunately, our window eventually emerged. Unfortunately, it meant that we’d be motor-sailing, but hey…at least we could finally go! We decided to follow the same route as last year, leaving through the Biscayne Channel and heading to North Bimini, a relatively short trip of 55 nautical miles.

We’d set our alarms for 3am the night before and were on our way at the absurdly early hour of 4:10am. Seriously…I should NOT be awake that crazy early! The sky was pitch black as we went through the channel and the lack of light in the nighttime sky was playing some serious games with my mind. I was somewhat reassured, however, by the fact that we had just been through there the day before in broad daylight in our trusty little dinghy, Micro Waves. And then, at 5:55am, the first hint of light appeared on the eastern horizon, giving way to a spectacular sunrise an hour later. The water had been relatively calm as we transited the channel, but we started to see a three to four-foot swell once we were out in open water, so we raised the main sail in an attempt to help stabilize the boat a bit. The swell eventually subsided to only a foot or two and the rest of the trip to Bimini was relatively smooth.

We’ve seen plenty of Portuguese Man-o-Wars washed ashore on Florida’s beaches in the past, but we’d never seen them out on the ocean before. That all changed during this trip when we saw LOTS of them, and by LOTS, I literally mean thousands, including some tiny ones that were smaller than ping-pong balls. Pretty cool to see, but sure wouldn’t want to be in the water anywhere near one of these beautiful little creatures of the sea…we’ve read that the venomous tentacles on full-grown ones can be up to 165 feet long! Yowzers! Maybe all of the fish we were hoping to catch were also keeping away from these floating beauties…

And then, early in the afternoon, we were at the entrance to the channel into Bimini. Only things just weren’t making sense. We had planned on following our track from last year on the GPS, but as we got nearer we realized doing so would probably get us in a world of trouble. As in hitting the bottom kind of trouble. We peered through binoculars and could see one navigational marker washed up onshore, and another floating near a point where it obviously made no sense. It quickly became clear to us that the sands had shifted, most likely during the hurricanes, and the channel was no longer in the same place it had been last year. We were able to contact Brown’s Marina where we would be docking, and their advice was to closely hug the one remaining red marker on our way in, so after watching a couple of other boats head in, we proceeded cautiously and without incident.

Once we were safely docked in Bimini, we took a look at the customs and immigration paperwork the marina had given us. What a joke! They must’ve been photocopies of photocopies ten times removed! There were parts we couldn’t read at all, so how the heck were we supposed to fill them out?!? Jim ended up finding one of the forms online, so we printed that one ourselves and did the best we could with the rest of them. He took these papers, our passports, and the boat registration, and headed off to get ourselves and Radio Waves all checked in and legal in the Bahamas. Since only the captain is allowed off the boat until this formality takes place, I remained behind covering the sail and straightening up after our eleven hour trip.

The following day we had to decide what to do next. If we were to stay in Bimini, we would be there for at least a week waiting on the winds from the approaching weather front to settle down. On the other hand, if we were to leave right away, as we had done the year before, we would once again miss the chance to explore Bimini and would probably have an uncomfortable overnight passage to Nassau. We’d be one step closer to our ultimate destination of the Exumas, but we would most likely end up spending time waiting in Nassau, where we’d already spent quite some time over the past two years. Fortunately, we decided to stay, because we ended up having a wonderful time, meeting some truly delightful people, and crossing an item off this season’s “bucket list”.

Once the decision had been made to hang in Bimini for a while, we lifted the dinghy off its resting spot on the bow (where it had been stowed for our Gulf Stream crossing), and lowered it gently into the water, a maneuver which requires the use of a halyard, a winch and a bit of manpower. Next steps – lower the dinghy’s motor off its spot on the stern rail of Radio Waves and onto the dinghy’s transom, gather our snorkeling and spear fishing gear and head out to see what we could find. High on the list of things we were hoping to find, was lobster. We’d struck out the past two years, but were really hopeful things would be different this time around. So, we anchored the dink, put on our gear and hopped in. Before I even realized what was happening, Jim had speared his first ever lobster! The GoPro was back in the dinghy, so I quickly swam ahead of him and hopped back in to capture the moment! Before long, number two was on his spear. Yay Jim!!! Lobster…it’s what’s for dinner! Well…at least it would be after a quick consult with our handy, dandy fish book to see what exactly you’re supposed to do with a whole spiny lobster! Once we figured out how to clean these guys, they were grilled to perfection and were the sweetest, most delicious lobster we’ve ever had. Little did we know at this point that we would also be having grilled lobster the next night as well, but this time with some brand new friends!

Next up, a quick snorkel early the next morning on the Sapona, a concrete hulled cargo steamer (with an interesting history!) that ran aground during a hurricane in 1926. It was a 5.4 nautical mile dinghy ride from the marina to the wreck, and it was pretty dang lumpy out as we headed just about straight into the wind and waves. Another couple, who were also docked at Brown’s, followed us out in their dinghy, but less than halfway there they turned around and headed back. We considered turning around as well (the ride really was a bit uncomfortable), but figured we were almost halfway there at this point, so why not just go ahead and keep on going? Pretty sure we made the right decision. The wreck itself, which sits half-submerged in about 15 feet of water, was pretty cool and we swam through the support beams to get inside and check it out. We saw a couple of filefish, two rays, a skate (notice one on the bottom in the video below about 48 seconds in), and two porcupine fish (one of my favorites!), as well as many others inside the wreck. Up until this point we’d been snorkeling in the lee of the ship, but decided to go around and check out the lumpy side as well, and were definitely rewarded for our efforts. We have never seen soooo many fish in one place before! I’m talking huge schools of fish, including a beautiful school of gray angel fish! So glad we hadn’t chickened out and turned around on our way there!

The ride back was much more pleasant as we were going with, instead of against, the wind, and once back, we took advantage of the marina’s showers to wash off the salt. Once we were all cleaned up, we headed out for a walk to nowhere in particular…just planning on doing a bit of exploring. We walked out the marina’s gate, hung a right, and within a minute, a young couple on a golf cart asked if we’d like a ride to wherever we were going. We told them we didn’t know where we were going, and when they said they didn’t know where they were going either, we hopped right on! It turns out they had just arrived on the ferry from Miami and were going to be staying at the Hilton for the next three nights. Little did we know at this point how well we would hit it off with them and that we’d end up spending a good part of their vacation with them!

After driving up and down North Bimini, which didn’t take very long as it’s only 7 miles long (and 700 feet wide!) and getting to know our new best friends, Kim and Joey, we made plans to pick them up in our dinghy and take them out snorkeling with us. They’d been planning on doing some snorkeling and were carrying their gear with them, but figured they’d be paying to go out on an excursion with a bunch of other tourists. We figured they’d enjoy this a bit more! Remember how I mentioned earlier that we’d be having lobster again, but this time with new friends? Well…Jim ended up spearing four more lobster while we were out this time, so we invited Kim and Joey to the boat to help us enjoy our catch of the day and they were thrilled to join us!

The next evening, they treated us to pizza and wine and then took us to check out the Hilton at the northern end of the island, which is where they were staying. Very nice place! We filled some to go coffee cups with Amarula on ice (yum!!!) and headed down to check out the casino. We ended up standing around watching a group of people play blackjack for a while before deciding that maybe we should play too! There was a $10 minimum and none of us was willing to let go of that much money that quickly though, so we headed up to their room where we played a few hands and then Joey taught us all how to play poker. We didn’t have poker chips or enough coins, so we improvised and tore up a pad of notepaper and at the end of the night all of those tiny pieces of paper were mine! Woo hoo! Maybe I should have stayed downstairs at the casino….

We spent the next two days with Kim and Joey snorkeling, hanging out on the beach, eating, drinking and laughing! Jim had done some research and read that Sherry’s Beach Bar on Radio Beach had some of the best food around, so we headed there for lunch on Kim and Joey’s last day in Bimini. Between the four of us, we ordered two cracked lobster dinners, lobster quesadillas, jerk chicken wings and some fish fingers. Our total (which also included three beers and a Goombay Smash soda) came to $85, and the reviews were right. Everything was delicious. The view wasn’t bad either…

We were sad when it was time for our new friends to head back home, but promised we’d keep in touch. Also, they’d been VERY interested in our live-aboard lifestyle and had hammered us with all sorts of questions about sailboats, cruising and the live-aboard lifestyle in general. I have no doubt that someday they will be returning to Bimini in their own boat, but in the meantime, I like to think that we made their vacation as enjoyable as they made our stay in Bimini!