The Bahamas

This is the first posting to our blog via satellite phone!  We left Dinner Key around noon on Saturday and filled up with fuel and water before heading across the Biscayne Bay to find an anchorage near an inlet.  There was very little wind, but it was such a gorgeous day that sailing at 2.5 knots wasn’t even frustrating.  No name harbor, our intended anchorage, was just packed with boats and charged $15 to anchor, so we anchored outside at N25 40.312 W80 09.871.

We got away on Sunday morning around 8am and flew out the inlet with the tide.  The winds were not as predicted (really?) and we had a great broad reach sail with 20-25 knot north winds for the first couple of hours.  Then the winds turned out of the east at 5-10 knots as predicted and we motored the rest of the way.  Bimini came into view around 3pm, we raised the yellow quarantine flag (to show we hadn’t cleared customs & immigration, and we dropped anchor in Alicetown (North Bimini, Bahamas, N25 43.640 W79 17.650) at 4:30 pm.  We were anchored with about 7 other boats, all of them Canadian.  A friendly set of neighbors promptly came by to warn us about the problems everyone has had here with dragging anchors in this rocky/sandy bottom.  Unfortunately, this time we couldn’t guffaw at the suggestion that our anchor might drag, so Reinhart blew up (inflated, that is) the dinghy and checked out the anchor.  He couldn’t see it, so we crossed our fingers.  We actually ended up staying up half the night, because as the tide turns, all the boats turn, except our neighbors who were on ground.  We stayed up to make sure we wouldn’t swing into them making their bad situation worse.  In the morning we woke up and brought the boat into the government docks at 9am to clear customs and immigration.  There was a little bit of waiting around, 7 forms to fill out, and the $300 cruising and fishing fee, but for the most part it was a friendly and painless process.  We were off the government docks with our Bahamian courtesy flag waving at 11 am in wonderful sailing conditions in search of a nice quiet swim hole of an anchorage. 

We found a nice spot all to ourselves on the west side of Gun Cay, just beside the lighthouse (N25 34.425 W79 17.907).  It started to rain just as we came in, but we enjoyed our lunch anyway and had a little snorkel.  Reinhart is been up on deck scrubbing away, getting rid of some of that salt spray from our spirited sail here, and we are collecting some water as well.  There’s a chance we’ll move around to other side of the island if the winds switches around this evening.  We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow; we’ll be off just before sunrise to cross the shallow Great Bahama Bank and we’ll arrive near Chub Cay in the Berry Islands around sunset and pick an anchorage based on the winds.  We hope to give you a quick update tomorrow evening from Chub Cay…or maybe it will have to wait until Wednesday afternoon from Nassau, where we’ll certainly have a wireless signal!.