March 9&10, 2010 Key Largo to South Bimini, Bahamas

We made it!!

It was rough trip really. The predicted waves were 2-4 feet with something else about the gulf stream (can't remember the exact words now). But we figured out that it meant that the waves could be a lot bigger than 4 ft.In fact we were probably hitting 6-7 footers on a regular basis. Things got pretty shook up on Grateful even though we had everything stowed away. Even the things in the fridge were moved around and some toppled - glad the doors didn't pop open. Only one closet did and just laundry soap and bleach fell out.

You can imagine how noisy it was with 15 knot wind and Grateful crashing down. Mark was running at 1600-1700 rpms at first - maybe to blow through the waves better or to be done with them sooner. But we started hearing unusual noise from the flybridge above. I looked up out the back windows and noticed that the dinghy was rocking!!!! YIKES!!!! I got the ladder down and climbed up to see what was amiss. Our forward chock (supporting the dinghy) had worked free of it position, and was rocking with the dinghy.

It was at this point that I started to drive (about 40 nm out of Key Largo). Mark throttled back to 1200 rpms and he got to work. He was able to hammer the chock back into place and then he ingeniously devised a way to keep it in place with the tools he had at sea. This guy is good! But it wore him out. We kept the speed a little slower - 9 knots - I kept driving and gave Mark a break. The auto pilot doesn't work in seas and winds like this so we had to constantly steer to keep our heading.

We started our trip at 7:00 and finally made it to South Bimini (Bimini Sands Resort) at 3:30. We were told to check in at the gas dock. From there Mark was taken, with all our important papers, to customs and immigration. Yes, the resort is supposed to have the officer on premises, but they share him with the airport so Mark went to him. He was back in 45 minutes with a permit to stay up to 12 months (normally 3 or 6 months is granted). This means that all our preparations on Grateful - beer and booze stowed away under the V-berth, flying the yellow quarantine flag, guns under lock and key - weren't necessary. But the vet visit 48 hours before we left and all forms prepared and completed ahead of time and in duplicate maybe made things easier. Anyway, we were SOOOO ready.

We were in our slip and tying down around 4:30. The resort is beautiful and mostly quiet and tranquil. I tried to capture a few pictures.

We gave some thought to moving on to Chubb Cay in the Berrys (85 nm) on Wednesday as there was 2-4 ft waves predicted (survivable). However, several days after Wednesday were not good travel days. We decided that we would rather be stuck at Bimini Sands Resort at 1/3 the cost of staying at Chubb Cay. So here we are - our first morning.

But our tranquility was soon interupted by this towboat and barge entering the harbor. There wasn't much room to operate and he was close to our boats, but "no problem".

As it turned out they are repairing some damage at the other end of the harbor and they haven't impacted any of our "tranquility".

One thing that is different is that some of the rules we have for safe boating may not be as strict here. This boat left the harbor today - we couldn't count all the bodies, but there were too many.

I can report that they made it back OK, but overheard one of the young men say that they almost rolled twice. It's probably good that we didn't know everything our children did when they were in college.

Otherwise, we've been to the beach where we've had it all to ourselves (Port can run free) and we're reading books. Mark does not have the TV running yet - I've been wondering if something is wrong with him. We will probably get the dinghy down tomorrow and try our luck at fishing, or spearing a lobster. Stay tuned:-)