Wednesday afternoon. Heading for Bimini for Memorial day.
Today, I worked at home on the boat and took a half day vacation in the afternoon. We needed fuel before going offshore and the marina where we get fuel closes at 8:00PM. Also, the draw bridges across the New River close during rush hour. For these reasons, we decided to leave as early as possible.  I had the inflatable dingy on the dock and was going to put it back in the water and tow it to Bimini. When I took a look at it, I noticed that the bottom was coming unglued from the side tubes. The dingy was 2.5 years old and was falling apart! I decided to deflate it and carry it aboard the big boat as we would need a dingy to get to customs and immigration in Bimini.

We got under way at 14:30. When we arrived at the Davie Blvd. bridge, I got on the radio and called for an opening. Nothing happened. I waited a few minutes and called again. Still nothing. I suspected that the VHF radio wasn't working. Using the handheld VHF, I was able to determine that the VHF radio was dead. After that, I used the hand held VHF and used that for bridge openings.

We finally arrived at Lauderdale Marina and tied up. Took on 100 gallons of fuel. Left the marina and cleared Port Everglades at 16:30.
The sea was fairly flat with winds from the southeast at about 10 knots. As the evening wore on, the wind died and the seas became absolutely flat, like a pond. That's a nice way to cross the Gulf Stream which can really be a problem in a blow.

Saw lights from Bimini at 00:45. We didn't want to go into Bimini harbor in the dark so anchored just offshore of North Bimini at 03:00. The wind had picked up but we were on the lee side of North Bimini so it was a fairly quiet anchorage. Tried out the new Super Max anchor. It set almost instantly. That was a good sign. Got to bed at about 03:30 and fell right to sleep. Woke up a couple of times during the night as the boat as rocking quite a bit more than it does in the marina. The rocking was caused by the waves so I went back to sleep.

Thursday at Bimini.
We woke up at 07:15 and had a quick breakfast. Pulled anchor and headed for Bimini harbor. We had anchored just south of a very nice snorkeling spot. I think the site is called "Three Sisters" because of the three rocks that stick out of the water there. We snorkeled there last year and it was great.

As we were leaving, I saw thousands upon thousands of dime sized jellyfish. Don't think I'll come back here today for snorkeling. Last year we were eaten up with sea lice. This year, it looks like jellyfish. Maybe they'll be gone in a few days.

Went into Bimini harbor and while entering the marked passage , I captured a way point for the entrance. That will make it easier the next trip. The old way point I had was from a travel guide and it was pretty far offshore. We anchored just north of the Big Game Club in Bimini harbor. The GPS coordinates are: 25:43.661N and 079:17.637W. I threw the inflatable in the water and pumped it up. It leaked water pretty good but, being an inflatable, continued to float. Put the 2 hp Suzuki on and headed for customs and immigration to pick up the paperwork. We have a couple of those small Motorola walkie talkies. I took one with me to keep Rosemary up to date on what was going on. Only the captain can go ashore until the boat clears customs and immigration. The dingy took on quite a bit of water during the trip to shore and back but made it OK. Brought the paperwork back to the boat and filled it all out. Took our passports and the paperwork back ashore for processing. After finishing that, I went back to the boat and we had lunch. I was pretty tired so decided to take a nap. I slept until almost dinner time.

For dinner we had steak with portabello mushrooms cooked on the boat. That gas grill really gets a workout. It is used for diner at least five and sometimes six days a week. We stayed on the boat and read all evening. It was very quiet and peaceful. Not too many boats around yet, they'd show up Friday, and the anchorage was very calm. The weather was a lot cooler than last year. All in all, very pleasant.

We could smell the smoke from the fires in Palm Beach county clear over in Bimini. Must have been a lot worse in Palm Beach County!

Friday at Bimini
Slept in this morning. It is so quiet, calm and peaceful here. The only noise is the wind and the faint sound of the Bimini electric plant in the distance. Our home marina in Ft Lauderdale is considerably more noisy than here.

Rosemary baked a loaf of bread just after breakfast. I opened up all the side port holes in the boat and it almost felt air conditioned. Really nice. We can also see out the port holes and see what is going on outside.

We took the leaking inflatable ashore and walked around. We started out by going south to the end of North Bimini. Past the graveyard, spook hill, and the trash dump. We then went around to the west side of the island and crossed the lunar terrain there to where the Galant Lady of Belize City was wrecked on the shore. I didn't have my camera this time but decided to come back with the camera later and get a picture of it. The terrain was so bad that we decided to cross through someone's yard and get back to the King's Highway.  We walked up the the Big Game Club marina and had lunch at their sports bar which overlooks the marina basin. I had a conch burger and Rosemary had fish fingers.

We left there and went back over to the beach on the west side of the island. Walked north for a while and then turned around and went south. There wasn't much to see so we went back up the the Queen's highway and walked south on it. After hitting the south end of the Queen's highway., we crossed back to the King's Highway and walked north to the "Compleat Angler". We had drinks and checked out the Hemmingway museum they have there.

We went back to the boat and took a swim. I scraped the marine growth off of the propeller. It was pretty bad. The blades were almost an inch thick with the stuff. We should make better time going back and have less vibration. It wasn't bad coming over but I could tell there was something on the prop as it has a little bit of vibration which it normally doesn't.

During the day, boats from the states kept coming in, it was starting to get crowded. Three sailboats came in and anchored right beside us. They all rafted together on one anchor. They are a lot closer than they should be and I hope we don't collide during a tide change.

We had dinner on the boat again, pork chops this time. Still on the grill though. After dinner, we spent another quiet evening reading.

Saturday at Bimini.
Slept late again. This could get to be habit forming.

There are rainstorms in the area and the wind has changed direction and picked up. The raft of three sail boats kept trying to bang into us when the tide changed. We manage to keep the boats apart. I hope the next time that bunch comes to Bimini that they anchor as far away from me as possible. I'm glad the boats didn't try and tangle during the night. It could have been a mess.

I used the inflatable as a work platform and started washing the sides of the boat. While standing in the dingy, the whole bottom started ripping out of it. It got so bad that the boat is unusable any more. I can't deflate it and put it aboard away from a dock so I'm going to tow it back to Ft Lauderdale. If it causes too much trouble, I'll just untie it and let it go. Hope I don't have to though as it would be trashing the ocean.

Well, it's time to try out the little Dyer Dhow dingy that we have on deck. We emptied all the stuff out of it and used the boom to lift it up and put it in the water. No problem at all. I then transferred the little Suzuki outboard from the inflatable to the Dyer. Again, no problem. I didn't want to put the 8 hp Nissan on it as that would be way too much motor for the Dyer.

We both got in the Dyer and went ashore. This time, I had the camera so we went back to the wreck of the Galant Lady and took pictures. The little Dyer worked just great. The 2 hp Suzuki pushed it right along, even at less than half throttle. I'm thinking that we won't need an inflatable after all. This little Dyer Dhow is almost 30 years old and works just fine.

After taking pictures and walking around some, we went back to the Big Game Club and had a couple of drinks. Headed back to the boat for the evening. The weather is starting to get worse, wind and rain. We closed the side port holes for the night but left the big sky light open. A couple of times during the night, I'd have to get up and close it when the rain started coming in. As soon as it quit raining, I'd open it again. With the 12v fan, it wasn't too bad with the sky light closed but it was better with it open.

Sunday at Bimini
Woke up to a rainy day after a very rainy night. The weather is going down hill. It rained all morning but it was nice enough not to rained during the tide change so we didn't get wet keeping the boats apart. As of 11:30 it was still raining. I turned on the RADAR to check out the rain situation. It looked like it might clear up after a while as the storm was moving through fairly quickly and I could see the edge of it, on the RADAR, coming toward us.

Since it was so rainy, we decided to watch the Indy 500 on TV. Since Bimini is only about 50 miles east of Miami, we were able to get a channel on TV with the race on it.

During the race, it quit raining and the sun came out. Great! We took the Dyer and explored the canals of South Bimini. Not a lot there but they're building quite a few new buildings. The South Bimini Yacht Club seems to be doing OK and making progress. There is a lot of wrecked docks and buildings in Bimini. I don't know but I suspect the damage was caused by Hurricane Andrew back in 1992.

As we were coming back to the boat in the dingy, I noticed that the raft of three boats was about to collide with us again. There was no one aboard our boat or the rafted boats. This is too much. As soon as we tied the dingy to the boat, we weighed anchor and moved! If the rafted boats had good seamen on them, they would have moved. We were there first and they anchored too close to us. We didn't anchor too close to them.

Since it cleared off, the wind really picked up. The wind was out of the east. Since the VHF radio wasn't working, I used the little handheld VHF to get the marine weather report. It didn't sound too good. The winds were supposed to pick up to 15 knots and the seas were to be 2-4' tomorrow. That didn't sound too bad. The wind was to increase to 20 knots an the seas 3-5' later on on Monday. I figured we had better get an early start back to stay ahead of the weather. If I didn't have to be in Memphis, on business, Tuesday, we'd just stay and wait for better weather. 3-5 foot seas aren't too bad but, you know, the seas will be a lot higher than that in the Gulf Stream.

After securing the boat in it's new anchorage, we took the dingy ashore for our last meal in Bimini. We beached the dingy on the little beach behind the Red Lion Inn. We walked around to the front of the building and went in for dinner. Rosemary had their catch of the day which was grouper. I had their seafood platter. Both were good. It was getting dark so we took the dingy back to the boat.

After getting back to the boat, we started getting ready to leave early in the morning. We put the Dyer Dhow back on deck and mounted the outboard on the rail where it is carried. The wind was getting stronger so I checked the marine weather again. Now they were saying the seas would be 3-5 feet in the morning. I thought about leaving right then but didn't want to cross the stream at night in rough weather. I thought about leaving the boat an Rosemary at a marina in Bimini and flying back to Miami and then to Memphis. I figured we'd give it a try in the morning and go from there.

Monday, Memorial day. Back to Ft Lauderdale from Bimini
It was nice and cool last night. Breezy an clear. There are a few clouds this morning and they are predicting rain on the marine weather station. The wind prediction hasn't changed from last night so things are looking up. We were up at 06:30. Had eggs, bacon and pecan cheese cake pie for breakfast.

We pulled up the anchor at 07:35 and headed out. The wind was pretty strong out of the East and we were heading almost due West. Trident, being double ended, does very well in following seas so things didn't look too bad. I had her on auto pilot and we were moving right along.  I tried the steadying sail but with the wind right on the stern, it kept jibing and didn't do much good so I took it in.

When we were about 15 miles away from Bimini, the wind really started picking up and switched around to the north. That's bad news in the Gulf Stream as it flows north and its speed is added to the wind's speed as far as wave making goes. It soon got too rough for the auto pilot to handle. It got too rough for me to want to go out on deck and raise the steadying sail. It may have done some good as the winds were now off our starboard beam.
The marine weather now said seas were to be 5-7' and higher in the Gulf Stream. I believed it. It keep getting rougher and rougher. There was a small sailboat, around 25 feet long, off our starboard beam. He was getting bounced around so badly that I don't think he was making any headway at all.

As we got closer to the main axis of the Gulf Stream, the seas had built up to at least ten feet. I think some of them were probably larger. I judge the height of the waves by looking at how high my line of site was above the waterline of the boat. The level of my eyes was right at 10 feet off the water and, at times, I could look out beside the boat and see waves at least as high as my eyes were.

We were committed so kept going west. After we were through the main part of the Gulf Stream, the seas came down some but they were still bad.
I checked the marine weather again and now they had small craft advisories up. Just great! We were about six miles from shore, according to RADAR, now so I knew it had to get better soon. It really never did until we were inside the inlet at Port Everglades. It was nice to finally be back in calm water.

We only saw three boats on the way back, that one small sailboat, a very large Coast Guard Cutter, and a motor yacht of about 45 feet. The motor yacht was getting bounced around almost as bad as we were. I hate to think of what the inside of that boat looked like when they got home. I think they were heading for Miami and hope they made it OK.

Trident showed her colors on that return trip. A couple of times she got knocked over almost flat but sprang right back up. Never heard a creek or groan out of her the whole trip. The only real damage we had was a bottle of wine vinegar fell out of the cabinet and spilled on the carpet in the galley.
We have a little carpet cleaning machine so as soon as we were in calm waters, Rosemary got it out and cleaned the carpet while we were underway.

It was good to be home, tied up to our regular dock at Marina Bay. After we secured the boat, we decided to go out for dinner to celebrate.