We met a cool couple our first evening in Bimini (if you’re reading this, hi Craig & Roxanne!). We chatted with them for quite a while on our back porch and planned to hook up the next day to ride around the island. Thankfully, Dave & I had leftovers to warm up because we were beat from the passage from the U.S. We slept well that night!
After breakfast Wednesday morning we met up with Craig & Roxanne, rented a golf cart for a couple of hours and tooled around Bimini. The first stop we made was at Nate’s bakery for some coconut bread and cinnamon raisin bread. (Dave made French toast out of the coconut bread next morning- yum!) We all had lunch at CJ’s up the hill from Blue Water Marina- conch all around in one form or another. I had the conch fritters- yum! After lunch we got a tour of their awesome boat. After that, Dave & I went for a swim at a nearby beach, took showers and walked down the road to Big John’s for dinner. I bet that place is hopping in a non-pandemic year. On this night there were just two couples and a guy at the bar. Lovely view, good food, wonderful service.
We caught up with our new friends after dinner and had them over for rum and conversation. They helped us with some planning for our trip to the Abacos and shared a lot of their knowledge of Bahamas to the Virgin Islands when we told them about our plans for next season. Thursday morning we tossed the lines a little after 8am. Craig & Roxanne saw us off. Hopefully we’ll stay in touch. That’s one sad part of cruising, meeting great people and having to part because you’re on different tracks.
We had a plan A and plan B for our crossing to the Berry Islands. Plan A was to go about halfway, anchor off Mackie Shoal for the night and finish the trip to the Berries on Friday. Plan B was to just go straight through to Great Harbor Cay and drop the hook in the dark in the same area we anchored in March 2020. The cruising conditions were gorgeous, so we opted for Plan B. We made good speed, averaging 5.5 knots. Just after the halfway point we started passing clusters of anchored and dormant cruise ships. We passed at least two dozen! Sixteen hours later, just before midnight, we were anchored. We thanked the weather gods with an offering of rum, had some ourselves, then hit the hay.
When we got up Friday morning, Dave grilled cinnamon swirl bread for himself and the coconut bread for me (I’m addicted!). We were very thankful we’d decided to cruise straight through Thursday, because Friday morning a band of showers came through. I don’t think it would have been as serene a cruise from Mackie Shoal to GHC had we opted for Plan A. We busied ourselves with some minor boat tasks during the rain. Right around lunch we dingied to the marina to arrange for a slip for the latter half of hurricane season. We had lunch at their little restaurant shack then dinghied over to the dock near the actual town to explore a bit. We found the local liquor store and bought a bottle of Bahamian dark rum. Then we came across a well stocked, small grocery store and bought a few items, then headed back to Lady for hammock time followed by dinner and a movie.
Today we had to dinghy to the marina for 8am to meet the guy at the marina who could approve and arrange for our hurricane season slip. We had a nice talk with him and headed back to Lady shortly after. Today was boat chore day. I was in the mood. I did some laundry (clean sheets!), thoroughly cleaned our cabin and head, which I’d been aching to do, and thoroughly cleaned the salon and galley. Dave helped clean the spots I couldn’t reach easily. Dave made water, made bread, cleaned the hulls (again), fixed a couple of rattling cabin fans, dried out the bilges and got dinner going in the Instant Pot. By 3:30pm we were cooling off in the water off our stern and shortly thereafter were in our hammocks with drinks. We opted for Dark & Stormies today. It’s neither dark nor stormy here, but the wind did kick up as predicted as a front settles into the area.
The big winds are from the direction we wish to head next. How long they will last is uncertain at this point, according to the forecasts. It’s windy but not bouncy in the harbor (we’re on the lee of the island- the west side, while the winds are from the ENE). Beating into the wind and waves to get to the Abacos would not be a comfortable ride, and we’d probably only make about 4 kts, so we will bide our time here in this very protected harbor and move on to the Abacos when the conditions are more comfortable. Until then, we will spend time exploring the island.
Be safe and take care of each other!
Life on Lady 