We’ve had a crazy week, and I’m just going to warn you now: this is going to be a long post. If you want the cliffnotes version, here it is: we had a last minute change of plans, we motored down to Miami then across to Bimini. We’re in the Bahamas, baby!

12.29 – Sunday

Per my last post, we were watching a weather window for Tuesday. In pursuit of that, we made a list of everything we needed to get done before we headed over to the Bahamas. Today we stopped at the fuel dock, then moved from the WPB anchorage back to Lake Worth to stage ourselves right by the inlet so we could head out to sea after dark. We even made plans to go to Peanut Island again today, but of course it rained. I was mid-project, both our nav lights stopped working on our last offshore hop so I was changing the bulb on one when I looked up and saw a WALL OF WATER. I should be able to see the high rises of West Palm Beach, but instead there’s a waterfall! Ask me how the dry season is going…

12.30 – Monday

We needed to go to the library to print off customs paperwork. We have a printer on board, but it might not be functional anymore, plus we have no paper. There’s a library less than two miles from the dinghy dock, so off we went!

Naturally, it rained on the way there, so we were sopping wet when we walked in. There was a metal detector and a security detail (just to get in to the library?!). She opened the backpack and I think the dry bag inside it looked like too much work so she asked us what was in it and that was that. Prints cost 15 cents, and for some reason we had absolutely no cash along. We probably could have begged a dollar off of some library patron, but that makes me feel really icky, so instead we spent $15 dollars on Uber to get to a UPS store and used a credit card to pay the 68 cents for printing. Days like today are when boat life is really challenging. On the plus side, there was a Publix right next to the UPS store, so we stocked up on groceries and didn’t have to carry them anywhere! We also found an auto parts store on the way to the library and they didn’t have the exact bulb we needed, but now we should be able to fix that other nav light. Fingers crossed.

On the dinghy ride back to the boat, we saw a familiar hull heading down the ICW. It was Alma! They stayed at the marina for a few weeks this summer, but they were tackling all the ICW bridges today so they didn’t have too long to chat. We get it, FL bridges are no joke, there’s a good reason we’ve been hopping offshore instead of taking the ICW!

Around 2pm we pulled up anchor and headed out the inlet. Oh yeah, let me catch you up on the new plan. Instead of crossing to West End, we decided to sidle the coast down to Miami, then take a left turn and head towards Bimini for our Bahamas entry. This means we will skip the Abacos. There are a couple reasons for this, the flimsy excuse is that I could not get anyone to respond to my inquiries about volunteering, and when I gave up on that and just focused on “what can we bring over from the US?” the best I got was a passive-aggressive “well if you actually want to work instead of just standing around and talking about working….” This all left a very sour taste in my mouth. The real reason is that we’ve been sitting here waiting on weather, and I started to think about the fact that this is exactly what we did before, and our plans had us going all the places and routes that we’ve done before, and that’s not what we’re all about. I want to see new places and do new things and push the limits of my comfort zone! If we go through the Abacos on our way back to the States, I’d love to follow our original plan, but in the meantime we’ve already lost a month of Bahamas cruising.

Right, so it’s midafternoon and we’re headed out to sea. We were supposed to have light headwinds so we planned on motoring. Instead we had strong headwinds and some countercurrent, so we were doing about 3 kts. That’s walking speed. When I sit at the helm, bored out of my mind, I do math. And the math I was doing showed us arriving in the Bahamas late at night. I started to look for exit strategies! If our speed didn’t change, we’d be heading into the Gulf Stream with a North wind (which you’re never supposed to do) and arriving in a foreign country after dark.

12.31 – Tuesday

As the north winds were forecast to arrive earlier and earlier, we decided the better choice was to anchor in Miami and wait for another crossing window. We neared Miami just before daylight, a thick fog rolled through during Kyle’s watch, then he handed the helm over to me to enter the inlet. Another band of fog was coming off shore, and while it wasn’t too thick I still didn’t want to enter a busy inlet in low visibility, so I did a couple circles until I felt comfortable with my line of sight.

We had read that the stadium anchorage had a great view of the city, but it wasn’t until we were there that we realized just how immense the Miami skyline is!

At this point, I had read that a couple other boats had made the crossing and had a great time, and I was absolutely kicking myself for not pushing harder to cross to Bimini last night. The biggest argument against crossing was that the winds were almost double what was forecast, so if that north wind had come in early and come in extra strong, it could have been ugly. Instead the wind barely arrived so anyone who crossed had pretty flat seas. I had some serious regret, but we made the best choice we could with the information at hand.

Knowing that Alma had planned on being in Miami for NYE, I sent them a message (which they never received) but we later spotted them in the anchorage! We dinghied over and actually had a chance to catch up with them! The anchorage we’re in is absolutely nuts, tons of boats coming over for the day, megayachts full of loud music and ladies in bikinis, jet skis, etc. Everyone coming out to watch the fireworks from their boats!

There was even a group of charter catamarans that came out and anchored themselves in a triangle, connecting at the sterns. It was wild. That night, we laid out on the trampoline, waiting for the fireworks and trying desperately not to fall asleep (we were offshore last night so we hardly slept!). At midnight, everyone hit their horns or air horns. The catamarans, amazingly, set off a couple flares and shot a flare into the sky (100% illegal, and as charter captains they probably could have lost their licenses. I’m mostly mad because that flare almost drifted down onto our boat, and I was way too tired to deal with a fireball on board).

The Miami fireworks were underwhelming. Just a steady stream of small fireworks lit off from a couple locations. The skyline at night is breathtaking.

1.1 – Wednesday

We slept until about 10am. I’m sure the anchorage was extremely busy but even the boat wakes couldn’t raise my eyelids.

When we did finally get up, we checked the weather again and it looked like we’d have an opportunity to motor to Bimini tonight. Again, light headwinds, so no sailing, but we’ve been waiting for a month for this opportunity. We recognized that choosing this meant choosing the best bad option, but based on the forecast this was the only foreseeable opportunity to cross. Guys, we’re just so bad at this.

At any rate, we didn’t do much today other than dinghy around the anchorage. I made sourdough pizza from scratch. Yulian and Angela came by for a light happy hour, it’s so much fun to have friends in the anchorage! And then at 9:30pm, we pulled up the anchor and started navigating our way through the inlet.

1.2 – Thursday

By 3am, we had both engines going and the genoa out and we were making 3 kts. At this point I resolved any regret I felt about not crossing on Monday, the current is just so strong, we never would have made it in the daylight. There was never a chance for us to check in before 2020.

The waves were forecast to be 2 ft in 5 seconds, but the waves were coming from the north and the current comes from the south, so I think it was the opposing wave/current that caused them to be so steep and so choppy. Neither of us slept at all in that chop, but I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable, just really annoying. The crossing was uneventful, but extremely slow – at our slowest we hit about 2.5 kt. The weird thing about this trip is that we’ve been lit up by the east coast of Florida for so long, for once we were sailing off into the darkness and it was a lonely feeling!

We arrived at Bimini around 10am, we anchored just west of the beach on the Gulf Stream side of the island. With the east wind, there isn’t any swell, but we are about a mile from deep Gulf Stream ocean so any changes in the wind will make this anchorage very uncomfortable.

After dropping the dinghy in the water, we gathered up our passports and documents and headed in to explore. The customs building has very recently moved, so we had to ask around to figure out where to go, but everyone is so friendly! Customs and immigration were a breeze, we went back to Hobbes for sandwiches and naps.

We were the only boat in the anchorage when we arrived, by nightfall we were joined by about 5 other boats. We were chilling inside when Kyle realized that there was a boat trying to anchor nearly right on top of us. We called out to them and kindly requested they move, which they agreed would be a good idea, then we continued to chat (and by chat I mean yell from boat to boat to be heard above the crashing surf nearby). We invited them over for drinks, but luckily they begged off due to tiredness. We were also still very tired!

1.3 – Friday

The next day they stopped by, apparently customs wouldn’t clear them in until they inspected the boat, so they had to move to a marina for inspection. What a bummer! It might be because they were Canadian flagged, but I’m not sure.

The wind was forecast to shift around to the southeast and strengthen. There are no anchorages here with southern protection, but a south wind is ideal for making our next big passage to the Berry Islands. So, we’re disappointed that we didn’t get to spend more time in Alice Town, but this is our last big passage for a while and this is the only decent wind on the forecast. As the wind started to shift, the anchorage got rolly and we both started feeling sick. We opted to up anchor and move just around the tip of the island, then wait for dark when we can cross the Bahamas Banks towards the Berries.

The sail north was textbook perfection. A beautiful, sunny day with water that is so teal it’s unbelievable. Perfect beam winds and we could finally shut down the engines. Absolute bliss.

After we anchored, I started reading the guide books to figure out what we wanted to do and see in the Berries. Gotta get hyped up for exploring islands again! I made my list, but we still had to kill a few hours. Finally we put on a movie. It’s hard to hang out for a couple hours right before a big sail. You really just want to GO, but we wanted to maximize our daylight on this sail so that we could do some fishing. We still ended up leaving a little early, around 8pm.

The wind was supposed to be pretty light SE winds until around 4am when they would finally strengthen into 12-15 kt south winds. I expected we may have an engine or two running for half the night. Instead we had winds on the nose and they were twice the forecast strength. This line I had read in the guidebook sat like a pit in my stomach: “Consistent winds of 15-25 knots from the east or southeast for a short length of time will often create waves on the banks up to 5′, close together, and steep.”

1.4 – Saturday

At my midnight-3am watch, the moon had just set so I was in total darkness – I couldn’t even see the genoa. I watched the winds climb from 16 kt up to 18 kt, then they climbed again. When Kyle got up for his 3am watch, it had been quite a while since I’d seen anything below 20 kt. The swell wasn’t too bad, but the wind had just started to grow. I layed down, we were bouncing too much for me to sleep, and tried to put everything out of my mind.

When I got up to take over at 6am, the wind was at least 25 kt sustained. I saw a 30 kt gust. We had full sails out. We quickly put a reef in the main, then Kyle went to bed. Of course the wind immediately died down.

The beginning rays of daylight lit up the waves so I could finally start to estimate height and period. Honestly, it was steep and choppy, but nowhere near 5 foot. Maybe more like 2-3 foot. Again, not awful, just obnoxious. I was actually having fun. We still had one engine on (we were very close-hauled, and were doing about 4 kt under sail so we decided to keep one engine running which added about a knot of speed), as the wind finally shifted further south I was able to shut it down and just sail.

At daylight, I’d put the fishing lines out. Literally five minutes after Kyle fell asleep, I heard a hand line snap and gave it a tug – it was something big! I woke Kyle and put gloves on then started pulling in the line. There was nothing on it. About half an hour later, I looked over and saw the fishing rod was doubled over. I gave that line a tug, there was nothing on it! And later that morning, Kyle was watching the lines and saw something big splash by one of the hand lines before it snapped, but again – totally ghosted. When we pulled in all the lines, the lure on the fishing rod was completely gone and the line severed. There’s something big out there!

We opted to head in to a marina tonight. We’ve put in some huge days in the past week, with three overnight passages, and there’s a strong northern blow coming in. I’m confident in our anchor, but there might be a decent swell building up in the anchorage and I just need to be able to sleep. We’ve been obsessing over the weather for weeks, I just want one night when I don’t even have to think about it.

To get to the harbor, we had to enter a cut. The channel approaches the cut from the side, then there’s a sharp left turn into it – this makes it look like there’s nothing there, then at the last second, you squeeze between two rock walls! It’s a bigger channel than it looks like on the approach, but Kyle blasted in there at full throttle so he must not have been nervous!

We docked the boat and I felt like a million weights had been lifted off my back. We promptly asked if we could stay for two nights instead of one. The sweet relief of not having anything to worry about, the ease of getting around, and the first real shower I’ve had since November?! After this, it’s nothing but short hops and easy sailing. This time of year is known for strong winds, and south of the Abacos it’s harder to find protected anchorages, but for us the hard part is over. We made it!