As I noted in the last post, the Bahamas lockdown restrictions are getting tighter and tighter, so we’re hurrying back to familiar territory. We just didn’t expect it to go down like this!

4.2 – Thursday

Since I’ve been so tired, I sleep like the dead lately. Today was the first day I woke up and felt somewhat refreshed, which is good, because we’re pulling an all-nighter to make it over to Bimini. Technically we’ve achieved “illegal alien” status as our visas have expired. The general consensus in the cruising community, and certainly my common sense approach, is to not worry about renewing if you’re heading back to Florida. To renew we’d have to go to a populated area, make an appointment with Immigration, and go ashore to their offices to get an extension, the complete opposite of social distancing!

We left at noon. As we motored out of the channel, Sao radioed us and said they wouldn’t be far behind us, they were planning on leaving late afternoon. We must have influenced them because it looks like they got underway around 2pm.

The winds were extremely light and variable again, our speed ranged from 1.5 kt to 6 kt and we went back and forth between sailing and motorsailing. We could see Sao on AIS and they were playing the same game. At one point we had one engine on and the wind didn’t seem to be helping push us along at all, but our speed was still inconsistent so finally I pulled the throttle back to neutral and Kyle stuck the camera in the water, thinking we may have perhaps snagged something with the props. There was nothing there, it must have been the light winds.

4.3 – Friday

It was an extremely boring trip. Sao passed us around midnight, then around 4am we veered off on a different path, they headed towards South Bimini or Cat Cay, and we turned towards North Bimini. I figured I wouldn’t have anything to write about for this trip at all, but then we approached the anchorage.

We were about half an hour from dropping anchor and climbing into bed for some sweet, sweet rest when we heard radio chatter from Bimini Harbor. A boat was trying to leave the harbor and the Bahamian Defense Force was telling them, in no uncertain terms, to:

“Cease and desist and return to port!”

We had a hard time figuring out exactly what was going on, because away from channel 16 we were unable to hear the DF’s side of the conversation.

We saw At Last on AIS, they were tucked all the way into the harbor and were making their way towards the entrance. As they neared it, the DF told them to return to port and At Last said that half an hour ago they had been given permission by the DF to leave for Florida, and now the DF was telling them to return to their anchorage! Another boat hailed the DF and asked if they would be able to leave for FL tomorrow morning and they were told that the borders were closed, no boats in or out, per the latest order given by the Prime Minister.

This presents a conundrum for us. We planned on anchoring at the remote northern tip of the island, out of sight of the harbor, and leaving around 2am to cross to FL. However, if the Defense Force sends a patrol boat around the island and finds us, they will undoubtedly order us to stay put. I doubt they will send out patrols, but if we anchor here we are just going to stress about it all day. We don’t know what the latest orders are, so this may just be a misinterpretation of the orders, or more likely, generic orders that need to be clarified for how they pertain to the cruising community. I suspect within a few days cruisers will be able to leave for Florida again, but there’s no guarantee of that.

So we did what any mostly law-abiding citizens would do: we turned off our AIS (stealth mode!) and made a run for the border. Both engines on, both sails up, we ran for international waters at the speed of a riding lawnmower.

At worst, the DF could have detained us, but I think the more likely scenario would be that they’d tell us to return to our last port of call. The problem with that is that we have just come from the Berries, where there are no supplies, and we are running out of provisions. By returning to our last port of call, we’d have to travel more in order to acquire essentials and to find an office to apply for visa extensions. And Florida is closer to us than the Berries right now! So here we are, in a sailboat, running from the police.

About an hour before we reached international waters I looked back and saw this.

It’s not on AIS and it definitely looks like a military ship, I’m 95% sure that’s the Defense Force heading to Bimini Harbor to help prevent new arrivals from entering the country, but here we are with full sails up in plain sight. Of course they ignored us, I can’t imagine why the DF would prevent boats from heading back to the US as it gets travelers out of the country and reduces their risk.

Needless to say, we made it to international waters and then turned to the problem at hand. You never want to do a surprise Gulf Stream crossing, that sort of thing should be well planned out. There was a good reason we weren’t planning on leaving until tomorrow, and that reason is the 5+ ft seas forecast for north of here. Light north winds could easily become strong north winds and that would kick up a powerful swell as the wind opposes the Gulf Stream current.

We could opt to go to Miami, but we really want to get to Lake Worth since it’s an easy place to live at anchor. It could potentially be the same amount of time to get to both of them, even though one is about 20 miles further than the other. The reason for that is that we’d have to fight the current to get to Miami, but it would give us a good boost toward Lake Worth.

We decided to try for Lake Worth, knowing that if the swell grew beyond acceptable limits, we might have to turn around and fight the current back to Ft Lauderdale or something.

There is also the problem of daylight. We’ll undoubtedly arrive at night, when you can’t see the swell, and swell can be the worst in the inlets. It doesn’t feel like a good situation, but it’s the one we’re in.

The swell today is forecast to be 3 ft in 9 seconds, growing to 5 ft in 10 seconds as we traveled north. Those are big, gentle rollers. And that’s about what we experienced, it’s a little crazy to be lifted up, up and up, you feel like the bottom is going to drop out from under you and slam you down into the trough but instead you just slide right back down that hill. Looking through binoculars the waves looked like wall after wall of water, but they were gentle giants almost all day.

There were cruise ships and container ships drifting aimlessly all around us. We could see on their AIS that they were bound for “Florida Straits” or “awaiting orders” aka no destination. Everything is just strange today.

The Gulf Stream boost had us clipping along at almost 7 kts and the nav software showed us arriving at the inlet an hour before sunset (we got an extra bonus, since we’ve moved so far east the sunset is half an hour later than it has been)!

We kept hearing a Small Craft Advisory on the radio for Ft Lauderdale to Jupiter, which meant we were aiming smack dab in the middle of a Small Craft Advisory for big waves, particularly at the inlets. I spent a good portion of the afternoon stressing about that.

However, the closer we got, the flatter the seas became. They were some of the calmest seas I’ve ever been in, making the Small Craft Advisory feel more like a joke than anything else.

We had wondered what happened to Sao, their plans were roughly the same as ours so we’d wondered if they anchored or if they committed to a full crossing. We actually ended up anchored right next to them in Lake Worth! We’ll have to try to catch up with them tomorrow.

It’s strange to think that we’ve been outside of the US for 3 months, and that the place we’re returning to has changed so much while we’re away.

We had no trouble checking in to the US with the app, so we didn’t even have to leave the boat. We’re all legal again!

4.7 – Monday

When we got internet again, I was able to see that, in a surprise move, the Prime Minister had ordered a full lockdown (emergency services only!) starting Friday at 8pm. That doesn’t explain why the Defense Force started enforcing the orders at 9am on Friday, we still aren’t entirely sure what happened in Bimini!

Since arriving back in the US we’ve both been in a funk. We feel a little trapped aboard, the situation in the US is pretty depressing right now and I’m sure you all know exactly what I’m talking about when I say I’m having a bad day for no real reason. We took a couple days to recover before we first tried to go ashore.

Today was our first grocery run. We weren’t sure the public docks downtown West Palm Beach would be open, but there’s a grocery store within walking distance. Neither of us feels comfortable taking an Uber right now, Palm Beach is a COVID hotspot.

Kyle wore a face mask and went into the store while I waited outside. We unanimously decided I should be the one to wait outside due to my “grocery store fog.” While I waited, I made notes about people entering the store. I counted 34 people wearing masks and 46 people without masks (they are officially recommended by the CDC). The employees weren’t wearing masks, but they were vigilantly sanitizing all the carts. Most people walked out with 5 items or fewer, so no one stocking up or trying to minimize trips. We weren’t sure what to expect when coming back to the states so this gives me a better idea of how people are treating the lockdown.

Kyle couldn’t get all the groceries on the list, but it’s enough to feed us fresh food again. We needed some morale food, we’ve been out of chocolate, wine, cheese, tortilla chips and most of the good stuff we had aboard. This pic is from a later grocery trip because I forgot to take one today. It was so nice to go ashore and stretch my legs.

4.7 – Tuesday

We spent all day looking for a marina. Out of the 20 that Kyle called, two said they could take us. One wanted to charge $2000 a month, the other wanted $4000 a month and no utilities! He eventually found a marina in Ft Pierce that would take us, at a very reasonable $600/mo.

It looks like the weather will be okay on Thursday, so that’s the day we’ll move the 45 miles north to Ft Pierce.

4.9 – Thursday

We left as soon as it was light. It’s impossible to tell how long this trip will take because we don’t know how much Gulf Stream boost we’re going to get. We skirted the 120’ depth line with all four fishing lines out, but all we caught were weeds.

We weren’t the only ones fishing! At one point I counted 30 small boats ahead of us – and those were only the ones ahead of us, not any to our side or behind! We were under sail, so technically we had the right of way, but small center consoles are usually assholes. At least they’re indiscriminate about it, they treat both sailboats and other center consoles with the same disrespect. At one point we heard someone on the radio cuss out another boat that had cut their fishing lines. That was our concern too – I didn’t want to get close enough to any of these boats to get tangled in their lines, nor did I want them to cut off our fishing lines, but most of them changed course at random so it was hard to predict whether I was adequately dodging them. Eventually I gave the helm to Kyle so he could get in on the fishing fun.

After lunch, the waves picked up. The wind was supposed to die down, but instead it grew and changed  direction. Right on the nose. So we motored for most of the afternoon.

We did exactly the thing we didn’t want to do, arriving at Ft Pierce at peak outgoing current. We slowed to 1 kt while entering the inlet, I had both hands gripping the wheel to keep the current from turning us sideways so Kyle pushed my throttles up even higher to get us through the bottleneck. As the current started to ease, he took the wheel and drove us to the marina.

Even with the extra maps the marina sent us, we still found some very shallow water. Right near the dock the depth sounder registered 4.3’ (we draw 4’!). That’s why we didn’t want to come in at low tide! However, we easily got tied up to the dock. The face dock we’re on is pilings, which isn’t great. It’s also completely exposed to the south, but how often do we get a south wind? Almost never.

4.12 – Sunday

We’re in the middle of 36 hours straight of 25-35 kt south winds. This dock isn’t a floating dock, which is easy to fend against. Instead it’s pilings, so wave after wave is slamming the boat into two pilings. We’ve adjusted the fenders about once an hour for the past 24 hours. This is an actual nightmare, and there’s nothing we can do about it, we just have to endure.

So, needless to say, this isn’t our favorite marina.

I know this blog post is already pretty long, so I’ll leave on a happy note. We can go for walks whenever we want here and there’s plenty of interesting things within walking distance. We’ve stocked up on all our favorite groceries. We’ve taken real showers. We did laundry by machine for the first time in six months (and I can tell you that hand washed clothes don’t feel nearly as clean as machine washed, so this is just about the best thing that’s ever happened!). This is actually the first time we’ve had shore power and water in six months as well. When the weather is calm, life is easy!