Weather Windows

Arriving in Bimini, Bahamas. It's the closest Island to the Florida coast, about 46 miles off Miami. You have to cross the Gulf Stream, which is no big deal unless you have 15 knots or more north winds against the current, creating rough conditions for small boats. We crossed in about 10 knots of south wind, ideal conditions that we had to wait for.

The Blue Water Marina in Alice Town, Bimini. It was almost empty as boaters had left that day to travel on to other parts of the Bahamas. It, along with other marinas, filled up fast in the next few days. The weather (wind) was not ideal to travel on.

An example of Ashley Saunder's art work. Ashley studied at Harvard, and is now concentrating on building an Inn-Museum full of folk art type objects. He re-cycles alot of material including sea shells and old ceramic tile and anything else he thinks might fit into his scheme. This guy has a knack and you can't help like and admire him.

More of Ashley Saunder's creative artistic construction talents. He has also written 2 very complete history volumes on Bimini.

The Queen's Hwy. It runs along the west shore of N Bimini lsland. The Kings Hwy is more the main street and commercial area and runs on the east side of N Bimini.

A "Covey Island" motor cruiser built on the south shore of Nova Scotia. The owner, a guy from Cape Coral FL, had it custom built is is very proud of her.

We stayed in Bimini for a week. Moxie resting at her birth at the Blue Water Marina a couple of days before our departure to Nassau.

A strong W wind made the entrance to Bimini very dicey. Maybe this small freighter made the mistake of trying to get in or go out of the channel. Anyway, this is why we were waiting for a good day to go to Nassau.

A part of our small 4 boat flotilla, SV Scout, a classic refurbished 38' Pearson Invicta, built in the mid 60's. Picture taken on the Great Bahama Bank where the depths average about 20 feet.

One of the high end resorts on Paradise Island, across the harbour from Nassau.

5 Cruise Ships in the harbour. Tourism is a big part of Nassau's economy.

Nassau town from where we were anchored. We went to a marina after enduring a couple bouncy nights on the "hook".

Our ‘crossing’  on Sunday Jan 19,’15 , from Miami to Binimi, ( our first Bahamian Island) was different than anticipated; the "weather window" was to be a brief one, some of the captains (and their admirals) thought it best to wait for the next opening on Tuesday. We were set to go and checked off our mooring ball  at Dinner Key the same time  S/V Scout did, we saw them go into No Name Harbour, but Moxie anchored just out from there for a shorter  motor out  of Baycayne Bay- however, that evening Gerry received an e-mail from Tara saying they reconsidered and we overheard S/V Mystic as they were picking up a mooring ball. We had Charlie and Jane (Isis) over for supper the evening before and we knew they were ‘out’. We did not see any of the rest of the group, and would not leave by ourselves. We admired 3 beautiful Island Packets anchored near us and it wasn’t until after dark that Debbie noticed that one of them was S/V Blue Sky-one of the boats that were included in the last meeting of ‘next crossers’, we all exchanged cards, so Gerry had their #, and sure enough they were planning on leaving in the morning. So we were off the hook at about 4 am , and with S/V Blue Sky and another Island Packet (Tamarack)-feeling very fortunate indeed! Thank you David and Cherie!  WE were tied up at Blue Water Marina by 12:15 so the crossing took us 8 hours. Shortly after we came in a motor cruiser South Flight tied up on the dock behind us, the next day while trying to buy a SIM card we had a chat with it’s captain, who turned out to be Ian MacPherson from Shediac, NB. We thought about calling the Whitmee’s, as they would have enjoyed this meet -up-,but we had no phone service! Ian (who has done this trip 8 times) warned us about the service here-we will have to get used to it- we are now living ‘on island time’. The SIM cards came in a few days later,  in the meantime we did a lot of walking and went to Ashley B. Saunder’s artistic museum and learned something about the history of Bimini. We watched one group of boaters  leave and met another coming in: S/V Scout and S/V Shinola , they were in the mood for a celebration after a somewhat stressful crossing so we went out with them to Bimini Big John’s . The next day we dingied to find a beach to have lunch on, saw an up scale resort and residential development and the remains of an abandoned one ( about a decade old) on a man-made canal. When we got back the marina  it was hopping with new activity from the days crossing. Met the other sailors  for sun downers on the beach. The provisioning here was better than expected, and the visit to ‘The End of the World’ bar was worth it, where we had a send-off for Charlie (Shinola’s crew mate)-maybe we will visit him in Portsmouth, VA on the way back home.

We awoke on Jan 22th, to learn that our dear friends, the Mainvilles, along with Andrew Heighton and family have had to part with Fleur, who lost her battle with cancer. We will always  treasure Fleur, and are at a loss not to be home to share our  sorrow and memories with family and friends. Life goes on,  but it is  hard to let go of good things, Gerry was one of Fleur’s  favorites, so she would want us to enjoy this special adventure…Sending sympathy to all- and thanks to  our sons-Sean, Kyle and Kevin for being so sympathetic and to Bill Fraser for e-mailing us- we know this is hard for you and Gloria, and the Ormonds .Thinking about all of you and wishing Bill a Happy 65th B/D and a great retirement from his career.

We will likely be in Bimini for a few more days waiting for a crossing to The Berry Islands.

We crossed over the Great Bahama Bank straight to Nassau on Sunday January 24th. Scout, Shinola and “Sailing Away” were part of our 4 boat fleet. Took us about 20 hours to get into Nassau Harbour. We anchored inside at about 2:30 am. Monday morning we woke up to increasing westerly winds that were forecast to increase to 30 knots in the afternoon. The high winds were associated with the big North-Easter that was affecting New York and New England as well as the Maritimes. We missed an opportunity to get a slip at one of the local marinas so spent the day and night anchored in the harbour. It was rocking and rolling by times, hopefully we will get a slip today and get sorted out before we head out to explore the Exumas when the next “Weather Window” appears, hopefully this Thursday.



Jan 17/15             No Name Harbor, Miami, FL

Jan 18-24/15         Bimini Blue Water Resort, Alice Town, Bimini

Jan 25/15             Anchorage, Nassua, New Providence Island, Bahamas