Our new friends in Bimini

I write this blog while motor-sailing from North Bimini to Chub Cay (pronounced “key”), though we know we can’t make it all the way today because, at 76 nautical miles (nm) from one place to the next, when we are moving at about 5 nmph ("knots"), we would have to do another over-night sail.  Incredibly, because the Great Bahamas Banks are in-between our two destinations, we will be able to drop anchor with no land in sight and spend the night completely surrounded by water!  So, we are about 6.5 hours into a roughly nine-hour sail and I figured now was the perfect time to introduce all of you to our Bimini adventures!

Hernan taking a picture of "us"

Marty

On our first day, I had found a job I was interested in applying for, so the Captain went to explore our surrounding boats as I worked on the computer; however, as it is not quite Bimini’s tourist season yet, he had only a handful of boats to explore.  While poking around, the Captain saw a couple at the end of one dock with a 52-foot Irwin parked beside them; the couple was sitting on folding beach chairs and had their feet propped on a blow-up ottoman.  Rob concluded that these men knew how to spend their time in the Bahamas and decided to get some recommendations for what to do.  After a couple of hours of talking to them, the Captain was served a Bahama Mama, complete with orange slice, a small umbrella, and a cake decoration of a red-headed Barbie.  It. WAS. AWESOMENESS!!!

We spent a good amount of time with Marty and Hernan (pronounced “Er-non”) over the next few days, including having drinks with them that night as they introduced us to our other neighbors, Paula and Lance from the 48-foot ship at the end of our dock.  Drinks turned into a group tour to watch sunset from the white-sand beach with conch shell scattered across the coastline and huts of tiki-covered beach beds every few feet (beds which were easily pulled around on the beach to get the perfect sunset angle).  To get there, we rode our bikes, looking like an alternative universe’s idea of a “biker gang” with most of us having baskets/carriage platforms on our bikes and flip-flops on our feet.  After such an exhausting day of recovering from the 23-hour passage, it seemed as though soaking in that sauna pool with our new-found friends was a good idea.

Hernan and the Captain share a quiet sunset

The next day, the Captain and I finally put everything away and cleaned up the boat; you’d be surprised how very little “living” builds up in the cockpit very quickly, making me feel as though the boat is somehow half its actual size.  Then, after taking advantage of the Infinity Pool and warm-watered showers, the Captain and I moved the boat into an anchorage almost halfway down the channel.  This was to get away from a nightly per-foot dock fee, though we would have done better to stay in the small man-made cove right behind us  which was built for large ships.  Instead, we spent the night with a power plant’s white-noise hum all night and the lights from the same plant in our faces all night while the current swept the boat closer to shore inch-by-inch.  Yeah, we didn’t sleep so well that night.

That night, we had gone to dinner with our new group of friends, one of whom had lost a pair of sunglasses near to our boat.  So, the next morning after breakfast and dish-cleaning, I finally got to snorkel in Bahamian water… in the small main channel that runs north between two pieces of land that are decently near to one another.  I have NO idea how salmon do it!  However, Paula must have evolved from fish from the way she swam and fought the current, determined to find the lost sunglasses – and, within an hour of swimming and dinghy-towing “snorkeling”, she found them!

Baby conch (pronounced "conk")

Following this, the Captain and I promptly moved Calypso’s Fire to the previously mentioned man-made cove right next to the marina we had moved out of less than 18 hours before.  After snacking, the 12-Pedal Gang took a ride out to the Bimini Spring (see pictures), passing a group of three men who were in the process of slaughtering a goat on the beach-side (I have not included pictures of this for those who are not up to seeing it; I have them, though, if you are interested).  Hernan was able to speak with the men in Spanish, though I learned that my own is fairly rusty… well, at least my “you’re-slaughtering-an-animal-here” Spanish is.  Returning from the “Spring”, we stopped at the conch “nursery” where we were able to see hundreds of baby conch, picking up a few to see what a snail with such a beautiful shell would look like (don’t worry, we put them back in the water as soon as the photo was snapped!).

Absenthe done right!

After some downtime, Hernan and Marty had the other two couples to their boat for dinner: hamburgers grilled by Paula and Lance and hotdogs grilled by the hosts.  Except, it was SO much more than hotdogs!!!  There were appetizers, gourmet hotdogs, hamburgers w/ cheese melted on them, and yummy sides; this was followed by a round of Absinthe for all with breaded ice cream balls drizzled in chocolate sauce for dessert!  All of this, though, was really just dressing on the beautiful cake of getting to know our new friends, some of the most fun, intelligent, interesting, warm and welcoming people we have gotten to meet!

Our new friends

"Impossible blue"

The Captain and I went by dinghy with the men of Oceanaire to see the end of the island and the blue of the Bahamian waters: “impossible blue”, as Hernan called it with all appropriateness.  This prompted us to head out the next day and round to the west side of the island; unfortunately, after cleaning up (again), we headed out pretty late and had to stay the night where we were.  When you are being hit by ocean swell waves as opposed to waves created by wind, they hit you from whatever side they want to and even the small waves are EVIL!  We have since learned a rope trick to help cut down on this problem, but that night was the worst I have spent on the boat by far.

The next day was spent moving around the island, first getting to the northern end and snorkeling around Three Sisters, three rocks not far from shore.  There were many unfamiliar fish, though wild-life was not as abundant as I had been expecting – especially after having seen manta rays jumping out of the channel and a nurse shark swimming in a marina on South Bimini.  The fact, though, that we could see our anchor and the lines in the sand next to it was MORE than enough to make up for the less-than abundant wildlife!

We have one without her - but it's just not as fun!

Our final day in Bimini was spent on the northeast side of the island on what felt like our own personal white-sand beach.  We had sailed over the day before and I insisted to a fairly cooperative husband that I did not want to leave without a full day of anchoring next to this beach.  We took the cats to shore so they could run, roll in the sand, and chase after bugs; they did all that and then dug a cool spot under a tree and went to sleep.  Rob and I?  We read, played in the water, and saw only one other human on the beach with us: a hiker who was too busy being in her quiet place to interlope into ours. 

View from "our" beach

We appreciated that.