Sailing to the Bimini Islands Bahamas

Our departure from Key West was earlier than we really wanted.  It’s a lively place and it would have been nice to stay for a few more days to see more of the sights and to enjoy more of the bars and restaurants.  But, as we hadn’t originally expected to visit Key West, our short time there was a bonus.  It had also been particularly useful as a place to restock the fridge and wine cellar after our time in Cuba.  However, we were acutely aware that we still needed to sail a further 300nm (straight line distance) into wind, up the Straits of Florida and across the Great Bahamas Bank to Nassau, to make our planned rendezvous with friends Nici and Strevs on Monday 25 March.  The plan wasn’t aided by the forecasters’ talk of an active cold front and its after-effects producing very strong (20+knots gusting 30knots) northeasterly winds crossing the Bahamas from Tuesday 19 March through until Thursday 21 March with, possibly, another milder frontal system affecting the area for a few days from Friday 22 March.  We needed to make progress east …… and quickly!

Close hauled in the Florida Straits as evening approaches

So, the anchor came up at 0720hrs on Friday 15 March and we made our way across to the fuel dock.  There we topped up BV’s diesel tanks and took a little extra petrol for the outboard.  With that all sorted, Nicky rang Customs and Border Protection from the marina office to let them know that we would be leaving the USA.  She got an answer machine so hopefully the message she left will suffice.  It’s a freephone number so our UK mobile phones aren’t able to call it and our USA sim card expired months ago when we left for the Caribbean.  These days everyone assumes that you are constantly able to communicate and connect to the internet but there seemed little point in buying another American sim card for just one phone call during our 3-day stop at Key West.  We were all done in an hour, which we thought was pretty efficient, and then headed out into the Florida Straits to take advantage of the wind.

There was about 17knots of wind from the east-southeast and initially we were beating into it, with a short tack to the south (to keep us away from the reefs) and a longer tack to the northeast (making progress towards destination, hooray!).  However, as the Florida Keys started to curve away to the north, and the wind backed to the southeast [Ed:  as forecast], we were able to spend longer and longer on the more favourable starboard tack.  My night watches were largely uneventful but Nicky had a bit of a shock at 2350hrs.  Off the starboard bow a white light appeared, which appeared to be a long way off.  It became brighter and bigger quite quickly but there were no navigation lights or other lights associated with it to indicate what the vessel was or which way it was going.  Nicky could only imagine that it was some type of buoy (odd because it wasn’t marked on the charts and the light was steady not flashing or occulting) when the depth gauge suddenly dropped to show just 10 metres instead of the 70+ metres that it had previously been reading and which, according to the chart, it should be reading.  Slight panic! But the lights on the navigation beacons out to port showed that we had not strayed onto the shallows and several vessels ahead of us had followed this track.  What was going on?  Perhaps the instruments were failing?  But then the depth gauge started reading correctly again and the white light began to move away.  Her conclusion?  BV had sailed over a submerged submarine – the single white light being at the top of its periscope.  Not a nice experience and certainly not something that you want to bump into in the middle of the night!

Approaching North Bimini

After a great sail for all of the day and most of the night, the wind finally died off at 0510hrs and we had to switch to motor power to finish off the passage.  It was as we had expected from the weather forecast but this period had been predicted to be the best sailing weather window for getting to Bimini for a week, probably longer.  If we had stayed just a day more in Key West we would have had to have motored the whole way.  But at least we had a good bit of help from the Gulf Stream which pushed us north over the final 60-odd miles of the passage.

The anchorage, just right of the nose, with North Bimini beyond.  South Bimini is on the right of the picture with the entrance channel to the Alice Town marinas between the 2 islands

The entrance to the channel to Alice Town

Bimini appeared where we had expected but very late on in the passage because it is so low-lying.  In fact, our guide to the Bahamas even lists the lat/longs of all the Bahamas Telephone Company telecoms masts and recommends using them to help confirm your position as they can be seen from so much further away than the islands on which they stand.  Originally we had expected to call up one of the marinas at Alice Town for a berth and to clear Customs and Immigration from there (Nicky had in mind that the officials want you to be alongside in a marina whilst you complete the formalities) but whilst we were on passage she had spotted an Active Captain entry from a yacht that had anchored on the west side of North Bimini, just off the town, whilst the crew cleared Customs and Immigration.  The entry mentioned a beautiful beach, great holding in sand and of being almost as close to the Customs and Immigration offices as you can get; it sounded perfect.

We anchored a little behind the motor yacht, just off the beach

And it was.  Whilst a stream of yachts took the channel up to one of the many Alice Town marinas, we joined a couple of boats anchored in the beautiful turquoise water just off the beach at the south end of the North Bimini.  The anchor hit the sand at 1330hrs, 29 hours and 171 miles (through the water) from Key West, and with the perfect white beach and palm trees ashore it was as near to the perfect Bahamian arrival location as we could have wanted.

Welcome to the Bahamas!

Bimini Islands, Bahamas