Five Nights in Bimini

This sign is not technically accurate. Islands in the Stream is the title of a book by Hemingway, but the Bimini group is not “in” the Gulf Stream, but on its eastern shore to the left of the land in the aerial view, from a picture in a brochure, which shows most of the two big islands, North and South Bimini.

The view is from the north so South Bimini is the horizontal strip at the top and North Bimini to the right with the channel entrance to both down the middle. All of the towns and the development are on the peninsula at top right, with the new condo development showing as yellow and the large mangrove growths in the foreground left  and with the water to the left less than six feet deep. The harbor is protected from westerlies by the island and from easterlies by the bank.

Our six nights we were tied up at Weech’s dock in Alice Town on the southern tip on North Bimini.

Mr. Weech’s grandfather was a protestant minister and the dock is where the large prize sport fish such as swordfish, sailfish and tuna were hung by their tails and photographed next to their smiling successful anglers, such as Hemingway. The local museum tells the history of the island and celebrates its athletes, anglers, artists and politicians.

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The Spanish depopulated the island , enslaving the native Arawak Indians to work in gold mines. Settlers, including escaped slaves, resettled in the 19^th century, barely surviving on fish caught for consumption, sponge collecting which paid peanuts and shipwreck salvaging.  Here is a recent victim of the rocks; the captain probably saved their lives by bringing the boat to the shore.

And then in 1920, it all changed with the enactment of prohibition in the US. Bimini was discovered to be ideally sited for smuggling booze. One Mr. McCoy, who later did a few months time in a US prison before retiring with his millions in Florida, did not dilute his booze -- which gave rise to the expression “the real McCoy.”  With the end of prohibition in 1933 the smuggling industry ended but sportfish were landed and the news attracted sportsmen, including Hemingway, who popularized the island as one for sport fishing and boozing, which reputation it retains today. In addition to the big fish, a species of smaller sportfish called bonefish are popular with anglers because they put up such a big fight before being landed (like bluefish in L.I. Sound) though they are released because they are full of bones and most folks don’t have the patience to try to eat them.
        So why did we, who don’t fish and don’t booze, stay for five days?  Well first it was stormy with strong winds and a rare all day rain. Then the winds were from the north and with the Gulf Stream flowing to the north, it would have been unsafe to cross the Stream. And besides, we had a good time and met some nice folks. Next to us at Weech’s was “¾ Time” a Ted Hood designed 38 foot sloop, shown at anchor here later.

Its sailors from the left are Bruni, Amber and Reiner, who shared wine and snacks with us one evening aboard ILENE.

 

The humans among them, a very sweet couple, emigrated from Germany to Sweden and then, in the 1970’s, to the US. They now live in Fort Lauderdale, except when they sail to the Bahamas, as they have been doing for 40 years. Their boat’s name reflects the three months vacation that Reiner negotiated with his boss. (Heck, if I could have done that, maybe...  Nahh!) Bruni is the one who told me about the correct new curved channel into the harbor. When the chartplotter got its fix back, it showed the new curved channel. We purchased Vaseline to try to keep the water out of the wires that control the chartplotter so it will remain faithful to us in the future.

          We next met MJ and Alma, and their 21 month old babies, Trimmer and Kaia.  They were seeing MJ’s husband and big dog off via seaplane to Florida. What a rocky takeoff, as a pontoon hit several big waves in the process. They showed us their house, which was the guest entrance to the Shooting and Hunting Club that the family had purchased from Gene Tunney, 80 years ago. Much of the rest of the place was destroyed by storms. What a unique place:

 

Here is the view looking out at the sea (no beach here), the day after the big storm when the waves had died down somewhat:

 

They took us in their electric golf cart on a tour of the island, up to Bailey Town, north of Alice Town, where most of the the natives live, with stops at a grocery and at a place that sells delicious cerviched conch, takeout and to the ocean side beach. 
Next day they all came over for mango-banana pancakes and the kids loved the cats.

 

Another day we took the bus up to the new condo/marina/casino development and maria showed us a lovely one bedroom which, with a 40 foot boat slip, would cost only $230,000. But we are too nomadic for that. After lunch in the development we returned to the boat to check out the kitties (here they are after a tough night of prowling the docks:)

We walked 50 yards to the ferry dock for the very small 25 foot boat that took us over to South Bimini for a tour of that island. $2 each way per person. There is a free shuttle bus to take people from the NW to the SW corner of that island, where a pool, a marina, and a restaurant/bar with a sand floor (not sand ON the floor) are located, and a nature trail. Well the bus doesn’t start to run until 3pm so we started to walk but most of the way two different people stopped their golf carts and offered us rides. I went on the nature walk with nice signage regarding the flora and fauna. This is called a tourist tree because its red peeling skin reminds the natives of the sunburns that tourists are prone to obtain, and was distinguished from the poisonwood trees that are tough on humans but are left in the nature park because the animals eat their fruit.

Here is a piney looking tree, unlike other pines I have known.

 

 

 

And a display of their needles, browned and arranged by the wind and waves.















The remains of the home of an olympic swimmer from Australia who was imported by the Big Game Fishing Club to teach its guests to swim, its concrete walls reinforced with conch shells.

Nice homes.

Lene lay on a lounge chair poolside reading, in which pursuit I joined her when I got back.  Dinner was a delicious conch chowder and lobster salad for me and grouper for Lene, during which we met Tom and Nancy of Wisconsin, across the big rectangular bar. They sailed with a Persian cat and had their cocker spaniel along with them on the excursion to South Bimini. Their beamy ketch, “Seadacious,” was docked at Browns Dock, next to Weeches and we both remarked how sorry we were that we had not met up with each other a few days earlier. They keep their boat in Florida during the summers.  We watched the sunset together, looking for "the green flash".

They gave us a ride back to the ferry on the golf cart they had rented (our third hitchhike of the afternoon). They planned to stay another day, hoping for a bit better wind for their crossing to Miami, but we, especially Lene, was by now pantingly eager to get back to the continent. So we said our goodbys in the morning, paid our bill  to Mr. Weech and set off for Fort Lauderdale.

Posted from Fort Lauderdale.