Five nights in St. Augustine

       Getting out of Lake Sylvia in Fort Lauderdale involved a problem; after all of the strong winds we had experienced while anchored there, the knot holding the snubber line to the chain became too tight to be untied, requiring the first use of our new Westmarine rigger’s knife. Its blade is sharp.The rest of the line, since then rewhipped, is now another foot shorter.

       Our passage to St. Augustine consisted of two halves. The first was a very exhilarating romp for the 18 hours from 7:30 am to 1:30 am. Fast, with winds from the east and an assist from the Gulf Stream, we averaged 7.95 knots and had one hourly reading of averaging 9.2 knots. But then the Stream headed a bit east of our coastal course and the winds died and we had to motor sail the rest of the way, from 1:30 am until about 4 pm, when the wind picked up enough to allow us to rest the engine for the last hour.  The passage into St. Augustine from the sea is well marked by buoys over a long shallow shelf, but the buoys are not shown on the chart because they are moved so frequently as the waters shift the sands. Here is the view looking out through the channel to the Atlantic.

  We had just overtaken this dredging operation on our way out:

St Augustine is a very old city, very much a tourist destination and very much a Latin city with its main streets, Mendoza and Aviles, named after Aviles Mendoza, the conquistador. The Bridge of Lions crosses the Inter Coastal Waterway in town.

 

Its ornamentation at each arch somehow put me in mind of the low bridges across the Danube in Prague. We are not sure if this one is named after Ponce de Leon, who discovered Florida for the Spanish while looking for the fountain of youth, or after the lions that guard each corner of the bridge -- or both. These lions don’t seem as regal or pacific as Patience and Prudence, who, prone, guard the New York Public Library.

The bridge, its central span open, awaits our departure.

Our first stop after coming in under the Bridge of Lions, was the Municipal Marina’s fuel dock where we picked up 35 gallons of diesel, our first since George Town. With a capacity of 75 gallons, we were still slightly more than half full. Then we were assigned a mooring where ILENE rested for five nights. It was just west of the west side of the Intercoastal Waterway, by red daymark 8. With up to three knots of current rushing past, first one way and then the other, according to the tides, we were held at strange angles relative to the winds, which were weaker than the current.

The most popular tourist attraction in town is the trolley lines. For about $30 per person they will take you to each of 21 tourist sites and let you get off at those you wish to see, to take up another trolley which come by every ten minutes. We did not take the tour but walked where we had to go. Long walks to food markets, with taxi rides back. We did laundry and used the marina’s very strong wifi signal. 

We visited the Lightner Museum. 

This had been the very grand Alcazar hotel, built by Flagler. He was an accomplice of Rockefeller and is credited with developing the east coast of Florida by building the railroad that went all the way to Key West. This former hotel reminded me of the Hotel Gellert in Budapest. 

Lene at our lunch in its Café Alcazar.

And here is the same room, from a photo, back in the day – the world’s largest indoor swimming pool of its time.

In the Depression the Hotel was closed and reopened by Mr. Lightner as a museum, and a very interesting and eclectic one at that. Mr. Lightner bought the collections of wealthy people who went bankrupt in the depression. So there are displays of samplers, toasters, womens’ canes, cigar bands, stained glass windows, you name it. Nothing very great artistically, but interesting: a collection of collections.

We noticed this urban bird,

and later this next one, standing on a mooring line at the marina.

 Across the street from the Alcazar Flagler built the more ornate and less public hotel Ponce De Leon, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  Subject to racial and religious segregation, anyone who had the money could visit the Alcazar, but only select invited guests could visit the Ponce de Leon. Here is the fountain in its courtyard, with frogs and (behind us) turtles.

The archway spells the hotel’s name in its shields.

 Detail of part of the archway, with an extra temporary portable ornament.

After closing and lying dormant for some years or decades, this hotel reopened as Flagler College, where 1600 undergrads study liberal arts, in the ‘60s. It boasts the largest collection of tiffany glass windows still in use (though protected by clear plexiglass where students might fall against them) and here is Lene seated on an original F. L. Wright chair, still in use in the student dining room, formerly the grand ballroom.

 

 The dome of the rotunda in the reception hall, and the chain fence; does it say “Keep out!” or what?

 We had an excellent Cuban dinner at Columbia Restaurant, now one of seven such, founded in 1905 and now owned by the fifth generation in the family and very proud of it. The wines on their wine list have stars, representing the number of generations that each winery has been owned by the same family.

 Another dinner was at a French place; Lene with bouillabaisse and me with a book shaped plate of lemon chicken and ratatouille.

 

The symmetrical, star shaped Castillo de San Marcos, run by the National Parks Service, was built by the Spanish and owned by the British for a while before flying the US flag, but, while attacked and besieged, was never taken. Its thick walls are made of coquilla, a stone consisting of small shells that have been naturally fused with limestone that has leached out of them and is a soft stone which cannon balls can dent but not crack.

We also saw a good production of Children Of A Lesser God, a play about deafness, at the Limelight theater, with some of the actors from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, located less than a mile away.

Fort Lauderdale

It almost feels like home. Our 88 mile trip across the Gulf Stream was uneventful with light wind and we motor-sailed among big harmless rollers, souvenirs of the recent big storm. The direction to Port Everglades was 307 degrees magnetic from Bimini but we steered about 275, almost due west and 32 degrees south of the direction we actually were traveling. The difference was the Gulf Stream, pushing us north of where we pointed the boat. In the old days a lot of math was needed to estimate what course to steer to get where you wanted to go; now the GPS does all this for us.

I noticed rectangles of grey ahead of us in the horizon from 25 miles out and they morphed into the skylines of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach at about 18 miles out, growing gradually larger and more distinct and thrilling. One sad reminder of the global recession was six big  laid off freighters anchored well off the beach, like this one.

 Here's the harbor entrance. Once in and hugging the right shore in anticipation of a north  (right) turn, this big guy was backing away from his pier toward us in anticipation of spinning counterclockwise and heading out.

 Next came the 17^th Street bridge, which, we read, is only 55 feet high, not high enough to pass under unless it is raised. I have marked on the charts “High” or “Low” by each bridge we will be passing; the low ones are those less than 65 feet high, like this one. We read that it opens every half hour starting on the hour. We got there at about 4:50 and by 5:02 we called on VHF channel 9. “Oh Captain”, said the bridge tender, who had obviously seen us waiting there, “you have to call me at five minutes before to ask me to raise the bridge; now you have to wait until 5:30.”  What is it with bridge tenders?

One can’t help but notice the immense wealth concentrated in this neighborhood of huge waterfront homes and private yachts.

This boat, “Seven Seas”, shown with and north of the 17^th street bridge, is almost as wide as we are long and the next photo shows a few of its crew of 26, one manning its own little tug, which will be hoisted aboard once they clear out of port.  This boat is owned by Steven Spielberg, so says Google, at a cost of only $200 million.

And the land and water here are full of such huge homes and boats, though seven seas was the largest we saw, comparable in size, but not amenities, to the USS Hammerberg DE 1015.

     Our only other problem in arriving was that the Helmswoman did not follow the Captain’s orders to hug the left side entering our anchorage, Lake Sylvia, from the north. And so we got stuck in the mud near low tide. But we were able to simply back off.

Until we motored out at the end of our stay, we left Lake Sylvia each day (except for one) by dink, via an east – west canal from its southwest corner under what was obviously too low a bridge for the boat. But we had not realized how low it was; we had to duck our heads into the dink to get under.

The first issue after arrival was checking into US Customs and Immigration. Come to think of it, I don’t think we ever properly checked out when leaving New York or Hampton VA, back in the fall of 2010!

The process for checking back in has been simplified, after we left. By filing an application and getting approved in a face to face interview (possibly for racial profiling purposes) before you leave, you are issued a number and by phoning in and giving them that number and your data, you get cleared by phone. But we had to do it the old fashioned way. I called and gave all info and was given an arrival number and I thought we were done. But NOOOOO! “Within 24 hours both of you must present yourselves with your passports to Homeland Security.” We were given the address and Mapquest showed a small canal at the south end of the harbor which led to that address. So next day, after the boat had been cleaned, we set off for the three mile dink ride and got most of the way before, half way down that canal, before we were stopped by the police:

“This a security area”

“Yes, but we only want to go to Customs which is down this way.”

“You’re not allowed. And I bet you don’t have life preservers and lights.”

“Yes we do”; and I opened the dinghy’s locker to show them.

“Where is your whistle?”

I whistled -- and they were not amused -- and they had guns.   Ilene did not think me funny!

So three miles back and we tied up the dink at the end of another very commercial canal at the Southport Raw Bar.

The Raw Bar permits you to park your dink there for the day for $10.00, redeemable for food and drink.  We took a cab to customs and got a ride back from others who had a rental car. Not the easiest process for citizens on US flagged vessels who are just trying to obey the law when returning to their homeland. At least in the Caribbean nations a cab ride was not needed.

What we did in Fort Lauderdale related to friends, family and shopping. There was a big Sea and Air Show during the weekend. And then it rained both days, though not so heavily on the Saturday. We had plans to hang out with Lene’s grade school friend, Janet, and her husband, Ed, who started to drive up from Miami on Saturday. And we had planned to go to and dock at a marina up the New River to make it easier for guests to board the boat than from the dink after a 15 minute dink ride. But we were warned that with the crowds of big boats in the area on this special airshow weekend, navigating up the river while others were coming down would be madness. So we cancelled the reservation and stayed in Lake Sylvia and it harmed no one because our friends couldn’t make it in the rain and traffic and had to cancel.

So we watched the airshow alone, though I was later invited to a 60 foot power boat with 15 folks aboard who had come for the day to watch the show. When we arrived and left the lake there were five boats in it, as compared to 20 during the weekend who came for the show. The show consisted of various acts including the Marines precision flying team, one each half hour, for four hours. The flying was mostly over a stretch of the beach, a bit north of us, interspersed by commercial air traffic taking off into the wind, headed east, from Fort Lauderdale International Airport to the south of us. One problem was the rain, and the clouds which partially obscured visibility. The eeriest moment was when a big fast bomber came up the beach from the south flying low and passed behind a big beachfront condo. With a post-9/11 sensitivity the airplane seemed to enter the building. A chilling half second. Also, we could not help but wonder about how many tax payer dollars were spent on this flying -- expenditures supported by every administration, Republican and Democratic, since the birth of military aviation.

      We enjoyed the company and help of the family of Lene’s cousin, Naomi, and her sons, Alan and Jeff and Jeff’s wife Stacy. The only member of this family who was missing was Carly, away at school. We had planned to see the airshow with them aboard on Sunday but the show was canceled due to the weather. So we packed the picnic and dry clothes into a waterproof bag, bailed and pumped water out of the dink which was four inches high above the sole, dinked in to the Raw Bar and were driven to Naomi's home. This is such a close and loving family and we all enjoyed reminiscing among photos of family, many of whom are no longer with us. I regret that we did not take photos.

        We also met up again with Audrey and Mike, who we had met in Grenada in the spring and fall of last year and again up in Bequia.

They had stored their boat in St. Georges, Grenada for a year in anticipation of Mike’s serving as captain of a 70 foot long and 35 foot wide, brand-new catamaran. The boat had been built in Gdansk, Poland, at a cost of several million dollars for its owners and was equipped with "everything". The plan was to sail her from Florida, to Grenada where Mike's kids would visit for two weeks, and then, via the Panama Canal, to Tahiti and then to Hawaii. The boat had been shipped from Europe to Florida as freight (at a cost of $125,000!) and upon arrival, US customs determined that its two (one in each hull) 230 horsepower Yanmar diesels (the same brand as in ILENE), did not meet current US environmental regulations and had to be replaced, at extravagant cost. The delays were so long and unnerving that Mike and Audrey’s plans were involuntarily changed. The owner decided to ship the boat to Hawaii and paid off Mike after a few more days of work, so they are soon heading back to Grenada to resume their lives and chartering business.

         The last Florida friend we met was Al, a former Harlem Yacht Club member and a veteran of several Around Long Island Regattas.

We have enjoyed two sails from City Island to Atlantic City aboard his 55 foot Pearson Ketch, “Mr. B”.  Al had a severe motor cycle accident and he and his wife, Miriam, sold their business and their boats, retired and moved to the Fort Lauderdale  area partly also to take care of Miriam’s brother. They are both active in FAST, an organization that helps Florida amputees. It was FAST business that kept Miriam from us. Al is also a volunteer sailing instructor for Shake A Leg Foundation, an organization that takes disabled people and their families out sailing. He sails about 2 – 3 times a week.

       Our other South Florida activity (we also saw our first movie in six months with Audrey and Mike) was shopping. Both cousin Alan and Captain Mike took us to West Marine and between them they also took us to a pet store, a wine store a Verizon store, Starbucks, a supermarket, another marine store which had a hinge for our refrigerator door which had broken, and took Lene to T.J. Maxx. We had three cases of the kitties brand of cat food delivered to the Raw Bar and a professional geek came there to undo the special settings placed in the computer in Bimini which permitted us internet access there, but prevented us from getting it anywhere else.

I did a lot of charting, figuring out from the advice given us by Dick and Elle, of  "Summer Wind", back in City Island last  summer, four convenient and interesting stops between Fort Lauderdale and St. Augustine, which they had recommended. But in the end, Admiral Lene decided, why not make it in one 260 mile hop, which we did.

In this photo, in the upper right, you can see the damage done to the new screen in the café doors by the inmates behind them.

Posted from St. Augustine.

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.

i

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.  

Our Last Three Bahamas

Out of the Exumas, but still in the Bahamas, for three more hops. Our 36 mile passage from Highbourne Cay to Nassau was across the bank at about 7 knots with single reefed main and small jib. It was a pleasant journey except for the scary part – crossing The Yellow Bank, which is studded with black coral heads. The bank, but not the heads, is marked on the chart. We crossed about noon, on a sunny day and heeled about 15 degrees, which raised our pendulous keel, which was all for the good. But the tide was low, which was not so good, with depths of as little as twelve feet. So a coral head only six feet high could be a problem for us. Lene donned life preserver with harness and was tethered before the mast as lookout for the hour of The Yellow Bank crossing. I told her that with the wind direction we had, we could easily change course as much as 45 degrees to either side to dodge the heads, but we never had to change beyond 20 degrees. When we had safely crossed I gave her a kiss of gratitude and thanks; I have so much to be thankful for, especially for Lene. The rest of the passage was uneventful and easy.

Nassau Harbor could be called Paradise Island Sound. It is the channel between the north side of the large New Providence Island, on which the city is located, and Paradise Island, to the north. Here are the bridges from the mainland on the left to the island.

We checked into the Nassau Harbor Club Marina, but not before gaining permission from Nassau Harbor Control, which wanted our US registration number, length, draft, former port and next port – as if they were a local “customs” authority, though they did it all by VHF and orally. We were tied with four lines port side to a wooden finger dock extending from a concrete pier and with two more lines to starboard, one at the bow to a piling of the concrete pier and the other to a piling by the starboard quarter.

Our first stop was at Starbucks; Lene had a craving and, after all, it was the first Starbucks we’ve seen in more than 6 months! Then it was off to buy a replacement charger cord for the local cell phone and the big, well stocked supermarket. These were at the end of a much longer walk that I had thought it would be. A passing taxi driver, Elman, stopped and gave us good directions. Elman was waiting for us outside the supermarket and drove us and our $250 of food and beverages back to the marina. Elman also recommended East Villa, a Chinese restaurant which was less than a quarter of a mile walk from the marina, after we had unpacked and stowed our food. It turns out they cooked very fine Chinese food, as good as in New York, and served by a pair of classically trained native waiters, each with two spoons after the heavy metal lid to keep food hot was removed with the other hand from the serving bowl, and with both of us served simultaneously. My late Dad was a waiter by profession so I know fine service (which is so rare these days) when I see it. I told the management and the wait staff how much we enjoyed every aspect of our meal.

        Nassau is a destination with five leviathans tied up parallel to each other where this lone one was as we exited.

It has numerous resorts, restaurants, casinos, historic sites, beaches, snorkel and dive trips, a museum, an aquarium and other tourist attractions.

But on our lay day there we regrettably took advantage of none of these. Instead we took advantage of unlimited fresh water for $8 per day and thoroughly scrubbed down ILENE’s topsides and freeboard (waterline up to deck), removed rust and waxed some of the stainless, cleaned the interior and did the laundry. The only excitement came when a fender hanging aside the boat fell off. In leaning further and further over to retrieve it (successfully), eventually I fell in. Luckily I had no electronics in my pockets and was able to use another boat’s swim platform to get back up from the water. Dinner included pasta Bolognese, but the ground beef smelled questionable and was discarded (the first food that we have lost to spoilage on this trip) permitting a new innovation: chopped kosher beef knockwursts in the Bolognese sauce.

      During our 6.5 hour, 39 mile passage from Nassau to Chub Cay, the wind was too light to sail without the motor, except for two hours in the middle. It was a leisurely passage in the Northwest Channel, over the deep ocean, with no concern about not getting in before dark. Chub Cay is the most southwesterly of the Berry Island group and has a very nice marina shown on the chart. We did not stay there, however. For one thing the $3.50 per foot price for the night was undesirable. Also, a relatively calm night was predicted. Finally we wanted to leave before daybreak the next day and exiting the narrow channel from the marina in the almost moonless night would have been hazardous. The principal place for anchoring which was deep enough for us was in a piece of water NW of the channel  that ran NE from the sea to the marina. That was where I had planned to anchor. But the winds were from the SE and nothing blocked the small to moderate ocean rollers rolling through that area. Also, when coming in we saw two boats anchored just SE of the channel. We nosed in there slowly because the chart indicated not enough water and anchored next to them, but not too close, with 60 feet of snubbed chain in 10 feet of water, which would be 8 feet at low tide. There, we were moderately protected, subject to surge, from the ocean waves, by a rock peninsula jutting out to the SW of Chub Cay. There we stayed for 13 hours. And sadly, that is as close as we came to Chub Cay or the Berrys. Alphie is not sufficiently awed by the sunset.

Next morning the alarm clock woke us and after our first coffee we got underway a few minutes after 5 am, under motor, Lene at the helm, heading between the faint red and green blinking channel entrance markers for the start of a terrific 88 mile run to Alice Town, North Bimini.  With the apparent wind at 10 to 15 knots from 90 to 120 degrees off our port bow, our speed over ground was invariably more than half of our apparent wind speed. Except for the first 12 miles to the NW end of the Northwest Channel and the final five miles out in the Atlantic after rounding North Rock, north of the north end of North Bimini (try saying that fast!), it was all bank sailing, all under genoa and single reefed main and our average speed overall for the day was 7.3 knots. The route was marked by a few pillars marking off shallow spots and several big power boats passed us going our way or the other way. Once we rounded North Rock, we came close hauled and had our first taste of the adverse current of the Gulf Stream. This was slow going and so we turned on the engine. And when we did, and were heeled, our chart plotter lost its fix again. But here line of sight navigation seemed easy with the charts. The only problem was that our 2008 chart showed the channel as it existed then: a straight line through the red and green buoys and NE to midway between North and South Bimini islands. We took this course, scraping the bottom of our keel in the sand for a few feet. But we did not go onto these reefs, which were easily visible at low tide.

It seems that a new channel has been created since our chart was drawn, a sweeping curve, first east and then north. But we got in, and our experiences in Bimini, our last stop before reentering the USA, will be the subject of the next post.

Posted from Ft. Lauderdale.