On Wednesday, October 1, we drove from Ft. Lauderdale to Manatee County, Florida, where we spent the night with our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughters. We went to the home of Ken and Jackie Sosville, in Bradenton, on Thursday and picked up our friends, Ken and Jackie, then returned to Ft. Lauderdale in anticipation of taking off for the Bahamas in the morning. We left the First Performance Marina dock on Friday morning, moving just “around the corner” to the fuel dock at Lauderdale Marina to fill up, taking on 142.227 gallons of diesel fuel @ $4.48 per gallon. At approximately 7:30 a.m., we said goodbye to Ft. Lauderdale and headed out into the Atlantic with an anticipated destination of South Bimini Island in the Bahamas. When you enter Bahamian waters in a private vessel, you must purchase a cruising permit. The permit is good for one year and is renewable twice before you must take your vessel out of the Bahamas. It helps me keep track of our time by labeling the days in the Bahamas with a numbered code. Since this is our second trip over, I will start the count with BD2 and then the number so our first night spent in the Bahamas, October 3, 2014, will be BD2-0001.
BD2-0001– We arrived at the Bimini Sands Marina on South Bimini Island, Bahamas at approximately noon after a fairly smooth crossing. We could see the island when Rick said that we were still probably another hour away. Then we heard a spit and sputter and one engine quit working. Rick and Ken went below to check out the problem while I continued steering the boat toward land. We called the marina and told them that we were coming in on one engine and they said we could take any slip in the place except one. Since this was our first port of entry into the Bahamas, our Captain, Rick, had to take a cab to the airport with all of our passports, along with our boat documentation to the Customs and Immigration office to get us checked in with immigration and purchase a cruising permit for “On the Hook”. The rest of us decompressed while Rick was gone. When Rick returned from the Customs and Immigration Office, we had lunch and then Jackie and I went to the infinity pool while Rick and Ken worked on the engine problem. They were unable to solve the problem today, but have some ideas to explore tomorrow, so we will be staying in Bimini at least one more day. We all went to the pool and stayed for about an hour and then took the resort bus to the Sand Bar for supper. There is a tiki bar, called the Square Grouper, a restaurant, and a sports bar at the part of the resort known as the Beach Club. I can only guess that the Sand Bar got its name from the fact that it is a bar and it has a sand floor.
BD2-0002– On Saturday morning the guys got out the manual for the boat and tried to check everything they could to find a blockage in the fuel line. When we looked out of the marina to the open water, we saw lots of white caps, so we probably would not have left this morning anyway. They think that they got the fuel line problem fixed about 2:30 this afternoon, but they are not sure how they did it. But the weather continues to deteriorate. It looks like the wind will not die down enough for us to leave here until Tuesday morning. This delay will most likely cause us to change our route. We will have to skip Great Harbour and go to Chub instead. We watched both the Florida Gators and the Florida State Seminoles win their football games and ate supper on the boat before the storm clouds moved in making it impossible to watch TV for several hours. So, it was an early night for most of us.
BD2-0003– We decided to splurge by going to the resort’s little café here at the marina for breakfast on Sunday morning. We walked down the road to the Bimini Sands Nature Trail but only got to the first informational sign (about Poison Wood Trees). When we stopped to read the sign, we were swarmed by mosquitoes, so we turned around and walked back to the marina and went to the infinity pool for the rest of the afternoon.
We did get back to the boat in time to see the end of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game on TV. They did not win.
BD2-0004– On Monday, we walked down the road to the water taxi stand and went over to North Bimini Island. We walked through a graveyard and over to the beach then down the island, stopping at the Big Game Club. We met the new manager (who lived in Tallahassee for a while and went to FSU). He bought our first round of drinks and told us about lots of plans that they have for improving the Big Game Club and enticing folks with 30 to 40 ft. boats to leave their vessels there long-term. We had a good lunch over a couple of hours of time, then caught a cab to the World Resort Casino which is the old Bimini Bay Resort. The men sat at the bar while Jackie and I enjoyed a couple of hours playing penny slot machines (which was the denomination for the majority of their slot machines). I donated $20 to the casino, but Jackie brought back $10 of it! We had a lot of fun.
BD2-0005 – We fueled up at Bimini Sands Tuesday morning, paid our bill and were away from the dock about 7:45. At approximately 8:25, we decided that it was too rough to go to Chub, so we turned around and returned to Bimini Sands. Just after turning around, we saw lightning in the thunderstorm which was now ahead of us. We were tied up at the same dock again at 9:00 and at 9:05 it started raining. The rain finally quit just before noon, so we decided to have some lunch and go back over to the casino.
BD2-0006 – Before sunrise, we checked the weather for Bimini, Chub, and Nassau. If we get to the other side of Bimini and the seas are rough again today, we will turn around, but this time we plan to go to the Resort World Marina (where the casino is). We would not move the boat there for the casino (as none of us came out ahead yesterday), but we just discovered that they are an IGY marina. We joined IGY at one of the Ft. Lauderdale boat shows. Also, their dockage rates are less. Wherever we end up tonight, we’re afraid we will have to stay for about a week due to weather. We were trying to get a “sunrise” start, but just minutes after turning on the engines (while still at the dock) the generator went out, so Rick said that he had to change the filter on the generator before we could leave. We finally left the dock at approximately 9 AM. About 2:15, we passed by the entrance to Chub Cay Resort having decided to push on to Nassau today. As we continued on, the seas got a little rougher, but we cleared Nassau Harbour Control and were tied up along the wall at the Atlantis Resort Marina by 5:00 p.m. Rick hired a young man to detail the boat. Shervin will be here in the morning.
BD2-0007 – The four of us spent the day on Thursday at the Atlantis Resort’s water park. We floated through the one-mile long current (that has occasional rapids) and slid down a few water slides as well as relaxing on lounge chairs by the pool listening to music and sipping on cold drinks. As the day went on, the wind increased. This did not make any difference for what we were doing, but it confirmed our suspicions that we were going to have to stay here longer than the two nights that we had originally anticipated.
BD2-0008 – Friday morning’s forecast in Nassau said the wind was blowing northeast to east at 15 to 20 knots. (Rick told me to multiply the knots times 1.1 to get miles per hour.) And, the seas were 4 to 6 feet with small craft advisories. We purchased 24 hours of Wi-Fi for $21.95 and checked several internet sources for weather. Looks like we might have a chance to leave here on Sunday (15 mph winds with 2 foot seas) or we will have to wait until Wednesday until everything calms down. We are completely enclosed by land and buildings where we are now, but we are paying $4.50 per foot for dockage. Still, we will not leave until we are absolutely sure that it is safe. We caught a cab to the Fresh Market for groceries and went to the other side of the shopping center for liquor. Mid-afternoon, we went to the water park where Ken and Rick slid down the water slide called the Temple of Doom which actually goes through a tank full of sharks. I have pasted two pictures together so you can see both of them in their glory! Ken is on the left and Rick is on the right (the sharks are in front!).
BD2-0009 – The first thing Rick and Ken did on Saturday morning was work on the hot water heater. Once again, they don’t know what they did, but we have hot water again – yea! The boat detailer told us that he anticipated being done by noon today, so Rick and I stayed on the boat while Ken and Jackie went on a “walk-about” exploring more shops across the street from the marina. We watched FSU win its football game which started at noon. At halftime, we walked up to the marina marketplace and had hamburgers at the Johnny Rocket’s where the least expensive hamburger was $12.95. When the football game was over, we walked over to the casino where we all contributed to the resort (and hopefully, in some way, to the Bahamas’ well-being.) We returned to the boat in time to see the start of the Florida Gators’ 7:30 football game against LSU.
BD2-0010 – The weather took priority for us Sunday morning. We really hoped that the wind would die down enough for us to leave. While Jackie and I did some cleaning, the guys went to the Quizno’s, which is very close to the boat, to use their free Wi-Fi on Ken’s phone to get a more detailed weather report than what we got from the dockmaster’s office. Well, it looks like we are staying here until Wednesday when the wind and wave conditions sound like they will be perfect for us to leave here and go all the way down to Compass Cay. We left the boat about noon and walked all the way through the Atlantis Complex to the east. We then walked down the street about two blocks to find Viola’s Bar and Grille at the Sunset Beach Resort. Our mission was to find a place to watch the Tampa Bay Buc’s game which started at 1:00. We each ordered a beer and an appetizer and watched the game on their “bigger than our screen” TV. It was 35 to 0 by the end of the first quarter, so we decided to move on to something else at the end of the first half. Ken and Jackie returned to the boat while Rick and I went to the water park for one ride along the “Current” water rapids float ride. When we returned to the boat, we were surprised to find Loan Rolle and his friend visiting with Ken and Jackie. Loan was recently elected as a government representative and he has been in Nassau attending their version of our annual hurricane conference. The couple had been walking up to Atlantis for a late lunch when he saw our boat. After lunch, he decided to stop by to see if we were on it and met Ken and Jackie. He said “seeing was believing” and now he knew for sure that we would soon be back at Compass Cay. Then he started planning our return “pot luck” supper which may be as soon as Thursday, this week. We said goodbye to them around 8:30 and then went up to Johnny Rockets for a late supper.
BD2-0011 – Today, Monday, October 13, 2014, is our 42nd wedding anniversary. We tried to get reservations at the Montague Gardens Restaurant for supper tonight, but they did not answer their phone. Today is also a Bahamian Holiday. They used to call it Discovery Day, but now they call it Heroes Day. It is also known as Columbus Day in the United States. We went to the water park for a few hours then returned to the boat and relaxed. Rick made arrangements, through Loan, for us to go to supper at the Mahogany Restaurant in Lyford Cay. The food and company was terrific and we really enjoyed our special day.
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BD2-0012 – Every morning while here at Atlantis, the first thing we do is look across the marina basin at the Bahamian flag. As you can see in the picture below, it is standing straight out. But the winds are still predicted to subside tomorrow, Wednesday.
We did a little shopping and then spent the rest of the afternoon at the water park enjoying ourselves. We came back to the boat about 6:00 to find that the power in our section of the marina had been off for several hours and our batteries were running low. Because we didn’t want to use too much power, we decided to go out to eat again tonight. We walked across the street from the marina and had a nice supper at Anthony’s. We hope to leave here around 9 a.m. tomorrow.
BD2-0013 – On Wednesday, October 15, we left Atlantis around 8:30 am and moved a short distance to the Hurricane Hole fuel dock which is between the two bridges. After putting 227.5 gallons of diesel fuel in the boat ($4.99 per gallon) we set off out the eastern entrance to Nassau Harbour clearing at 9:15 a.m. At 2:00 in the afternoon, we were welcomed home again to Compass Cay by Jamaal Rolle. There were only two vessels at the docks when we arrived, Invicta (owned by the watch company) and Serqué. Both are over 100 feet long and we have seen both of them here before. When Jamaal helped tie us up to the dock he told us that Invicta was leaving right away and the captain on Serqué told us that the “boss” was flying out on Friday morning, so they would be leaving later that day. We spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting on the dock watching the sharks. Rick and I were amazed to find the tomato plant that we left here last February was now as tall and me and had a number of blooms on it. Jackie and I walked up to the wash house to look at the garden that Gail planted last winter. Most everything has died, but there are a few containers around the garden that still have some things. Two of my containers were there and still had some basil, green onion and chives. Rick talked to Jamaal about the possibility of getting some seafood and all of us having a pot luck supper tomorrow. He agreed and the owner and crew from Serqué were invited to join us.
BD2-0014 – Thursday morning, Rick off-loaded the dinghy while Ken and Jackie walked around the area of the marina that is known as “Tucker’s Aquarium” looking at all of the tropical fish.
- Ken and Jackie on the dock
BD2-0015 – Friday morning, we set off to the South Cliff Walk and the Bat Cave. We walked by the Lilly House where they have been constructing a new concrete drive and then down to the Low Tide Airport. We walked along the Low Tide Airport area until we came to the east end of the South Cliff Walk (which is near the bat cave.) I sat on a log on the beach while Rick, Ken and Jackie walked over one more hill to get to the bat cave. Unfortunately, a hurricane which was supposed to hit Bermuda today has sent very large waves throughout the Atlantic and the waves kept them getting close to the cave. When they returned to retrieve me from my log, we all continued along Crescent Beach and then back to the marina where we each enjoyed a “world famous Tucker burger”.
While we were eating, we talked to David, the owner of Staniel Cay Yacht Club. He noticed our FSU tumblers and told us that they were going to be watching the FSU vs Notre Dame game tomorrow evening at the club. We told him that we would try to be there. Then we were off to Rachel’s Bubble Bath. Rick and I have never seen it so rough there.
In fact, we didn’t stay long because it was just too rough to be able to enjoy the water. When we returned to the marina, Serqué had left so we were the only boat in the marina and we got a clear view of the glorious sunset.
BD2-0016 – At 7:30 Saturday morning, we left Compass Cay in one of Tucker’s boats heading to Staniel Cay with Ken and Jackie as well as Trevon, one of Tucker’s grandsons. Trevon has been on the island helping out for the past few days and is now returning to Nassau via Flamingo Air. Sadly, Ken’s vacation time is over and he and Jackie are returning to Bradenton and his job with the City of Sarasota. But, we are already looking forward to their return on December 27 to spend the New Year holiday with us here.
Our journey has been inspired by Joy and Steve Fredrick. You can see more of their story at