Bimini!

Day #30: From midnight to well after 0800 we stayed on the known coral-head-free path but at the expense of being fully exposed to 18kt wind driven beam seas. The advantage to the banks' shallow waters is the waves can't get too big. The vindictive little waves overcome this perceived shortcoming by simply packing closer together and slapping the hell out of the hull. The resulting motion is uncomfortable in small doses and becomes really irritating after 8 hours. It was a joyous moment when we changed course and ran with the waves to Bimini.

A recurring theme during this trip has been the large currents. Not to be left out Bimini harbor welcomed us with a 2 knot push of its own. Docking a single screw boat with an anemic bowthruster in a big current and big wind is best left to the well insured. JR, the dock master at the Blue Water Resort, must have thought the only English I spoke was "What else have you got?" after I kept rejecting one slip after another. He's a good salesman though and almost had me believing I was capable enough to dodge the $1M boat at the head of the dock while fighting both a cross current and wind to get into a slip well down fairway. Fortunately, my poor English "What else have you got?" and the departure of an end-tie boat got Nellie a premo spot. Land, or it's wood cousin the dock, never felt so good.

Here we will sit until the Gulf Stream settles down enough to assure us a dry deck crossing. Curiously my auto spell checker just changed 'dry deck crossing' to 'expect tossing'! Hmm, is it commenting on my proclivity to feed the fish while predicting the future too? 68nm today to get us to Bimini and 671nm into the journey. DBH