Finally! We snuck across today. It was kinda spooky, but we made it to Bimini.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with the challenge of trying to cross the Gulf Stream from Florida to the Bahamas, this is not something to be taken lightly. It’s only 50 miles from Miami to the closest Bahamian island of Bimini. However, fifty miles in a sailboat takes 10 hours (5 knots per hour in Summer Breeze is turnpike speed), and the Gulf Steam is a 900-foot deep, 25-mile wide “river” that is pinched between the coast of Florida and the Grand Bahama Bank. It flows at up to 5 knots northward in the middle of that fifty mile stretch. This is akin to putting a class five rapid in the ocean. You do the math, if you have a problem in the Gulf Stream, the Coast Guard may be looking for you in Greenland before you have time to say “opps.” That may be a slight exaggeration, but the danger of the extreme wave conditions in this stretch cannot be over-emphasized. The basic premise of crossing is to never get caught in the Stream when the wind has a “north” contingent in it, i.e. northwest, north, or northeast. If you do get caught, the winds are running directly against the northerly current, so the waves turn into huge, ugly square buildings that even make all of the tourists on the large Disney cruise ships barf. Been there, done that. Three winters ago we waited patiently in Miami for over 6 weeks for a crossing and finally gave up for that winter and hung out in the Keys instead. We’ve been stocked & ready for a crossing now for the past 4 ½ weeks. Sometimes, you just can’t go to the Bahamas in a sailboat. We were starting to wonder these past few weeks. Finally.
This crossing came courtesy of three back-to-back northers hitting Florida right now after dumping two feet of snow on our house in Durango. New Years Eve, today, was supposed to have benign 5-10 knot “west” winds and flat seas all day; that’s perfect for a downwind run out to Bimini. We were ready and waiting with about a dozen other sailboats in Biscayne Bay last night. Most were waiting until first light to navigate out through the meandering channels of Stiltsville into the deep water. This was old stomping grounds for us, so we got a jump on everybody in the pitch dark by quietly upping anchor at 3 a.m. and sneaking off by ourselves. We set our big genoa in a nice little 5 knot west breeze and 1-2 foot waves for a run to Bimini . . . perfect. By 6:30 a.m. we’d lost sight of Miami in the rearview mirror and the sun was starting to light up the horizon. We’re in a serious shipping lane now; we dodged one massive container ship. Boy, are they scarey. You’re never sure if they see you or not, and they’re hauling buns. They suddenly appear over the horizon and then they’re on top of you within 10 minutes. You can hail them as they close on you; we have, but they never respond to you . . . the night watch, if they actually have one, probably doesn’t speak English anyway.
So things are going well at sunrise. Seas are a little confused and lumpy, but tolerable. We’re still tied into the cockpit with docklines, always a precaution in the dark. Wait a minute! Why are we needing to jibe our genoa? Our nice west wind is shifting slowly to the northwest and it’s now blowing 15 knots; opps, that can’t be good, we’re only a third of the way there. The rising sun makes us feel a bit more relaxed, and we are flying along over larger rollers now. Unsure of what to expect wavewise now, and a little nervous, we keep going for it. By 9:00 a.m. we’ve got a big nasty squall line about 3 miles to the north of us and have spotted a couple of waterspouts coming down from it. According to NOAA, it’s heading eastward like us; we’re in our rain gear, getting dumped on occasionally . . . kinda pretty actually, lots of rainbows. Four hours to go and the waves aren’t really threatening; however, the wind has now clocked to straight out of the north at 15 knots. We held a high course south of the rhumbline so far, but the far side of the Gulf Stream is actually helping us now as we zero in on our Bimini landfall. We’re making 8 knots over ground with its assistance. That’s flying for us.
Rats, a big freakin’ oil tanker out of nowhere! He’s on us in minutes; better safe than sorry, we tack southward into the flow of the Stream taking evasive action to miss getting run over by the behemoth as he silently slides by within 200 yards. If we hadn’t turned parallel to his course, we may have ended up in the same piece of water at the same time in this big ocean. What are the odds? There seems to be plenty of space out here until you get near a ship. Wonder if he ever saw us? Can’t read the stern; it’s Arabic. Well, it’s good to know that OPEC is still feeding our addiction.
At 10:30 a.m. we get our first glimpse of Bimini on the horizon, and it looks great. By 1:00 p.m. we’ve jumped the unmarked sandbar/reef guarding Bimini harbor and are safely tied up in our little slip at Bimini Sands Marina. It’s time to visit the Customs office. My crew . . . ahem, “the Admiral”, has to stay on the boat. Only the captain is allowed ashore until we are cleared to drop our quarantine flag. Welcome to the Bahamas, mon!
FYI – from Bimini we have a two-day sail eastward out across the shallow Grand Bahama Bank. We won’t see land for two days until we hit the Berry Islands. They do have phones there, but I would be surprised to find wifi there so we’ll be out of contact for a while. See ya later.
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