The Crossing

Kinja's motor is finally fixed - she purrs like a kitten and we are ready to cross to the Bahamas.  We are looking for that decent weather window -- we wait -- and we wait.  It is not the distance that makes the crossing difficult, it is only 47 miles from Miami to Bimini.  It is the Gulf Stream that flows northward along the coast of Florida at 3-3.5 knots that one has to worry about.  When the winds blow out of the north, north-east or north-west it collides with the Gulf Stream current and can create huge sea and very dangerous conditions and a very long passage.  The winds have been coming out of the north at 20 plus knots.....so we wait.

While waiting we came across a service on the web called Commanders Weather.  These guys provide weather routing for sailboats all over the world to help them avoid dangerous seas and make passages as fast as possible... and as safe as possible.  So we asked them for their advice.  The guy who advised us was Ken. He was also providing advice to several sailors in different races around the world.  So what was his advice?  You have a one day weather window on Tuesday March 9th that looks reasonable. Sounded good to us.  But instead of crossing straight over from Miami he wanted us to sail 20 miles south and then turn east to make the crossing.  That makes the trip about 67 miles.  Without going into too much detail, he wanted us to take this route because the wind was out of the east and if we left directly from Miami we would be heading right into the wind.  We would have to motor the whole way and fight the current of the Gulf Stream (which would slow us to 4 knots) and it would be a very rough ride.   Taking his recommended route meant we could sail all the way (at 7-8k knots) and have a much smoother ride.  Even though it would be a longer distance it would take the same time as the other direct route.  So we took Ken's advice and left Miami at sunrise....

Ken was indeed right...we had a great crossing sailing all the way at 8-9 knots.  

We made landfall at North Bimini Island about 2:30pm and headed for the Bimini Bay Marina.  On our way in we hoisted our yellow quarantine flag signaling that we were coming from another county and had not yet cleared customs.   Once tied up, we jumped into our dingy and motored down to the government dock to process through customs and immigration. No problem there except paying our $300 to enter the country!  Once we cleared customs we raised the Bahamian flag.

Bimini Bay Marina is not bad :)      The water is amazing......