Another Bahamian Adventure Begins: Getting There

 Another year of the winds coming from the wrong direction. On Thursday, May 4th, northerly windws were still blowing, but predicted to be down to about 7-9 by Saturday, so our threesome of buddy boats, Wind Dancer, Sand Castle, and Serendipity,  slogged through jerky seas and anchored in the shelter of Boot Key. Paul and Kitty on Serendipity chose to enter Marathon and grab a mooring ball. They discovered a fuel line leak which would delay them for 4 days.....and then there were two.

Sand Castle and Wind Dancer entered Bimini otwo days later, motoring all the way in light winds. The channel was much closer to the shore than we remembered, going down to just 7 feet. Bimini is a funny place, lots of marinas, but no one monitoring the radio. We called all the places we were familiar with from last year, but no answer. Brown's marina, however, had people on the docks shouting as we passed, "$1.50 a foot! Those other people aren't listening. Come see us" We were pleasantly surprised to find new rub rails on the slips and newly repaired docks. The bathrooms were poor, but the staff was enthusiastic and there was free wifi.

We opted for dinner at The Big Game Club and weren't disappointed with fantastic calamari, burgers, and Bimini's full moon rising before us.

Nature put on a show for us the following evening as we anchored on the banks in glassy waters with dusk fading the blue of the sky into the blue of the sea.

On to the Berry Islands, motoring still, we spent a second year at the Berry Islands Club mooring. We had enterd Chub Key, just around the corner to refuel first.  Berry Islands Club doesn't answer their radio either, sailors are expected to dinghy in an dpay at the bar, which we did.

On to West Bay on New Providence Island, a beautiful anchorage with a nice public beach ashore and high end estates lining two thirds of the shore.