We got up this AM and took our boat back over to Cat Cay to get some relief from the weather. It was much better. We plan to leave the islands here at around midnight. Steve and I spent the day slugging while our friends went in to Cat Cay. We enjoyed the sun today watched a movie and had spaghetti with garlic bread for supper. We went in to CC with our friend Dan so we could walk the little bit of island that they allow you too. It is beautiful the sparkling sand and the waves crashing against the beach and rocks. We saw the really fast cruiser that passed us on the ocean several days back. The captain was at the tiki bar with us. Norman was the bartender from Nassau Bahamas. They had a restaurant there you could eat at also. We got back to the boat and started out but Steve and I decided to stay a few more days in Bimini. Dan and Ally went on across the Bahama Banks, they are great people and I hope to see them again somewhere down the islands. So Steve and I anchored out and waited for sunrise. 🙂

Day 112 2013 Monday

Good morning everyone.  Got up this AM with a bagel and water called our friends to see what was on the agenda for today. We are all going in to Bimini with our friends on their dinghy because its 8 miles and ours is only 2 hp to their 30 hp. The waves were bouncing us up and down just like going really fast on a four wheeler through the mountains. Waves crashed over the bow again and again, but the water is so  clean and the color is an azure blue, you really can’t describe it its so beautiful. We can look down and see the bottom no matter where we are. It took a little while to get there from Gun Cay and we finally got to the wall where we tied off to a bush with the other dinghys and took off walking into town. Well after scaling the wall and pulling ourselves up by limbs. The first look at Bimini was so great. I love older towns with plain people and I found it. There was a monument to war veterans in WWI and plaques dedicated to the people who helped the people on the island and helped with advancement of the island. Looking down the narrow dirt street we saw old buildings some closed some open for business. The first sign we saw was Burger Queen home of the little whopper J. Advancing down the street was a hand painted sign that said Library, and beside it was a little Bakery. We headed to the general store to buy a Bahamas courtesy flag which we have to fly on boat while in the Bahamas. The store was small, just like the Garage in our small town when I was a kid. She had books on Bimini some essential products and I loved the little store. The craft bizarre on up the street was actually imported products for sale. I did not get to go in all of them. We met so many friendly people walking down the street. One tall smiling gentleman said hello and he asked where we were from, he told us he had the blue building just up the road and we asked what he sold and he proceeded to take us there even though he was walking in the other direction at first. He took us to his bar restaurant which was beside the “End Of The World Bar” (which was not open yet). We walked into a neat building with some tile on the floor, a drum set in the far righthand corner, a few scattered tables, a smaller room with 2-3 tables and a few gentleman sitting there. We walked straight in towards the bar took a right then a left and walked through the smaller room out to the deck. I love this place the boards on the deck are old and some of them bow and even on is missing. I looked through and saw a ton of empty conch shells. The owner Erin showed us his pen where he kept his conch for cooking. We sat down at an outside bar and talked turned to how to cook conch and Erin stated he could cook us some conch and lobster and it would be wonderful. SOOO as he took a claw hammer and proceeded to bust open the conch shell Steve was immediately captivated. Needless to say Steve ended up cleaning about 10 conch for our lunch. Ally was having a great time and so was Dan. Erin set out straw mats and wooden trays divided in three section for us. We told him we were going to walk around and come back for lunch. So Steve and Ally and I went to find the old hotel/resort that my friends Carla and Tony had told us about. She said it was grown up then and did not know what it would be like now. W walked to the end of the island and found the graveyard and met a girl on a bike named Kelly that lived in the last remaining unit of that hotel. It was the only one saved after the fire destroyed the rest years and years ago. She had two black lab mix pups that were like Ferrel cats and were skittish of us. She had found them in the bushes and was looking for them a home. She told us that the swimming pool part of the old place was down a grown up path (almost) and to the left. We walked down the path and saw some beautiful staircases. We saw a marlin tiled into a wall and right after that two sets of stairs one to the left and one to the right. I guess the pool was gone now there was black water in several different places that looked like old rooms of some sort under I guess what was a pool very hard to tell from the rubble. The staircases and outer walls seemed to be the only thing intact. We walked up the stairs dodging the hundreds of crabs on the leaf covered steps and vine-covered as well. We pushed our way through pushing limbs out of our way and came up to the dilapidated floor. I could look down and see black water and walked over and saw fallen walls and tiled walls that used to be bathrooms and shower rooms. Kelly said(before we walked down there) be careful a man fell through a while back and it took 2 hours to get him out! It was scary but it had been there since  the 1930s or late 1920s. I loved it! We walked back around to the other side of the island and found an old ship hull of metal and watched the waves gather speed and slam themselves against the jagged rocks sending towers of sparkling waves into the air. The sand is so pretty and clean and the island is so neat. We walked by a house that seemed abandoned with a swimming pool out back of it. Steve and I could move right in. This island used to be a hub of wealthy fisherman and Ernest Hemingway was there also. There are many important people of status I read about in the Bimini book that came to Bimini and stayed for long periods of time. Some died there. We walked by a little lake and back to the bar. Erin was there and he was cooking on a hot plate, on an old wooden table. There was a grill on the table and several utensils for cooking. I fell in love with this place, he was running extension chords from outlets by the bar to the cooking area. I found out that they used to kill hogs every Saturday and it was a big event! Then they would cook them in the ground and have pork BBQ! When I said my family did that when I was little they really lit up. It’s a small world really. NO strict regulations preventing him from cooking the way he wanted and no health inspectors to close him down. I did not want to leave. In America we have too many regulations and too many authorities to make money off everything we do and have. It makes you feel like an adult here not a child that has to be monitored 24-7. Like back home. Erin served us in grand style 2 lobster tails apiece and a ton of conch served with a perfectly baked potato on an old wooden bar with high benches and very friendly service. It was a party for us. No sparkling white napkins no snotty waitress no assholes to deal with just good food and good people. Thank goodness the tourists all go somewhere else, hehehe. I may not go back home. J We ate a great meal walked back through the town down that narrow dirt road. Ally and I went in the bakery but we were too late they cook only once a day and it was almost gone. We went into the store to buy a shirt but they did not have our size and color. We walked back to the dinghy past the small school and all the neat stores and headed to the dinghy. A native at the resturaunt Casin told us of a short cut to get to the wreck of the Supona across a shallow inlet. We started across the inlet and the water got shallower and shallower,  Alley and I got out and pulled the boat across one thin spot and then Steve got out with us when we encountered more shallow spots, pretty soon we were walking ankle-deep water. We all started walking to find out where the deepest part was but when we saw the seagull standing in the water about 50 yards away and a crane over to our right standing in water we knew we were SOL. The tide had gone out on us fast and we were almost aground in 6 inches of water. We pulled the dinghy back into at least knee-high water and tried to motor out. We did have to pull it over a couple areas of turtle grass but was finally out. An hour or so later J. We pulled up to the back of Erins place and got some waters and headed out to the wreck of the Sapona (not by way of shortcut). Well Dan said it would be rough going back in through the sea but I don’t think we were expecting this rough, lol. You couldn’t see in front of the dinghy for waves and water splashing into your eyes constantly (saltwater in your eyes is bad). I felt bad for Dan with the water continuously going into his eyes, the rest of us could turn around or close our eyes. To maybe some relief due to the fact water was continuously dripping down our faces from drenched hair. We decided maybe it was not good to go snorkeling at the wreck since the waves were choppy and white capping and we are in the Atlantic Ocean 8 miles from our boat with a small craft advisory in effect. We held on had a wild ride(like riding a bull for an hour or two lol) finally made it back to the boats only to discover our boat had decided it did not like its anchorage and had moved back about 80 yards on her own! Just cant find a boat that will listen to orders anymore. Lolol. We got back on her climbing on like drowned rats dripping water like a stuck open faucet! And don’t think we didn’t enjoy it, the adventure and the adrenaline rushes are so awesome. And we had great company to be with all day. Well I pulled up anchor and we motored back to another spot. Finally showered and dry we started to go to sleep when I heard Steve in “that” tone of voice say, “she moved we have to anchor up and move again”. So we anchored her out for the third time and waited to see if she slipped again. Luckily she did not even though the winds howled and blew us around like a balloon tied to a string. She held tight but Steve did not get any sleep due to the fact that he stayed up all night long on anchor watch. He is a great captain. Finally at dawn we all anchored up and moved to a better sheltered area of the islands, over at Cat Cay.

Night sail to the Bahamas.. We got out early pulled anchor and battoned down the hatches for our sail. It was nice weather and i was excited to see Miami go. Our sail was very good the stars were shining and we were excited to take off. We had dinner with Dan and Ally watched the “worlds fastest indian” movie and headed back to boat to take off. Steve let me sleep a bit and i came out to help him when he needed it because we had both sails out and the wind was pushing us to the islands :-). It was calm water and a great sail, i was happy i know that. The gulf stream can be a beast if you go at the wrong time. The water was so beautiful as we begin to make our way closer to the islands, we could see Gun Cay and Cat Cay(pronounced cat key). The breakwaters in the inlet rocked us like a ball rolling back and forth but once on the other side it was calm. I could see through the water all the way to the bottom. We motored the boat into CC and Steve and Dan went in to register us and make us legal in the Bahamas. Well Cat Cay is a private island and very very exclusive, they wanted 100 dollars just to tie up while we registered. We couldnt ride the dinghy in to register you had to sail boat in. NOT! We went to gun key and anchored out (the key next to CC), i dropped the anchor and Steve got ready to go to Bimini (about 8 miles away by dinghy). The dinghy is faster than the sailboat so it is easier to do that. I put on my bathing suit and got into the water (soooo clear), Steve threw me a snorkel and mask and I headed to the shore snorkeling all the way. It was about i guess 75-100 ft away and saw 2 barracuda and one pretty parrot fish. It watched me as i swam above him and turned to continue watching me as i swam, but the barracudas watched and one swam away and the other followed me for about 20 feet swimming behind and around me. Surprisingly i wasnt nervous, he was just curious and finally swam away. What i did not remember was to take off my shiny silver necklace which they like i guess he thought i was too big to fool with he was only 3-4 foot long. I took off all my jewelry when i got to the boat after Steve said, “maybe it was the big shiny necklace you had on”. I was told later that a nurse shark was there but i did not get to see it. They are very docile. It is the bull sharks that are here and they are aggressive. I got to the shore and did not believe the whole beach was covered in live conch (pronounced konk). They are eaten a lot here i will have to try it. I saw all kinds of snails living on rocks and the sand was lovely. I found an empty small conch shell and got ready to swim back to the boat. By this time Steve and Dan had been gone so i looked back over the water and hoped no sharks were near. 🙂 I swam/snorkeled back to the boat did not see any more fish just underwater conch, climbed back on to the boat and got dry. I am loving this! The clear water with the sun bouncing in beautiful glittery spots off the crystal clear azure blue sea green water. Steve cam back and we hung out on boat watching the water and just enjoying the view. It took 3 hours to get all our legal stuff taken care of. I cooked some tacos and we sat outside and enjoyed the view. Steve fell asleep due to the fact he had been awake all night, I did relieve him but only for about 3 hours and he lay beside the helm on the cushion in case he was needed. He is a great man and a great captain. Everyone we meet here loves to talk to us.We were going to have a bonfire on the beach but Steve was so exhausted i let him sleep he slept all night. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

CAPTAINS LOG: The breakwaters are a raging sea but you can maneuver them with patience and skill. You have to go through a little rough to get to the reward of calmer water.

OK here we go, i put up some pictures of us in Miami and i hope everyone likes them. We are getting ready to leave for the Bahamas tomorrow sometime so i dont know if i can post in the Bahamas or not. We were told that you can buy a card for internet and cheap phones too. I have to have my phone cut off i have heard horror stories about Verizon , ATT and other phone companies charging unreal amounts for incoming calls and texts. So the phone is off until i get back. JJ is going to come by and pick us up later and take us to the store and bring us a package from home. Meanwhile we are going to get gas and water from the dock close to us. They charge a dollar a gallon for water at this joint. I can understand the keys due to fresh water storage but not Miami. Steve took off in the dinghy with Dan to get gas water etc. I dinghied over to see Ally for a few minutes.while they were gone. I dropped my water bottle in water and had to get in dinghy and go retrieve it. I later dropped a gallon jug in water but we took too long to find key for boat and it was too dark to retrieve it. JJ arrived around 4 and we took off for Wal Mart little did we know how far it was and how BAD traffic was going to be it took us about an hour to go 6 miles. We finally made it to Wally world and got our supplies and had to wait while the credit card company had to reset card due to the security that puts it on hold every time we go shopping almost. We called and notified them of our movements weeks ago but still have to call due to card being denied. I love the security but it can be frustrating at times. Back to the truck then a search for diesel  to fill our tanks. JJ was a trooper and i hope he knows how much we really appreciated his help. I learned not to trust Siri with true distance, the distance she gives me is always wrong. Back to the boat with all our loot, we unloaded the truck in front of the gate to the marina and i found 2 buggies and the night man let me use them to take our stuff to the dinghy. We thanked JJ for all his help, he took us all over Miami and all he got was a lousy t-shirt. LOL  You have to be without transportation before you appreciate it like we have learned to. After filling our boat with all our supplies it looked like an overstuffed pillow with stuffing hanging over the sides,  with me sitting on top and Steve squeezed in at the back we took our time getting back to the boat. We had no choice we had so much weight on the dinghy the front end was flat on the water and water was trying to come over the front, but we were going so slow we stayed dry. Unloading and putting away took the rest of the night and we were exhausted by the time we were through. Which was about 1100 PM. Well goodnight everyone more tomorrow.

Palm trees in Biscayne

Steve Me JJ and Patty

Captain Steve at the helm.

Pretty sunrise

The crew.

Here we are again.

Hard Rock Cafe Miami

Sunrise in Miami

Cat looking for birds to catch.

Steve 40 foot up the mast.

Steve helping Dan fix antenna.

Dan at the “ON BOLE”

Up the mast.

Way up the mast

working on antenna

Repairman Steve

And again up the mast.

Ally watching the action

Peaceful

getting ready to go up.

Miami at night

My man working hard.

taking our laundry back to bus stop.

Miami at night again.

and….. we’re walking!

I am going to put pictures up on this post, will write more after. 🙂

In Biscayne

Good morning! It is a bacon and egg morning on the Unwinder. Up and ready to go wash clothes and explore Biscayne. We ate and called Ally to go with us,  and we all headed to the bus stop with our loads of dirty clothes to find the laundromat. Thank you West Marine for the blue fold up buggy that carries my dirty clothes and whatever. That thing is a lifesaver for us when we have to walk to our food stores and laundromats. OK we jumped in the dinghy, rode the waves, tied up at the dock got permission to leave it there for 2 hours and asked how far it was to Biscayne. We went to Biscayne on the bus Tuesday with Dan and Ally and we had to take the bus because the dockmaster told us it was one mile we walked one mile and guess what?! No Biscayne just a bridge and a cop that said it was 6 miles to the village of Biscayne!! Now you know why we take the bus. We figured out in Miami if you ask distance it usually is just a mile away so we figure 1 mile in Miami actually could mean 6-10 miles away. The dock master today said it was a mile or so but it was too far to walk. So we dont ask distance anymore we just take the bus if we have to. Welll we got off the bus and headed to the laundromat, guess what we went to the street we got directions to and the CVS pharmacy and was advised that there are not laundromats on the island. As we walked around back to the bus stop we saw why. These people obviously have their clothes cleaned (there are cleaners all over the city) and dont want the kind of people that a laundromat might bring!LOLOLOL Sooo we went to 7-11 and got lunch and ate outside the Golden Hog with Ally. The Golden Hog has healthy and gourmet foods and a food buffet witih wonderful dessert breads. So we figured out we take the bus back to the marina get in our dinghy and head to South Beach to the first laundromat Steve and I used when we first arrived. So here we go in the dingy over to the the publix dock in the waterway. We climbed up on the dock and headed down the street to the laundromat. Walking is becoming a way of life now that we dont have a car. While our clothes were washing we went to get lunch I actually saw a Panera bread!! I almost ran to it. Steve laughed at me for getting so excited. You dont know what youve got till its gone 🙂 Ally had checked out the blockbuster, Really! They still rent movies down here out of a store for 99 cents. Leaving the laundromat we walked to the Vespa store to check out the rides. They are nice but still would be a little awkward loading one into the dinghy and then locking it to the boat. I say we put a weedeater motor on a bicycle like the guy in Miami that raced past us on his motor/bike lol.  We decided to cook spaghetti for supper and stopped in at the Publix for supplies. Ok we over bought (why we werent surprised beats me) 🙂 We tried to take the buggy across the street but it had a mechanism that doesnt allow you to take it off the lot it locks up when you go from the parking lot to the street off the curb it slides over the front wheel and brings you and your groceries to a grinding halt! Ok now that my groceries have been slung to the front of the buggy and Ally and I are laughing hysterically as we tried to get the buggy across the street we could not so we backed it up with me holding the front of the buggy off the ground so it would roll. But then the back wheel tried to lock up so we left it and took all our groceries across the street. It is bad enough trying to get across a street in Miami it is a life or death situation. So here we go running across the street stopping in middle to wait on cars to go by and give us a break in traffic. Finally over to the dinghy now loaded with food laundry and three of us we climbed down into the dinghy since the tide had dropped a little more. We took off down the waterway to the main channel and home to our boats. I cooked spaghetti in my little square tin pan and my tiny skillet with spaghetti sauce. We went over to Allys and Dans to eat. Alley had the table sat with a beautiful salad and cheese and crackers. We watched a funny documentary and Justified the show. Learned how to look through a sextant and headed back home and to bed. We had a wonderful time. Goodnight everyone.

The most exciting thing we did today was make lunch and grill chicken for supper:-)). Slug day, hanging out and enjoying the day. The sun is shining the temp is in the high 70’s and we are going to enjoy just hanging out in the sun. I am sorry if i break some of the rules of penmanship and correct punctuation please forgive me. We have put off doing the laundry until tomorrow, I called to make sure there was a laundromat on our bus route in Biscayne. I was assured the coin laundry was across the street from the CVS pharmacy. I have been given so much misinformation i dont really like to ask people that live here. Not feeling Miami at all and will be happy to leave. People here are NOT friendly and very little help, rude, arrogant, ETC.. Glad we have our friends here to hang with. Although the skyline here is beautiful with all the buildings and lights. It is so bright here it never really gets dark in the bay. Well sorry not much to tell today stay tuned for tomorrow!

Good morning everyone we are moving today over to where Dan and Alley are anchored to get closer to our jumping point to Bahamas. We pulled up anchor fired up the engine and rolled out through the Miami  waterway area and passed several boats leaving the boat show. The radio all of a sudden blared out, “this is sailboat and i am stuck”. We stayed in the channel and had no problems but you would be amazed at the people that just dont pay attention until the boat comes to a sudden stop (and believe me It Is A Sudden STOP!) One of the sailboats did not make the show because he took a 65 foot mast under a 50 foot bridge! There are charts that tell you how tall the bridge is or you can get on radio to find out. We are very lucky our charts on chartplotter  have height printed on them of each bridge we go under. We did tweak that antenna on the mast coming under one bridge on Tin Tom 🙂 Whew! We got over to the anchorage where our buds were and we anchored out ( i may be getting fat but handling the anchor i have increased muscles and shoulder strength now). After getting settled we met up with our friends and went to the little restaurant called Atlantica, sort of a fish market and very nice restaurant. The owner came past the table and Dan said to him, what you got in that cooler? and he replied just caught stone crab. He opened up the cooler and showed us the fresh stone crab legs on ice. I did not realize that you dont kill the stone crab you hold on to his legs/pinchers until he lets loose of them and you can let him go without killing him. How cool is that!! But you have to get both pinchers because if he has one the other crabs will fight him and kill him, but if he has none they will leave him alone. They used to just take one by law and had to change it to taking both due to the declining population of stone crabs. They figured out the other crabs were killing the one clawed crabs that couldnt defend themselves. Steve ordered the crab and i had the coconut shrimp. They brought us a free order of fish cooked only with lemon juice (pickled), it was amazingly good! There is fish called a hogfish that is wonderful it has a hog face and teeth like tusks sticking out from top and bottom of its mouth, and is reddish in color. We had a great time and went back to the dinghy to get back to boat. Dan had to get up early and we want to go explore and wash clothes tomorrow. Getting in to the dinghy has become and art with very precise actions, lol. I have to jump in almost because one leg on the boat and one leg on the dock only gets you a pulled hamstring. Dont even ask me how I know :-0. So after getting into the dinghy we took off at a high rate of speed ( as fast as our 2 hp will go). We have started looking at bigger boat motors, our dinghy will accept a 15 HP engine, so Steve being Steve, is looking for a dinghy that will handle significantly more HP. Watch out for a new event, “dinghy races”. Could be the next big ESPN  sport, lol. Could be awesome, you never know! Well time to go to sleep so we can dream of a faster dinghy and perfect gulf stream weather.

Today we got up and decided to just slug out. So Steve read Floyds book : “The Saga of the Sailing HIllbillys”. It is so good. I decided to catch up on the blog and sleep. Steve left for the boat show to pick up our new mast climber and hang out, I wanted to stay at the boat and work on some of my projects i have started. The weather is still somewhat cool and windy. I hope everyone has had a good day. When i get free wi fi i will download pictures being anchored out i have to use my hotspot and downloading images uses up too many of my GB. Stay tuned everyone i am catching up!

Steve’s friend JJ called this morning and he and his wife Patty are coming over to the dock Steve is gonna pick them up and bring them to the boat. Steve dinghied over and picked them up when they arrived and we had a wonderful visit and Patty suggested we eat at a place called Flanigans `which had some wonderful ribs and a delicious chocolate oreo twix chocolate syrup ice cream brownie dessert. We went toward the south beach area but the traffic was so thick and there was nowhere to park. I got to see Steve’s old school area and his house down here. JJ and Patty came back to the boat and hung out a while and headed back to the dock. They are really great people and i hope we get to see them again before we go to the Bahamas. Steve and I had leftover ribs and went to bed to listen to the howling winds blowing our halyard around and swaying to the waves. This boat is so peaceful at night and the stars look so pretty. Goodnight everyone!