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.