Weather changes and plans change. The Lovely Laura Lee headed home today and I stayed with the boat because it looked like I might have a weather window to get to the Bahamas this week. I am planning to depart Wednesday morning to Bimini, the closest of the islands of the Bahamas. Seas are projected to be quite comfortable and we should make it across in about seven to eight hours depending on seas and the strength of the Gulf Stream current. I will be accompanied by a hired captain recommended by my old friend Joel Davidson who is a yacht broker here with Outer Reef Yachts https://www.outerreefyachts.com/bio-joeldavidson.cfm.
I first visited Bimini in the 1990's when The Compleat Angler Hotel was still standing. It was where Ernest Hemingway apparently lived and wrote in the 1930's when he was not staying on his boat in Bimini. The old bar in the downstairs of the hotel was thriving, and the walls were covered with Hemingway photos and memorobilia. This bar was the also site of the original ring toss game, where a ring is attached to a string hooked to the ceiling, and the object is to swing the ring and have it land on a hook attached to the wall. I credit my friend Chuck Butterworth with introducing this game to me well before I ever visited Bimini. You can still find kits of ring and string for sale called the "Bimini Ring Toss Game".
My last visit to Bimini was in 2008 with my friend James Abele (Perfect Deck Hand). Here is the blog entry from that visit on March 13, 2008 when we travelled from Chub Cay to Bimini:
Yesterday, we departed early for the long run across the Banks to Bimini. We covered some 83 nautical miles and anchored just before dark on the east side of Bimini, as it was too close to dark to attempt coming around the island and into the harbor. We thought we had found a perfect anchorage off a beautiful beach but it became very rough when the wind moved around to northwest during the night and swells came around the island, hitting us from the north. The boat rolled and doors rattled, and our anchor dragged slightly. But we made it through the night. This morning, we came around into the harbor and tied up at Brown’s Hotel and Marina, right next to the famous “End of the World Bar”, which we’ll check out tonight.
Bimini has seen some improvement since last I was here. A gigantic development is going on at the north end of the island called “Bimini Bay”. We checked it out by golf cart today and it is going to be very nice. Unfortunately, the Compleat Angler Hotel, hangout of Earnest Hemingway, had a fire and may be gone for good. The outside walls are still standing but we don’t know if it will be salvaged or torn down. The remainder of Alicetown is still pretty run down, but there are signs of improvement, including the new docks at Brown’s where we are staying.
In preparation for this visit, I have been re-reading Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream". In Part One of the book, entitled "Bimini", the main character, who resembles Hemingway himself, lives in a house that actually matches the description of the Compleat Angler Hotel. The hotel and bar are part of the story, but were called the "Ponce De Leon" in the book. I will again be docking at Brown's, mentioned in my old blog and the site of a great fistfight in Hemingway's book.
I'm excited to get back to Bimini, and I want to check out a few things. First, what I wrote of previously as "Bimini Bay" became "Resort World", and I will be interested to see how the resort has fared. Second, I want to return to the "End of the World Saloon", also known as the "Sand Bar" and see if it is still flourishing. It was a dive with Graffiti-covered walls, and the primary decor consisted of hundreds of pairs of women's underwear hanging from the walls and ceiling. There is just no telling what it is like today. And finally, I want to revisit the location of the Compleat Angler to see what, if anything, is left.
The weather has been terrible of late for crossing the Gulf Stream from Florida to the Bahamas. We have had one cold front after another for weeks, leaving few good "windows" for a crossing. Wednesday looks like a good one, but we shall see. I'm excited to get this boat out in the open ocean, because so far I have only had a few calm days at sea. I'll perhaps find out what needs to be better secured and what falls off the kitchen counter. I'll report back to let you know how the trip went.
We are in Harbour Towne Marina in Dania Beach, Florida, just south of Fort Lauderdale. We have had a fun week, topped off by an incredible dinner last night at Valentino Cucina Italiana in Fort Lauderdale . While the weather has prevented crossing to Bimini, we have enjoyed our time on the boat.
Wednesday night we had the pleasure of dinner with our old friends Sean and Louise Welsh, who purchased our previous boat Steel Magnolia, now named Vector. (See www.ourodyssey.blogspot.com.) As always, I learn quite a bit from Sean and Louise, as they live full time on the boat and have become quite knowledgeable. And it's also just good to see them.
Tomorrow we plan to head back home for a little while, because it seems clear there is no good weather for getting to the Bahamas in the coming week. I'll be watching it closely and heading back this way when possible.
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| Front After Front |
We are aboard the boat in Stuart, Florida. The plan is to depart and head south to the Palm Beach area by Monday night and Fort Lauderdale Tuesday night, trying to get into position to cross the Gulf Stream Wednesday to Bimini. It is a trip that may or may not happen, depending on the weather. I have no statistics to back this up, but this year to me has had an unusual weather pattern of one cold front after another passing through every two or three days, rather than about once every week or two as usual.
Normally when a cold front passes, the winds clock around from south to west to north, and the north winds are cold and strong for two or three days thereafter. That is exactly what happened here when the front passed last night with heavy rain and we awoke this morning to strong cold winds from a northerly direction. Strong north winds blowing against the Gulf Stream current make waves stand up and get very steep, and uncomfortable. So the usual practice is to wait a few days after the front and dash across the Gulf Stream before the next front arrives. The problem for quite awhile this winter is that the next front arrives before the winds ever settle down from the previous one.
The best advice I ever got about crossing the Gulf Stream was from a book entitled A Gentleman's Guide to Passages South by Bruce Van Sant. He said simply: "Under prevailing conditions, wait until the Offshore Forecast says south of east winds of less than 15 knots and seas less than three feet." He was speaking more of comfort than safety. Our boat can handle much rougher seas than I can. But in fact, under the current forecast for Wednesday, we should have southeast to south winds 10 to 15 knots and seas of two to four feet, pretty close to what he advised as the maximum.
There are two problems though. This is Saturday and a lot can change by Wednesday. And second, there are today many more models and forecasts than the National Weather Service Offshore Forecast, and they are not all in agreement. For Wednesday, Chris Parker's Marine Weather Center says: "Brisk SSE-S wind prevents comfortable travel Tue25, then very brisk S-SSW wind keeps travel window closed Wed26." PredictWind, an app I study regularly, calls for 2.5-foot waves Wednesday at noon between Fort Lauderdale and Bimini, but predicts winds of 19 knots. Using PredictWind's second model, it predicts similar seas but winds of only 13 knots. Its Euro model has winds at 19 knots and seas of 4.2 feet.
Too much information I think, but I have been watching it obsessively for the last few days. It does show that we are on the margins. The answer will not come until Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning when we can see what the sea buoys tell us about wind and seas, and see if the forecasts for the day have come more into agreement. If we can't go this time, we wait for the next front to pass and try again.
I'll keep you posted. The good news is that I am happy to be on the boat, no matter where it is. We will eventually get there.
We had our stern thruster batteries replaced today, so we should finally get away tomorrow morning. However, the weather continues to present one cold front after another, forcing us to stay inside the Intracoastal Waterway. The current weather map shows one front now down near Cuba with the one that passed through this week now in south Florida and two more on the way.
But at least we are not in Spain or Mallorca where they have had waves taller than buildings (Click for the YouTube video).
