Our position is:    25:43.499N 79:17.355W

The passage from North Cat Cay to North Bimini on Monday, was mainly uneventful. The tide was high enough to give few depth problems passing through Gun Cay Cut, the only concern were clouds of dust being generated by a digger restructuring the landscape on the tip of North Cat Cay. We were soon past the wreck of Sapona, a concrete ship built during WW2 to save timber and subsequently used for drug running, as a liquor store and as a target for US army gunnery practice, before being destroyed in a hurricane – obviously more effective than the American guns!

The entry to North Bimini was confusing to say the least. We had 3 different charts and they all showed the deep water in different places. We passed through the red and green entrance (and only) buoys and were feeling our way in when there were further repercussions from the plastic bag incident approaching Clarence Town and the prop shaft became disconnected from the gear box. Rapidly we turned round to head back towards slightly deeper water, while unfurling the jib, then dropping the anchor to investigate the problem. While this was going on we were hailed by a catamaran coming in behind us, who wanted to know if we knew where the channel was. We had to recommend they radioed for assistance with that as we had other things to think about. Ted was soon over the side and able to push everything back into place and I watched other boats coming in so we could work out where the deep water was. (It appeared the channel was actually somewhere different to all 3 charts!) As we were motoring in we called our chosen marina on the radio, but I had previously heard another boat trying to contact them to no avail, so wasn’t surprised our call went unanswered. As we approached it there seemed to be no empty berths so we headed for the fuel dock on the adjoining marina where a helpful guy appeared from nowhere and when we asked for a berth directed us to the next door pontoon and sprinted round to take our warps. Somewhat alarmingly as we were doing this a yacht coming from the opposite direction but headed to the same place ran aground quite close to where we were, but they only had to wait about 30 minutes before floating off and coming into the berth opposite, with no further trouble. The water was absolutely crystal clear so at least they could see what they had run onto!

On the next door boat, a traditionally styled, junk rigged, steel hulled ketch named Lord Byron’s Revenge (the owner was a Byron fan at college) a group of young Americans were dealing with a mega haul of conch they had picked up on the other side of the harbour.  Later, when they had turned them into fritters, they gave us some as they had made more than they could eat. (We were having a good time for free seafood!)

North Bimini is more of a strip than a proper island, although it does have quite a lot of barely submerged sea bed next to it and is practically joined on to South Bimini, a bigger island and the location of the airport even though North Bimini has the bigger town (Alice Town), which is famous for being the home of Ernest Hemingway and being visited by Martin Luther King in 1964. We knew we had to wait for the right weather conditions before setting off across the Gulf Stream and originally it had looked as if this might be Wednesday, but even before we arrived it had slipped to Thursday, which gave us a few days to catch up with jobs and look round the town.  Ted finally managed to fit the new parts for the watermaker pump and it was declared functional again and I made it to a Batelco office to sort out the non-functioning top up card purchased on Staniel Cay.

On returning to the boat I discovered our peace was being disturbed by a fuel delivery and the tanker was tied up to the fuel dock just across from our berth. This went on until after dark and the tanker had to remain until there was sufficient water in the entrance channel the next morning before it could leave. There was also a certain amount of noise emanating from a dredger operating just off the government dock, presumably with the intention of keeping access clear to it.

On Wednesday we happened across The Dolphin House. This has been built and decorated by Ashley Saunders, on the site of 2 previous timber houses owned and lived in by his predecessors, which succumbed to termite activity. As well as this labour of love he is a historian and poet, who has written a history of Bimini and has many stories to tell about life in the islands in times gone by and he is happy to show off his amazing dwelling, which is a recycling achievement par-excellence. Everything he has used in the decoration has been gleaned either from the beaches or from other people’s throw-outs and offcuts.

After a fascinating time we went back to the boat to prepare for our departure. I went to see if we should clear customs and the guys in the office were extremely disinterested. They said I could have a clearance document if I wanted but when I said perhaps I should in case anyone wanted to see it he gave a heavy sigh before dragging himself to his feet and over to my window, rubber stamp in hand. A bit of a change from some of the islands further south, who were such sticklers for formality. As for immigration formalities, we were just told to leave our departure cards at the marina.