Ernest Hemingway
"Islands in the Stream"
“Just then, from one of the boats tied up at Brown’s dock, a rocket rose with a whoosh high into the sky and burst with a pop to light up the channel.”
The day after we arrived we had a window of good weather, so we loaded up the dinghy with our snorkel gear and headed to the famous Bimini Road. This site has been called the road to Atlantis, among other far fetched claims, so I had to see it for myself. The dinghy ride around was a validation of my decision to purchase our dinghy/motor combo. A 20hp Yamaha on a Achilles dive rescue boat going at 22 kts make it effortless to get somewhere in a hurry, even when it's many miles away.
We got to the site, jumped in the water and were surrounded by thousands of jellyfish, many were harmless jellies that do not sting but there were several moon jellies that pack a pretty good punch. We all jumped in and explored the Bimini Road, but to be honest, I think it's a little over hyped. To us it looked like a bunch of really big rocks broken apart and not a road to anything, but I'm not a scientist so it's just my opinion.
Initially the plan was to stay a night and make our way to the anchorages we had planned on stopping, but I decided to stay another day and try to fix our broken Raymarine Autopilot. It had failed early into our crossing and since we were someplace nice and calm, I gave it a look. It turned out to be easy to diagnose, not as easy to fix. It's a chain driven unit that attaches to the head, the setscrews had come out and the cog had fallen off the control head. I made a Skype phone call to our friend DJ who has the same unit and he was able to give me the size, however I'm in Bimini and finding it is another story. So I set out to find something that would take 5 minutes in the US, any hardware store, Home Depot, Lowes etc.. Here I would have had just as much luck looking for Jimmy Hoffa. I did however find a screw that threaded on the end and used a washer and some locktite, problem solved!
After spending a couple days relaxing at Brown's Marina and exploring Alicetown (Read More Here) we backed the boat out of the slip against a 2-3 kt current which was hairy to put it mildly. If you've never backed up a sailboat, it's nothing like a powerboat. It normally favors one direction more than another and it doesn't exactly steer with the rudder, the more speed the more violently the rudder wants to rip out of your hands, of course always going the wrong direction. Jess and Colby were on the bow, we untied all but the stern line that I held onto tightly keeping the current from pushing us forward. I applied throttle and when the boat began to move, I reluctantly let my line slip around the cleat and release the boat. I backed hard against the current, at one point nearly full throttle and the boat just seemed to react like it was stuck in molasses. Finally we started making our way out of the slip, trying not to get pushed further into the line of piers and boats with the wind against us as well. I backed the boat completely out of the marina and well into the channel before going forward and making our way.. Next stop Honeymoon Harbor..
Our next stop Honeymoon Harbor is known for the several extremely friendly stingrays that show up to greet you.. Just a couple splashes make the stingrays glide over and start rubbing against you. At first it's slightly creepy, however it's pretty cool! We ended up dropping the anchor around 5pm, much later than I had wanted to but we had been waiting on tide to leave Brown's. We hopped in the dinghy and headed into shore to explore. Honeymoon Harbor is part of Gun Cay (pronounced KEY) which is a private island, we spent a few minutes exploring the island and then it was time to hit the water to see what all the fuss was about.. Within seconds several stingrays began to show up, a very large ray glided by and when I began to splash my hand he made almost an instant u-turn.
Gun Cay/Honeymoon Harbor
During the night I was woke up to the wind and waves increasing, building fast. We were surrounded by jagged rock and had virtually no protection, we were open to the banks. I turned on the wind instrument to see 38kts of wind and 3-4 ft waves. I had faith in my ground tackle and my anchoring, but I got little sleep that night. The next day we would be headed to the place I expected to be the best anchorage I had found, Dollar Harbor, the plan was to stay there for a few days.
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