The Rest Of Our Bimini Trip Part 3 Of 3

Our plan had been to stay at Bimini Sands for a few days and then prepare for the crossing back. I had scoped out a couple anchorages in Ft Lauderdale and thought it would be fun to extend our vacation by spending some time there and then slowly making our way back to Marathon. 

We had a great night, we took the shuttle to the Island Club and treated ourselves to a nice dinner with some cracked conch as an appetizer, but all the kids wanted was pizza.. They got their Bahamian pizza and we sat in bliss listening to the music. There was a late night swim in the infinity pool and then a great nights sleep. 

I awoke and logged onto a couple of my go to weather sites only to find that a system I found out about when we first got back into civilization the day before had built overnight and wasn't looking good. I rolled over and woke Jess up to make a huge decision.. Either plan on getting pinned here and possibly waiting out some rough weather, or run back to the US and leave in less than an hour.. Within a couple minutes we were prepping the boat to leave.. I informed the office we were leaving, turned in our immigration paperwork and in less than 30 minutes we were pulling out and on our way. 

92L

That was the name of the system heading our direction and it showed the potential for development or at least staying a strong tropical wave. We pulled out of Bimini and headed out of the inlet, at that point I still hadn't decided on our destination. I did take a look at the grib files (predictive weather data files) that show the wind predictions and it seemed like it was going a little more north so I decided we would run for Miami, it was also the shortest run. 

We were almost completely under power with almost no wind to help us along, we were moving around 6 kts and the seas were surprisingly calm. All morning there were bands of storms from the system surrounding us but we managed to thread the needle and avoid them. There was a large catamaran that we spoke with on the radio headed for Ft Lauderdale and we saw them getting pounded in the distance, later we would find out how bad they got it. The trip was fairly uneventful until the engine abruptly went silent, I went down below to quickly change the filter and was surprised how I didn't notice it creep up. When I changed the filter I did notice it wasn't very dirty looking. I fired up the engine and began to motor again, only to have the engine chug and die.  We were in the middle of the Gulfstream and it was pushing us north at an incredible speed, not only off course but also in the opposite direction. After thinking for a few minutes I went below to the spares locker and grabbed a replacement on engine filter. I went into the engine room area and attempted to remove the on engine filter only to retreat in utter defeat unable to budge it. After several more attempts I finally had Jessica hand me the largest screwdriver in the toolbox and a hammer. I drove the flathead through the entire filter body and used the leverage to break it free. I spun on the new filter, crossed my fingers and fired up the engine. It fired instantly and I popped my head up in victory only to see a huge USCG cutter on our stern. I wiped the grease, diesel, blood (damn hose clamps) off my hands, picked up the RAM mic in the cockpit and hailed them. They came back and asked if we knew the system that was coming our way "Captain you do know there is a large potentially strong tropical system bearing down on your location?" I asked for an updated weather forecast and they informed me the system would be on top of us in less than 4 hours.  We were 6+ hours away from port. 

With the engine running I pushed her harder than I ever had before and she delivered without so much as a puff of smoke or a complaint. We would occasionally pickup some wind from the parts of the front surrounding us, but yet we managed to thread the needle without any direct hits. Just outside of Miami the wind began to increase and the city was surrounded by a huge storm that had an eye right in the middle, it was impressive to say the least. Without any warning the hair on our arms stood up and there was a huge flash of light, lightening had struck unbelievably close. There were also several vessels on the radio asking for assistance. 

Just before dark we made entry into Government Cut (Miami's Port) and from there it was a decent trip to get to dinner key the mooring field and we would be coming in at night, but it was well marked. 

We finally got settled and began to relax when a huge squall hit and we were being rocked by 42kt winds and 3 to 4ft fetch that was coming from across Biscayne Bay. Even with the storm rocking us, we didn't have much of a problem falling fast asleep that night. 

The next morning I found out Invest 92L hit Ft Lauderdale directly, we had chosen correctly and I can't imagine how being exposed during that would have felt. The catamaran we had spoken with the day before would have been right in the middle of that storm. 

We spent the next couple days in Coconut Grove walking around and enjoying the shops, parks and sites. I kept an eye on the weather and waited for a good opportunity to head home. We planned on going from Miami to Rodriguez Key and then making the short run to the anchorage we stayed at day 1 of our trip near Channel 5. Both runs were uneventful, but the night at Rodriguez was rough and restless. When we got near the Channel 5 bridge we looked at the clock and discussed just making the run all the way home. We had made such good time we figured it would be good to just get home a day early so we kept sailing. 

As the boat made the last turn for the channel it was just as sad as it was exciting to be back. We pulled into Boot Key, waved at Jessica's coworkers at Burdine's and within minutes we were launching the dinghy and heading to shore. Number 1 on the agenda, showers, long hot showers.. Now we decide what's next..