Today's departure will happen...tomorrow!

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Geo: 25.7167, -79.3

We were planning to leave…but while we were waiting for the wind to die down in the afternoon, Tony scored some stone crab. He immediately announced "We're not leaving!" and that he was running to the store to buy a bottle of chardonnay and putting everything on ice.

"Early Birthday DInner", he called it! So, we enjoyed one more, unexpected night in Bimini.

And it was a good thing! The seas were given an extra day to calm down, and we had the perfect sail when leaving Bimini the next day!!!

Feb. 4th. 2014 – Getting ready to leave Bimini

Hello Friends and Family!

Now that SUPER BOWL is over, we can actually leave Bimini. Believe it or not, we stayed put here for a week just so that Tony could watch football. Yeah, yeah…I know that a few of you are nodding in agreement, understanding completely that football is like a religion… But I just want to point out, that HE'S the one who I can't peal away from the TV!!! (…not vice-versa.) 😊

All poking-fun-of-Tony aside, we really have had a wonderful time slowing down to "Island Time" and realizing that conservation is key out here. We no longer have free water at our disposal, or a CVS (just like Shopper's Drug Mart) around the corner. Now, when we run out of things, we can still find them, but we walk long distances to get them, and they are way more expensive than on the mainland.

So, we've found ourselves adapting. We use a reusable dishrag rather than paper towels. We do the dishes in salt water and then rinse with fresh. And I've started drinking more juice, than water, since juice is so much cheaper!

We've also adapted to the heat! The first two days I felt like I was melting. But I've gotten used to the heat and now I find myself wearing pants and long sleeved tops every evening. We've only had one rainy here so far, and the temps and humidity are much higher than what we were having in Miami. Sun block is a necessity. And we cool off by swimming at the beach.

The beach is on the other side of the island, is only about 300 yards away from our marina. The beach is long and has nice sand, but a lot of washed up sea glass. Some of the cruising ladies I've met spend time collecting the sea glass (broken pieces of bottles that are typically brown, green, and clear – sound like beer bottles, eh?!?). I'm not sure what they do with it; I mean you need space to do craft projects like mosaics, don't you? So one lady said that she puts it into ziplock bags and stores it in her bilge until she returns home! That's a lot of extra weight! I guess they'll be raising the waterline soon!

Another thing that I find really interesting is the age of the cruisers we are meeting. I had thought that I'd be the young one out here, mingling with those who retired at “the usual” age. Boy! Was I wrong!! There are so many cruising couples who are in their mid 20's and 30's!! I'd say that 40 is about the average age of the women I'm meeting.

Our solar panels are doing a fantastic job out here!!! We've been at a dock for a week and have not plugged into shore power - nor have we paid to fill up with any water. We have a little inverter that we use to charge up our computers. I had tremendous success in catching rainwater one day when I was hardly even trying to! I also scrubbed down the cockpit during a twenty-minute rainfall. The great thing about being at a marina is that we still get onshore hot showers. We are very happy with the facilities here. I'll be using that rainwater soon enough in my solar shower bag for a quick warm rinse after washing with salt water.

We went to the laundromat yesterday. They have wonderful front loaders for $4.00 per wash. We only had our two knapsacks with clothes because we thought they would only have small top loaders. I could have fit in three times what we brought! I should have brought all the sheets and towels. Ah well, a lesson learned. Go scope out the laundromat beforehand. Now I know for next time!

The town of Bimini is small and quaint. The locals are friendly. And the food it phenomenal! Okay, Let's talk more about FOOD. There is a wonderful woman who calls herself "Sister Janet". She sells a huge variety of home cooked meals everyday. Her storefront is her car. Yes, her car. "Sister J" (as the locals know her) gets up at 4:30 every morning, cooks up all kinds of delicious food and brings it to town at 11:30am. The locals pick up their food from her, and she even makes a run to the school for their lunch break. She sells out everyday! Some of her daily choices include: Fried Chicken, BBQ Chicken, Curry Chicken, Ribs, Turkey meatloaf, Fried Baracuda, Conch Rice, Peas and Rice, Fried Plantains, Mac & Cheese, coleslaw, green salad, corn, carrots and string beans, beet salad….and the list goes on!!!

There is so much food in one of her helpings that we easily get two meals out of it!! This is the way to go, and Tony is thrilled that he's been "on vacation" from cooking!

Speaking of food, the bull sharks faithfully come in every afternoon for their feeding. They arrive before anyone throws anything in the water. Every once in a while, the locals who are cutting up the day's catch start to "play" with the sharks, and tempt them with the leftovers on a rope. It makes for great pictures and video, but it also makes the sharks go ballistic with testosterone. I really hope no one falls in during one of these feeding frenzies!

Cruise Ships come in for the day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The town gets busy as the "tourists" rent golf carts and scoot around the island. The dockside restaurant that is part of our marina is one of the popular ones amongst the visitors and so all of us cruisers stand back and watch while they flood in to pay $5 a Kalik (beer) when we all know to walk over to the liquor store and buy it for $2.50!

The other day one cruise ship passenger, a lady, sitting at the edge of the dock, managed to drop her golf cart keys into the water. She was about to go in to get them, dressed in her lovely white "cruise-ship attire" (what else could she do?) when my darling husband, always the gentleman, offer to go in and get them for her. When I heard Tony's offer, my head whipped around and I screamed in a panic that we had just watched the sharks swim in, “Are you Crazy??!?” Tony calmly, climbed down one of the ladders, into the water, and used his toes to grab the keys. He was in for all of about 45 seconds during which time the cook from the restaurant, and I, were both on shark lookout while the oblivious tourists kept telling me that “He'll be fine!” “There aren't sharks here!” The cook glanced at me, and understood exactly what it meant for a person to be going into shark-infested waters at feeding time. Oh my goodness! That was a hair-raising moment!

We dinghy-ed over to South Bimini yesterday to visit the Bimini Sands Resort and then walked around on the sandbar in front of our marina as the tide was going out. There is a three foot tide here, so when the tide goes out the sandbar is exposed. I found my first conch! (Okay, obviously that was easier to find than having to dive for one!) We've brought him back to the boat and he's going to not only become conch salad, but Tony is also going to make him into our conch horn to blow at sunset! (Sailor's tradition)

We've spent a fair bit of time watching the locals remove the conch from it's shell, and cut it up. I think we've figured out how to do it, although we haven't actually tried it ourselves yet. Tony used to enjoy conch when he was down here the last time, (25 years ago) and he is anxious to try it again!

I'm fascinated by the age of the cruisers we are meeting. I had thought that I'd be the young one out here, mingling with those who retired at “the usual” age. Boy! Was I wrong!! There are so many cruising couples who are in their mid 20's and 30's!! I'd say that 40 is about the average age of the women I'm meeting. Not what I expected.

Life is different out here. Trades and giveaways make a difference. We've only heard stories so far about some of the items that are in high demand, but Tony did trade an extra radar reflector that we had on board for a small short wave radio with another sailor. This short wave radio will enable us to receive weather transmissions. We already have our Raymarine electronics, but in case they fail, we now have a backup.

We will be moving on in the next day or so. That's why I wanted to get this email off to y'all before we go. We do not plan to stay at many marinas for the next few weeks. We'll be anchoring out as much as possible. I can't believe I've had good enough wifi to work on an email blast and to upload pictures to a new site. I will send a link when I've completed the process. I have attempted to upload pics from the entire trip thus far! Big job, accomplished!

From here we will be making our way towards Georgetown, Exuma. We have five weeks to get there. In early March I'll be flying home to help my mom out as she is having knee surgery.

I will send another email blast when I can folks! Until then, just keep checking our MMSI Track from time to time. (It expires after about 12-18 hours.)

Love and Kisses!

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