Well, not exactly, “Aloha”, but maybe irie, mon.

Here we sit in Bimini, in the Blue Water Marina, which we pulled into around 5pm after traveling 12 hours across the Gulf Stream.  Wa-hooo!

For those, like me, who always flip through the pics in National Geographic before reading the articles, here’s the slideshow:

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This was by far the biggest – and most serious passage we made to date and I was nervous (although very well-versed and prepared, as much as one can be for something so HUGE you’ve never done before).

A note about the Gulf Stream:  you can google it if you want and learn all about it.  But, I’ll give you the synopsis of what we learned in preparing for this serious passage:

• The Gulf Stream is an “ocean river” which is about 45 miles wide, ever shifting and has a current of about 4 knots (2.5 miles) heading North.
• Because you have current pushing you North, use it, by leaving from south of where you want to arrive, heading due East and then only turning North as you’re about 10-15 miles from your destination (and presumably out of the eastern edge of the stream).
• Don’t go if there is any wind from the North (headed south) because the wind will kick up the waves as the current (headed north) heads against the wind.  When the wind is coming from the North, even 10 knots can make the seas high and definitely dangerous for a craft like ours under 35’ and even 5 knots of wind can make them surely uncomfortable.  So, we wait for the wind to clock around from the North to another direction, preferably none, but anything is better than North.
• At about 50 miles to go, it will be our longest passage yet requiring us to leave before dawn to arrive before sunset (we aim never to arrive at any new anchorage after sunset).  Although folks in past have said to leave at night and arrive before noon, this is now eschewed, hence our pre-dawn departure.
• The Gulf Stream is deep, like the depth sounder stopped working at about 270 feet deep.  It marks the end of one plate along the US, then the (deep) Gulf Stream, and the beginning of the Bahamas Bank.  So, the water will change along with the depths from the beautiful clear-ish green of the Florida Upper Keys to a deep, deep, ocean blue back to the turquoise, clear Bahamas shallows.  I’m looking forward to this (and not much else about this crossing).
• Like any passage, you can always turn around.  Which is exactly what we’ll do, if we need to.

Turns out, the passage was great!  I think the key was really no big secret: wait until the weather is in your favor.  Good news, bad news is that the wind was directly on our nose so we chose not to to sail much, in exchange for getting to our destination quicker   We did do some motor sailing and as such made great time.  And, the motor worked great!  So far, so good 🙂

Although I didn’t really enjoy getting up at 4am, I joked with D that it felt like Election Day (those days and traveling days are about the only ones I’m up at 4am).  But, the key difference between Eday and Gday (Gulf Stream Day) is that I’ve done tons of Edays before!  It was one of those days I kinda wish I could be hit by a bus so I wouldn’t have to do “it”, while knowing full well that I’ll be so glad I did – when it’s over.

The morning was black – before sunrise, ya know – so it was our first time moving the boat in the dark.  Luckily, my father got me an awesome spotlight for the holidays (Thanks, Dad!) and we had traversed the channel out to the ocean from Key Largo going in.  So, we just followed our tracks (literally, on GPS) and kept an eye out for markers with the light.

They always say if you get out to the stream (about 7-10 miles out) and it doesn’t look good, you can always turn around.  While we navigated in the dark, and I anticipated “The Perfect Storm” conditions (which never came), I kept the “turning around” option close to heart.  BTW – most of you know I’m not a “religious” person, per se, but I am super-spiritual and I definitely asked for blessings before we left (among other things, “Grant us safe and swift passage – wait – not too swift, okay?”).

After a couple of hours, the sun was coming up, we hadn’t hit a crab pot yet, and the seas were 1-3 feet as predicted.  So far, so good.  We had heard that “once you hit the Gulf Stream, you’ll know” and we kept waiting . . .  and waiting . . . and waiting for the sign(s) (flying fish, sea grass moving north, deep blue water and the depth sounder drop off).  Well, these were happening but “was this really, it?”.  It was.  Turns out the Gulf Stream was even calmer once you’re in it than approaching (maybe folks know this but I didn’t, after being skeered half to death with warnings of “elephant waves” – look it up, it’s scary).

All-in-all, the day was uneventful – which is awe-some on a boat.   We enjoyed watching the deep blue deep roll by, listening to mixes our friends made us before we left (apparently “Super Bass” is sung by Nicki Minaj, too, and not just those two little girls from Essex) and watching the flying fish soar (they are soooo cool!).

Oh, one eventful thing did happen:  D has been determined to go fishing as soon as we set foot aboard.  Alas, we did not have a Florida fishing license so the minute I stopped being freaked out by simply being “out in the Gulf Stream!!!”, he dragged a couple of lines.  We had heard the edges of the stream were great places to troll for sporting fish and about 15 miles out from Bimini, D got a bite!  “It’s probably some sea grass”, we thought given it was our first-ever line to drag – what are the odds on actually catching a fish, right?  But, low and behold, D and I watched as he reeled in a 25-30 pound mahi-mahi.  As we salivated about our dinner options, the fish popped the line as it was only 20 feet from the boat – awww, man (at least it surfaced for us before the line snapped so we knew what was fighting on the other end of the line)!  Oh well, now we have 100 pound test line on all the rods and are prepared for when “the big one” does come aboard.

As our mild disappointment waned, D spotted Bimini (he actually said “Land ho”).  We could see the water turning just of the shore from the deep blue to the clear turquoise – you can see 30 feet down!    In just under an hour, we were in a slip (apparently it’s the customary thing to do and at $1 a foot, I’ll take it!), customs forms filled out, the quarantine flag was down and the Bahamian flag up!

We can’t really believe we’re here and we’re so excited, grateful and, well, tired.

We’re catching up on “the real world” tonight (Whitney Houston died???), including checking the weather for our next big passage across the Great Bahama Bank (70 miles of beautiful shallow water until the Berries, Nassau, Eluethra, etc).  If we don’t post for a bit while we check out these uninhabited islands, forgive us.  We’ll catch you up in a couple weeks when we hit Nassau with tons of great pictures and stories.

Because I mean it from the bottom of my (our) hearts and because, yes, we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate our crossing, thank you, thank you, thank you (yes YOU!) for believing we could do this, supporting us with your kind words, gentle jabs and serious doses of “reality”.  All of the advice, love and kind thoughts have made it with us to the Bahamas and promise to keep buoyed as we adventure on.

xoxo,

L, D and Mr. K

ps.  A note to cruisers with dogs: one thing I wasn’t sure about was how strict they’d be about Mr. K.  I know the (contradictory) rules made mainly for air travelers as well as got a lot of advice from cruisers who said “we’ve never had a question or a problem”.  Turns out, this was the case.  D sailed through customs and then said “oh, yeah, I need to pay for my dog” and $10 later, that was that.  Even though I suspected the ports-of-entry pet shuffle to be very lax, we went ahead and made sure we met the highest bar for (almost) all of the Caribbean countries (I don’t want to quarantine K at a facility – on our boat, fine).  K, being up-to-date on all of his shots, having a micro-chip and otherwise in handsome-health easily got his health certificate back in Punta Gorda from a very generous and sympathetic vet who post-dated his international health certificate (Form 7001).  If you have any questions, feel free to buss me or my friend, Rachel at PetRelocation.com.  Rachel hooks pet owners up with transports all over the world and will likely expense a trip to the Caribbean aboard Mother Jones as a site visit – right Rachel? 😉

pps.  I know you’re wondering what I made for Valentine’s Day because I’m such a foodie.  And, while pictures can not do it justice (they photograph like barf), I made chili-con-carne enchiladas (with Pasilla chiles and then some TVP and Velveeta – you work with what you have), macaroons, jalapeno deviled eggs and no-mayo-tuna-salad with capers and red-onions.  Yum!