We ended up leaving our anchorage last night at 11:00pm. We tried to nap from 7:30pm to 10:30pm. It worked great for Bill, but not so great for me. I didn’t sleep. We were worried about getting out of the anchorage because there were boats close all around us and it would be dark. I was trying to get myself prepared at the wheel and before I knew it Bill had taken the anchor all the way up. Good thing I was paying some attention to Bill we did a sharp turn and headed out into the dark ocean.

It seems such a long time since we’ve had Moonraker on the ocean but it really was just September. The water wasn’t so rough but the wind was strong and we just weren’t used to it. We put the sails up and the boat was moving well, but it was not a smooth ride. Even though we had taken seasick medicine, Bill got sick. He went to bed. There is nothing worse than being seasick. During overnight sails we wear our life jacket harnesses and are always connected to the boat with a tether. Whoever is on watch also wears a device that sets off an alarm if we end up going overboard. I’m not sure how it happened but shortly after Bill had gone to sleep the alarm went off. Luckily it was just a false alarm. When we finally got to Bimini, at 9:30am, we were going to go right to a marina. That turned out to be a good choice since Bill was not feeling much better. The picture above is of Moonraker in the marina. As you can see, there aren’t too many other boats here. Apparently it is off season! The picture doesn’t do the color of the water justice. We will have to get some pictures where you can see how clear blue-green it really is.

Bill took care of going to Customs and Immigration so we could check in to the Bahamas. I wasn’t allowed to leave the boat until he came back. The Captain only must check in. When he got back he went to wash his hands and the water pressure didn’t work. When he opened the floor panel to see what was wrong he saw the bilge was full of water almost to the floor boards. We had turned the high water alarm off earlier because the sensor was getting splashed with all the bouncing we were doing. Big mistake, now our water pump is dead. We aren’t so sure we can get it fixed here.

After a nap we decided to check out Bimini. Everyone here is very friendly and nice. Of course, it’s not like any place we have cruised to so far. We went to the telephone company to buy a SIM card for our iPhone. There were a bunch of cruisers there doing the same thing. Now we have a Bahamian phone number to use while we are here. We walked around the other side of the island and walked past a place that said Barbara’s Breads outside. It was next to a bunch of small houses and it didn’t look like a store. Bill knocked on the door and Barbara answered, if was her home but she bakes bread and sells it, so we walked right into her kitchen with her and bought a loaf of official Bimini bread. It is delicious. She said we would be back, and we probably will.

We will most likely stay here in the marina through Monday. We want to watch the Super Bowl. We get the right channel here but it does have some degradation sometimes so we are looking for a different place to watch it. On Monday Bill’s brother is flying in to spend a couple of days with us. Hopefully, if we can’t find a new water pump here, Bill’s brother can bring one for us.

I finally got a chance to put the rest of our Florida pictures up in the Photo Gallery. Please go check them out: