The theme of this blog entry would have to be 'never a dull moment.' We sat in Bimini for about ten days. That would be 8 days too many. Plenty of dull moments. The Island is great and the people are so inviting but the island is very small. And that is not a problem either when you're seeking new places, specifically expatriated type secluded ones. We found it humorous that they have a population of roughly 2000 people, one main road that's 3 miles long, and everyone drives an Escalade or an SUV of some type.

We departed Bimini on the perimeter of a stubborn tropical disturbance. The skies were literally black, yet they appeared benevolent enough. The Government must be screwing around with the weather again. Since the winds were either nonexistent or right on the nose we fired up the old Yanmar and started motoring. Back out into the Gulf Stream, heading South, we cut in between a couple of Islands near Gun Cay and entered the Grand Bahama Banks. It's like a vast desert that just sank a few feet below the surface. I could see Atlantis sinking here with the ancient aquatic roads and all. We motored hard as the kids peered over netted lifelines trying to spot sea life in their silly lifejackets. They saw a few things. No sharks or dolphins though, which seem to be the mammals of choice.

As night approached and everyone did their bed time preparations, we kept motoring on across the banks. The kids ate, played, watched an educational video on speaking French, and we kept on with the hopes of covering at least half the distance to Chub Cay where we currently are anchored. About midnight during that leg, one of the black clouds turned a little violent. Hence the never a dull moment theme. We veered off the most heavily traveled path in all the Bahamas, about a mile, dropped the CQR and 200 feet of chain in 17 feet of water, and hunkered down for the blow. It, of course, did not let up as forecasted. Our poor boat, The Aslan, bucked and jumped on her anchor rode all night. Nary a moment of rest for two days for either myself or Jenny. Bahaman boats and freighters passed in the night as we dived off 4 to 5 foot waves riding our anchor. Not fun.

Morning arrived and we pulled the hook at first light and started steaming toward North West Shoal. We cleared that and entered the Atlantic again. Our depth sounder quit registering at 14.5 feet as the water depth instantly dropped off to 6000 feet. Not that big of a deal when you consider there are some oceanic depths of 25,000 feet or more. Free dive that. But the shallow depths of the banks offer some strange assurance as land goes out of sight. At least if your boat goes down you can dive and grab some things. The storm from the previous night did not abate. So we motored through turbulent bucking seas of 4 to 6 feet for the next 8 hours. They don't call it the Thorny Path for nothing. That afternoon we pulled into the Chub Cay anchorage, dropped the hook, and descended into yet another coma as we slept off the last two days of constant work. Who said cruising was easy?

This morning we woke anew, reveling in our tropical environment, and set out to explore this new island. We fried up some bacon and eggs, dropped the RIB in the water, and ventured forth to see what we could see. Chub Cay is a private island and private marina but fortunately for those of us sailing during the off season, things are like a ghost town and they are more than happy to let us use their laundry facilities and swim in their pool. It's like our own private resort wherever we go. The only downside is you have to watch out for pesky hurricanes. And spend some money.

We explored the marina, woohoo!, got some ice cream for the kids, and set out to round the island in our 12 foot Rib. Normally we can clip along at about 30 MPH but when the water depths are only a foot or two, you gotta take her easy. We pulled up to a secluded beach, and I mean secluded, gathered some Conch, and played with a couple of curious reef sharks that came around. They're only about 2 feet long. Just babies in their terrible two's, so I tried to catch them by the tail to see how far I can toss them, figuring their parents would be obliged. But they are cautious of us dangerous humans.

Moving along, we rounded the Northern tip of the island and encountered rough seas as expected. Always rougher than expected. But with better water depths you can lean on the gas and cover some ground. Everyone grabs on and goes for the ride. We stopped at the Berry Island Club Marina which was closed. We walked around for a minute then left. A few miles back to our boat we encountered some really big ocean swells. Really big for a dinghy anyway. We took her easy as we passed a lee break water and watched the seas swell up and crash on the rocks. Yamaha don't fail me now. In the end we pulled up to our sailboat, made some snacks, and set in to hide from that mean old sun for awhile.

The kids fed a couple seagulls a few scraps off the side and before you know it there's a squadron of Turns gliding the trade winds above our boat. Everyone was having a blast...until one of the gulls ventured too close to our wind generator. Now a wind generator is just that, it makes electricity from the wind which requires a considerable amount of turbine force. Unfortunately for the greedy gull, things didn't turn out too well. And the same for our children who witnessed the atrocity first hand and were mildly traumatized by the event. It took more than an hour to stop the tears of sympathy. And the injured gull flapping in the water next to the boat didn't help the situation. I grabbed the scatter gun and a couple of shells to ease the gulls suffering but by the time I unlocked everything per Bahama regulations, she was out of range. So much for the law. So much for the gull.

In an hour or so we'll head back into the marina where the kids will play in the pool, I'll email this blog while doing laundry, and we'll get at $15 dollar hamburger for dinner. Fries are an extra 3 bucks. It's a fair trade for letting us use the facilities. I think they just like having some energetic kids running around. Having young kids is your passport to cruising the Bahamas during the off season. Everything is desolate. Every place we pull into is happy to have a money-spending soul around. And we don't spend that much. But no matter where we have gone thus far, everyone has been great. The common response is 'no problem mon' as opposed to the states where we got three tickets in 5 minutes just for venturing out in our dinghy. And we were legal! In the amount I'd save in fines and taxes it'd be cheaper to fly all our friends and family to wherever we may be in the islands and just stay out of the states. All in all, I would recommend boaters boycott Florida as a cruising ground. Other cruisers reporrted the same level of harassment and taxation from the 'authorities'. All in all, everyone was refusing to pay their fines.

If all goes well in the next few weeks you'll read about our adventures sailing down the Exumas to Dominica Republic, where we will finish out the hurricane season. Plenty of places to hide there and you can get a healthy, all organic, non genetically modified, non hormone induced, family meal for 6 bucks compared to $85 in the Bahamas. But you got to lock the dinghy and unlock the scatter gun. It's all part of the adventure.

I hope this blog entry finds everyone well. I'll try to update it more often as Wi-Fi signals permit. We will also try to start a youtube channel where we can upload some of our recent videos, hopefully edited for user content. Bless dem, and peace out.

The Luhtas