Christmas in Bimini

Here is a shot of us enjoying Joanna's fantastic Christmas dinner dockside. We don't usually stay at marinas but this was a Christmas treat! Dinner at our own water front "restaurant" right next to the boat.

After checking in, we were able to pull down our quarantine flag and raise our Bahamanian courtesy flag . . .

We arrived in Bimini on Christmas Eve afternoon, in time to clear customs, take a swim and settle in for the holiday. Click here for photos.


Dropped a message in a bottle into the Gulf Stream as we crossed; the kids just finished reading a book called "The Voyager's Stone: Secrets of a Message Carrying Bottle Adrift on the Ocean Sea" and wanted to try their luck.

We're hopeful that Santa is keeping up with our travels and will managed to find his way to the Bimini Blue Water Marina to slide down our mast. The stockings are hung from the hatches with care; and the cookies, carrots and milk are ready and waiting right next to the gingerbread cottage and mini-Christmas tree. Click here for a photo album.

Merry Christmas to all!

Getting ready to make the jump . . .

Since Vero Beach, we've been in full provision mode in preparation for our jump to the Bahamas. We thought we had a weather window that would open in the early a.m. on Friday but it closed for us given the conditions we're willing to go out in. A number of other boats tried but we heard on the radio later that it did not go all that well. One boat left and sailed for five hours only to return to Palm Beach after realizing that the conditions were no good.

We stayed tucked into port just south of the Lake Worth Inlet in Palm Beach. Tomorrow we'll either run down some more ICW miles or bump out and do a coastal sail. With either plan we'll be moving toward Ft. Lauderdale and then to a location south of Miami. We'll be staging at that point to cross over to the Bahamas with the intent of sailing north of Bimini and on to the Great Bahama Bank the first day.

Given the current weather, it looks like our crossing will happen just before or just after Christmas. Santa will be visiting our boat no matter where we are so that's good.

We've gotten some new wi-fi equipment so we'll have internet when we can find it. We'll also have email by satphone thanks some very nice friends of ours who loaned us the phone. As soon as I figure out the connection stuff we'll also be getting weather emails via a satphone/computer connection.

Well, that's what's happening at the moment. Just want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year. Hopefully our next posts will be of us in the Bahamas. Stay tuned!!

Vero Beach

Hello from Vero Beach. We spent some time in Titusville last week where we visited the Kennedy Space Center, then anxiously awaited a space shuttle launch that unfortunately just wasn't meant to be.


When the launch was finally postponed to January, we gave up our "front row" seats - about 5 miles west of launch pad 39A - to continue our journey south.

Here is a photo album of our day at the Space Center and other recent adventures.

St. Augustine

Spent the weekend in lovely St. Augustine, FL. We anchored just south of the Bridge of the Lions pictured behind Jake & Emily in the photo above.
Visited Castillo de San Marcos while there, got to reconnect with our friend Joe from Onward, and did our best to get into the holiday spirit. Here are some photos of our visit.


We're southbound again today, hoping to be in the Titusville area in time to catch Thursday's planned space shuttle launch.