THE VOYAGE TO BIMINI 1974

 

THE VOYAGE TO BIMINI 1974

Islands in the stream, Hemmingway had called them, the Bahamas, sand and coral islands of romance and adventure. These tropical paradises were stopovers for Columbus and Ponce De Leon and probably the Greeks and Phoenicians before them. The palm trees were planted by Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame and these shores were the haunts of pirates and the graveyards of galleons. The twentieth century brought more adventurers, fortunes were made in sponges, rum-running and dope smuggling and the crystal clear waters have always been great for fishing.

The gulf stream itself is beautiful and dangerous, it is a river in an ocean colored an azure blue of such depth and quality that you may think it is dyed, that if you picked up a glassful it would still be blue.

The islands are deceptively close across the narrow straits, Bimini is only fifty miles from Florida scarcely a days sail away, but any storm affects the gulf stream quickly and the winter winds are particularly treacherous, this spawn ‘Northers’ that blow down from the arctic, cold winds that hit head-on with moving warm water that fetch up tall waves that are short between the troughs and easily broach and poop the sturdiest ship and try the ablest sailor.

For all of us on the boat, it was our first voyage across the stream, we left in December in the middle of a norther and with a small craft warning posted. We were not completely crazy, Isla was a sturdy ship and proven seaworthy, the only problem was the engine, it was fitted with an experimental hydraulic drive that overheated the engine sometimes and if the going was heavy it just didn’t push. So we wanted wind, lots of wind1 we felt we were able enough sailors we just didn’t want to end up becalmed in the stream

My friends Hodge and Dee had built Isla and had sailed her down from Canada. We were a patient lot, but after two weeks of hanging around a little mudhole called No Name Harbor in Key Biscayne, we were more than ready to roll. We had phoned a weatherman at Homestead Airforce base daily for more of the same light and fluky winds. He was a sailor as well and when he told us the norther was the only sure wind for the next week or so and that he said he would sail it if it was him, so we decided to go.

We only needed to top up our water and sail out but it was Friday. There is an old superstition about sailing on Fridays and we didn't want to be stacking the odds against us, so we waited until midnight and technically Saturday morning. It was on the tide anyway. The Norther blew down in the late afternoon filling the sky with furious clouds. We watched anxiously for signs of real severity or of sudden waning, we left No Name harbor about eleven and cleared the main channel after twelve. First, we wound our way through the Stiltsville Channel (Stiltsville had been a prohibition creation it was technically a small village built on stilts and beyond the 3-mile limit. Now it was populated with a few luxury homes.

We shot out into the ocean with a rush, A white and gray shape tossed in the slate-gray sea against an angry ebon sky. We were the ghostly galleon sailing on storm-tossed seas. The wind was force five on the Beaufort scale, it is called a fresh breeze about twenty-one knots throwing up ‘moderate’ waves of over 6 feet topped with white foamy crests. We didn’t reef we set the sails on a broad reach, hung on tight, and went like proverbial stink.

If we had any apprehensions they were gone replaced with exhilaration, it was a great ride a roller coaster straightened a bit for speed. Isla cut the waves perfectly found her rhythm and threw an impressive rooster tail behind. The wind with a spectacular flourish blew away the clouds and opened the curtain on the stars, southern stars as big as times square signs dancing in a chorus line across the vault of the sky. Then to dazzle even more we hit a meteor shower and hundreds of falling stars flew around us as we oohed and ahhed appreciatively at the celestial fireworks.

It was grand braced against the breeze with the wheel pushing against your hand. Right between the sea and sky, at one with the universe and expectant of another surprise another adventure over that next wave, a definite winner in the most magnificent moments of your life contest.

We saw lights, fellow sailors to the south for all were friends on such a night as this. A freighter steaming north to ports unknown? We watched his lights and -judged his speed and fell off some to sail below him. another light appeared, We laughed at our oceanic traffic jam, glad of the company to see the starry show. He was away to the south, a mile or more it seemed, and with such a wind and lots of way on we hardened up the sails to pass between them, we had lots of time and took turns passing the glasses and trying to identify them by their light configuration We disagreed among us and wisely consulted Chapman's Piloting, it was an ocean tug towing a barge with over a thousand feet of cable! Whew, we fell off again and passed below them.

Since it was our first sail together we had set no watches and. it was decided that I should get my head down in case a second trick was required. Reluctantly I went to bunk and eventually fell asleep. I wasn’t called and when I awakened at daylight the reason was evident the wind had died, simply blown away, they had tried the engine but to no avail against the heavy swells that remained. Isla shifted aimlessly rising and falling sending the booms flopping and carrying the sails like lifeless scarecrow rags.

It was still better than No Name Harbor, we admired the gulf stream and watched flying fish leapfrog the boat chased by a big fin. A shark? We tried to catch him but to no avail and sat and fished and sat and smoked and sat and checked the charts nervously wondering how fast or far north we were drifting and how to adjust our dead reckoning as well.

In the early afternoon, we felt a noise or something, we scanned the horizon with the glasses and then it was clearer, from noise to abuzz, and three dots came out of the west. Cigarette boats? Long sleek speedboats were driven by eight powerful out¬boards across the stern. They tore by us from horizon to horizon in less than ten minutes literally flying from wave top to wave top, the drivers strapped into huge padded seats, still hanging on to a runaway explosion. They didn’t wave. It was the Miami to Nassau cigarette race. We watched them go by, so fast in contrast to our plight at least it was a good indication that we hadn’t drifted too far off our course.

We couldn’t be far away from Bimini, we sent Dee up the mast to have a look-see around and she told us it was there. Finally, a small breath of wind and then another and we got just enough to get us to the approaches to North Bimini harbor by about an hour before sunset. We didn’t want to sail in after dark or drift around out here for the night so we got out our Bahamas Guide and pored over it while we sailed in. ‘There are reports of the channel filling in with sand. Sure enough, we could see too much sandy bottom and we came about and circled around while we read further.

The guide read ‘Approach the entrance at a compass bearing of 96 degrees you will find a bent casuarina tree on the shore a couple of hundred yards from the beach if you line this tree up with the radio mast at the airport on South Bimini you will find the channel. Safely.’ What? The information worried us, the direction was almost southeast and we wanted to go north, and what the hell was a casuarina tree. We could see only two kinds of trees and one was a palm so by deduction we found the bent other tree and found the channel. We hoisted-up our Bahamian courtesy flag and a yellow ‘quarantine flag and dropped our anchors off Alice Town about ten minutes after sunset.