Fort Lauderdale to Bimini

[HughTad]

Hi,

We have been enjoying our Oceanis 321 since we bought her earlier this
year. We have had several enjoyable day cruises up and down the
coast, however, we have yet to venture across the gulf stream.
We are interested in finding local sailors who intend to go over to
the Bahamas in the future who we could tandem along.
We are also looking for friends for local raft ups.

Regards,

Hugh & Tad

[mark....@gmail.com]

Hugh, Tad

I did this trip in 2004 as part of a BWSS ASA sailing qualification. There may be a write up of it in the archives. We took a J42DS from Ft Lauderdale down to Biscayne bay staying inside of the gulf stream and entered Miami at Government cut following the channel way to the back by the commercial section of town before cutting to port and proceeding South under the Rickenbacker causeway and we anchored up behind (to the west of) Key Biscayne for the night. Don't be tempted to cut the corner as you come through the port of Miami, it shoals or did in 2004.

For the crossing to Bimini we weighed anchor at 2:30am and made our way out through the (unlit) channel at Stiltsville aiming to arrive Bimini at high tide. Using our approved ASA coastal nav techniques and allowing for the gulf stream current and we came up right on target. As I recall there was a brown house on shore and we took a bearing of 60M on it for the unmarked channel at high tide, even then we touched bottom. There is a small marina at Alicetown where we stayed for the night and we cleared in there. The cruising permit was I recall $300. We sailed South through the keys the next day down to the southernmost island south of cat cay (forget the name of it but there was some industry there that reminded me of the guanno mine in Dr No), we then came back up to Cat cay and anchored in the crook of the island there for the night.

We sailed back direct to Ft Lauderdale from there - a grey, lumpy, overcast leg if I recall correctly.

It was all very straightforward.

HTH

Mark
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[Howell Cooper]

For those heading to Cat Cay, you will pass Gun Cay, a very inviting place
just north of Cat. (That is the north side of the Cay). We anchored in a
very inviting place called Honeymoon on Gun Cay. Don't even think of
spending the night there unless you have one very large anchor as the sand
is about 6 inched deep on hard pan. Middle of the night we actually drifted
over the bar into the Bahama Banks east of the Cay. Thank goodness it was
in a large power boat with very good wheel protection. In fact, we spent
three nights around Gun and Cat and never had a whole nights sleep due to
anchor dragging. The east side of the approach side of the runway at Cat is
fairly good holding. Our first trip and we couldn't get over the water
clarity.

Cooper