Around midnight last night the wind picked up to ten knots out of the northwest leaving us bouncing and rolling all night long. God I hate those goat rapers at NOAA! On our last night in the US, they just had to mess with me. At least I can take some comfort in knowing that I won't have to rely on those bastards for weather information for at least the next 18 months.

Thanks to the horrible anchorage conditions, the crew was up and dressed by 4:30 am, but since we had never been out of the Key Biscayne channel before, we had to wait for first light before upping the anchor and heading towards the Bahamas.

By 8 am we were well off the American coast and into the Gulf Stream. The Stream is very close to the US coast this far south and within ten miles of the shore, we were seeing a 2 to 3 knot northerly current pushing us towards Greenland.

We motor sailed across the 50 miles or so that separate Bimini from the US and around noon, signs of land began to appear on the horizon. By 2 pm, Bimini was clearly visible and shortly after 3 we were rounding up into the channel and pulling into our slip at the Bimini Bluewater club.

For the record, there were two Bahamian attendants on hand to catch our lines and you didn't;t here it from me, but Amy managed to not only knock one down, but nearly put him into the water when her port side bow line toss went in hot and a little over powered. Oooops, sorry.

Fortunately, young, red headed, big breasted women can do no wrong in the eyes of the average Bahamian male and so an international incident was averted. Twenty minutes later, we were safely tied up and I rounded up our passport and boat documentation and headed for immigration and customs. Customs went off fine, but Immigration was closed so I'll have to go back tomorrow for that.

I returned to the boat by way of the nearest liquor store where I scored 3 Kaliks (local beer) for 5 bucks. We lowered our Quarantine flag and raised our Bahamian one while Amy sang "God Save the Queen". Then we each grabbed a beer and headed up to the pool.

The afternoon turned into evening and after swimming and lounging poolside for a couple of hours we returned home and made chicken finger chef salad for dinner. I was in charge of the chicken fingers and Amy had to battle all things vegetable. The end result was quite good and there were no leftovers.

A strong cold front is supposed to arrive the day after tomorrow, so we need to decide whether to hurry up and race out of here in the morning or plan on staying put for 4 or 5 more days. After going back and forth, we decided to wait until morning and make a decision after we get the latest weather report off the single side band radio.

You didn't here it from me, but I think the female half of the crew likes the idea of hanging out with unlimited electricity and a nice fresh water pool for a few more days and so if I were a betting man, I'd say we're probably staying put and waiting for the next weather window to move onward.

More to follow, end of line....