Yes, we finally crossed the Gulf Stream and are now in the Brown's Marina in Bimini. Checked conditions at the critical Fowey Rocks at 0330 hrs only to find that wind gusting to 18 kts - too much for the crossing. Checked again at 0530hrs and wind had lessened enough so by 0630 hrs, anchor up and motored out of Miami . Initially we had 2 to 3 meter swells in the Gulf Stream but this quickly reduced to just a few feet. Unfortunately this also meant that we only had 1 1/2 hours of sailing before the motor had to be started again. 8 miles off, to our surprise we could see welcome sight of the very low lying island of Bimini. All in all an uneventful pleasant passage.
On negotiating the shallow poorly marked entrance channel to Alice Town on Bimini, we were thankful we had turned back on Tuesday as it would be very dangerous in a strong onshore wind. Forecast is for another depression on Monday and Thursday - we are thinking of traversing the Great Bahama Bank tomorrow to Chub Cay - possibly anchoring overnight somewhere on the Banks as the distance is just too great to do during one day - we check the weather againg tomorrow.
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