What do you do when you’re stuck in Bimini? Of course you go to C.J.’s Deli. C.J.’s Deli is the place to go for authentic Bimini food. It is a great little place with the best food ever. We had conch fritters, fried conch, chicken wings, french fries, and even a club sandwich. Of course, life would not be complete without some Goombay Punch!

Some of us went to the straw market to buy souvenirs. Mr. Bob and Bryley made brownies on the boat

Later in the day, we dinghied to our anchor and pulled it out of the sea bottom by hand and then reeled up all our anchor chain. When we had the problem with the sail drive, we had dropped anchor and payed out our anchor chain to settle into our boat slip. Basically, we were prepping the boat to be sailed away later.

Today, Tuesday, we’re about to head out to Great Isaac Island, then tonight back to Bimini for the night. All is well! Ya mon!

We sailed to the dolphin grounds on Moselle Bank, but alas, we did not spot any dolphins. We decided not to go all the way to Great Isaac due to the boat going unusually slow. It turned out to be a wise move as the port sail drive was apparently slipping and ultimately failed as we approached our anchorage near Big Game. We dropped anchor immediately upon the failure and avoided all potential drama. We eased the anchor chain out to settle our boat into a boat slip at Big Game.

Today we spent the day on Bimini. Around noon time, we had a picnic on the beach with the locals. Mr. Hank Weech cooked hamburgers and hotdogs. Mr. Bob made his world famous potato salad and that was awesome. All the kids have been enjoying Big Game. We spent a good bit of time in the pool. Maddox is snorkeling like a fish as are all the rest of the crew.

Mr. Bob rented a golf cart and that enabled us to travel the entire island. Mr. David Beaugh has been with us for the last couple of days and will sail with us today. Mr. Hugh Rolle came to see us yesterday and ate dinner with us. It was great to see him again!

We had a nice night on the boat at Gun Cay last night. The group had fun running the dinghy, talked to some girls on the beach, fed stingrays, and then we motored north to Big Game Club. Big Game has a pool and shore power so we’re going to be cool! Since we’ve already been one night on the hook, we’ve decided to stay for two nights at Big Game. We’ll explore the island, have a picnic with the locals, and tomorrow afternoon, snorkel 3-Sisters reef. Wednesday we plan to voyage to Great Isaac Island.

The crossing went well. We’re anchored in the lee of Gun Cay. We’ll go into Alice Town a bit later when the wind shifts. Until then we’re in a great spot.

Wow! What a day! We had SUNSHINE on our drive to Ft Lauderdale. We had a problem finding a spot to park the RV for the week. Ultimately parked it at Paradise Island RV Park in Lauderdale. With all that we got a late start. We went through 2 bridge openings and out to the ocean. We’re in about 15 knots of breeze making our way across the Gulf Stream.

We’re staying at Road Runner RV Travel Resort in Ft. Pierce tonight. We traveled slowly today through rain and torrential rain and even some dry spots.. The wind was strong at times too. We pulled in at about 6 pm. All daylight driving today. Fred, Bryley, Maddox, Dan, and Bob are playing ping pong. Robert, Paxton, William and Hutch are watching a movie and probably eating everything in sight. Maybe if it clears we can use the pool or play mini golf. Most of all, everyone is looking forward to a relatively short drive to Ft. Laudetdale tomorrow morning. We’re going to stock up on provisions at Publix and then on to Fun in the Sun to board our boat, Sundance. All are safe and well.

We pulled into our campground just past Tallahassee at about 9 pm. We managed to stay ahead of the storms the whole way so the drive was good. Cheesy chicken and peas for dinner while rolling down the road was simply delicious! The gang watched a couple of movies on the way too. All are safe, well, and happy and are now sleeping. I will be too about 2 seconds after I send this!

School will let out early today due to an approaching weather front from the west. We’ll be departing SSC at approximately 1:00 pm.  This should put us a few hours ahead of the front and hopefully we’ll stay out in front! In any case, leaving earlier is better considering the weather and better considering more daylight drive time and an earlier arrival in Tallahassee tonight. There is rain in the forecast tomorrow, so we’ll take it slow and easy as conditions dictate down to Fort Lauderdale.  The good news is that the weather should move out by Saturday morning with 15 knot westerlies early, diminishing to about 10 knots as the day progresses. This should push us toward the Bahamas in good conditions. Seas should be 1-2 meters initially and improving to 1 meter as we progress. Of course all of this is a couple of days out, but the bottom line is conditions are favorable for a good Gulf Stream crossing.

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