Miami to Bimini, The Crossing

Monday we moved our boat over to Key Biscayne, which we guess is the first of the Florida Keys!

It set us up for an easy entrance to the Atlantic Ocean.  We took some good advice and did a test run through the channel out to the ocean in the day light so that we could plot a line to follow on our Garmin.

This lil island reminded us of the Memorial in DC

We wanted to leave by 3am but overslept and were on our way by 4am.  We couldn't fall asleep due to our excitement!  We followed our previously plotted line and easily made it out to the ocean in the dark.

Around 6am light started to show and the sun rose around 6:30 am.

The wind was about 9 knots so we were able to motor sail through a light chop.

Hello World

A lil taste of our trip

The water was a gorgeous deep blue! The picture doesn't do it justice.

Around 9am we lost sight of Miami and all we could see was blue 360 degrees

We see the Bahamas!!!

We hoisted our Q flag and courtesy Bahama flag

Around 11am we noticed a squall on our tail.

We got to the channel around 12:30 but the squall finally caught us so we turned around and circled till the rain passed us, it last about 5 minutes.

And then we could see the bright water!

Nala was mad she wasn't allowed on deck during the crossing

During the crossing we were in depths up to 2800 feet! Our depth sounder couldn't handle that and started blinking around 600 feet.  It didn't come on right away when we got to the channel and we were a lil concerned.  It came back on though right at we got to 20 foot depths.  It didn't help though as we quickly ran aground!

The Explorer Chart, the Garmin, and the actual depths all disagreed and our visual depth readings weren't up to par yet.  We were stuck on the shoal pretty good and cringed each time the water slammed our keel down on the sand.  We called Tow Boat and they answered quickly and were about to send someone when somehow we were lifted/pushed off the shoal and were floating again.  We looked at each other surprisingly and motored away from the shoal.  We then called the local water taxi to let us follow them in.

By 1:40pm we were tied up to Weechs Bimini Dock, safe and sound. We decided to stay at a marina the first night since it was right next door to customs.  Customs was a breeze and within an hour we were legit!

The water is so pretty here, in some places its as clear as a fish bowl!

We finally made it :)

High and Dry

We left Friday morning expecting another uneventful day.

Some bridge ruins.

The Charleston Bridge

Charleston

And then as we left Elliots Cut we decided to take a left off of the ICW to a marina for some much needed fuel.  We could see the marina across the river and a boat anchored in between so I just headed over to it talking about how much fuel we needed.  I tend to keep the Garmin zoomed out so I can see upcoming turns and markers, well this time I was zoomed out to far to read the depths.  When I zoomed back in I saw that we were in 1 foot of water.  I said to Christine, "this thing must be wrong cuz it says we are in 1 foot of water"  and then BOOM!

Our boat ran aground and lurched forward.  I turned right and spun the boat around and tried to get off the shoal but we hit it too hard and were stuck.  It's ok we'll just call tow boat.

Tow boat got there about an hour later and during that time the tide dropped about a foot.  We were now stuck and tilted sideways.  The tow boat, Captain Woody, tried his best to get us off and even broke off one of our fair leads but we were stuck and he said there was nothing he could do.  A lil panic sunk in, huh? What does that mean?

It was noon and he told us he would be back around 6 when the tide was back up and that there was a good chance we would be "high and dry".  Christines face turned to terror.  High and dry means we will be sitting on land.

Captain Woody sounded relaxed and and told us to clean the bottom of our boat and check our zincs and left.  The boat was quickly tilting more and more sideways so we had to run down below and move everything to one side. This was happening whether we liked it or not.  We called our boating mentor Eric and he assured us we would be fine and that he does it on purpose sometimes and alot of people do it to clean the bottoms of their boat.  Erics words calmed Christine down and we were now able to relax and watch in amazement as the boat sat down on its side.

We attempted to dinghy out our anchor per Erics advice but the current was too strong and all I got was pictures.  Soon we could see the ground and eventually we could hop right off the boat onto the newly formed island under our boat.

It was almost impossible to walk inside the cabin without getting sick so we stayed outside and ran around and enjoyed an unexpected day at the beach!

The island forming

I ended up just walking the anchor out and throwing it into deeper water.  This will keep us from moving onto the shoal further when the tide comes back up.

Bright Eyes Island

We dug out that river behind our keel to help when we want to leave

A unique sunset

Bye Bye private island

Tho tow boat came back around 7:30 when the tide was up.  We had straightened up by then and after a few tries we were floating again.  We tossed the anchor and called it a night.

At first we were mad and scared about what we had gotten ourselves into, but in the end we are glad it happened and it was a very fun experience!