Overnight Run to Black Point

Bimini to Black Point |  29.5 Hours  |  208 Miles 

We had perfect conditions for leaving Bimini -- bright sun, warm, high tide, and light winds We zipped right out the cut and were on our way. A heavy morning dew meant that I could give Crossroads a good bath as we made our way north before turning east across the Grand Bahamas Bank. The beautiful weather continued and we confirmed our first plan of going overnight to the Exumas. Just before sunset we passed the Northwest Channel Light. The sun bid farewell without fanfare as we reached the Tongue of the Ocean where depths plummeted from 15-feet to 6,000-feet in the blink of an eye. We were the only souls on the water and the sky was darker than dark. My watch cycle began at 6:00 and by 7:00 it seemed like midnight. 

Around 8:15 a glorious moon began to rise. Just waning off of full, it was still at 94% brightness and lit up both the sky and water. We had great visibility all night. When the sun rose the next morning, the moon was still shining brightly in the western sky. It had been a perfect night for travel and we were running ahead of schedule. It was a no-brainer to continue further south and we decided our destination would be Black Point. We enjoyed breakfast and I cleaned up a bit before going out on Fiberglass Beach for a nap. I was dead asleep when Barry came out of the pilot house yelling, "We have visitors!" I didn't understand at first, then I saw it ...

... the Royal Bahamas Defense Force patrol boat. They had called Barry on the radio and instructed us (me) to deploy our fenders for boarding. Two very polite officers came onboard and checked out all our documentation. One accompanied Barry and together they opened every drawer and cabinet. Then they wanted to inspect our drop-in freezer. Everything that I had Tetris'd in to maximize storage, came out on the counter. The officer commented on the amount of salmon stored in the small space. He tried hard but apologized that he could not get everything back the way it was so that the lid would close. I told him not to worry about it and would take care of it when we were done. The driver of the patrol boat did a great job of keeping distance as the officers jumped back aboard their vessel. After an hour, they released us, with our souvenir Boarding Certificate (suitable for framing), to continue the 15 miles to Black Point. The only issue we had with the delay was our freezer temperature rose five degrees during their visit. We later had to run the generator for six hours to get in back down to its normal chill point. The crystal blue water reminded us, however, that no worries, all is good.

We dropped the anchor in Black Point and I went to the upper deck to take in the scene. Barry soon beckoned me to action to get the dinghy in the water so we could go ashore. I enjoyed seeing the plumeria blossoms on our first trip to land.

After a quick return back to the mother ship, we were off again for a late lunch. The grouper fingers were delicious (and made me forget all about the many packages of salmon onboard). As we returned to the dinghy dock, the fresh smell of heaven wafted out of Ms. Peermon's kitchen. We lucked out when Lorraine packaged up a loaf of her mom's still-warm coconut bread for us. We lowered it into the dinghy and got it safely home.

We took a quick sunset run around the anchorage before loading the dinghy back onto the upper deck. (Two pictures because I needed to fill up the photo bar.)  We'll leave early tomorrow morning and make an outside run to George Town where we'll meet up with the crew of Paradigm Shift. We're looking forward to catching up Glenda, Greg, Jaxon, and Cooper.