This morning Mark set out to check in with Customs and Immigration. Above, Daisy was quite disappointed when Mark left without her in the dinghy as she hadn’t been able to take her morning walk yet. So, Daisy just sat and watched until he came back an hour later. Only the “captain” is allowed to go ashore until the forms are filed and you pay your $300. We had files of everything we thought they might need. When we were three miles off shore, we raised the yellow quarantine flag. After Mark checked us in, we took that flag down and raised the Bahamas courtesy flag which we will keep up until we leave. When you are visiting another country, their flag has to go higher than your home country’s flag.We were surprised that the office was open on January 1, but glad to find out it was.
While I’ve seen the clear aqua water in the Bahamas, it never ceases to amaze me. In the photo above where Daisy is watching Mark leaving in the dinghy the water looks the color of a swimming pool.
As the day went by, the winds became stronger. The current here is like a fast river. Even with winds near 20 kts, we were still swinging in the direction of the strong current, not the wind. Last night, Mark got up several times when the anchor alarm went off. We weren’t drifting, but we were swinging in large circles.
Today we decided to go to a marina. There are several small marinas in Bimini, and we ended up going to Seacrest. As we were coming into the dock , a woman in the boat across from us called over and said we were invited to a potluck with other cruisers here. I quickly made some peanut bars and we went to dinner. Since today is my birthday, it was especially nice to eat out.
