Bimini, Bahamas to Grand Bahamas Bank

First of all, don't let the name fool you.  There are no actual "banks" in the Great Bahamas Bank.  Apparently, it is just a bunch of water.  I found out the hard way.  We left Bimini at the crack of down yesterday morning, pulling out of the marina and literally almost running into another boat that was pulling out to leave too.  Granted we were more "out" than they were, but we let them go first.  No accidents to report.  We followed the channel from the marina back out to the main water back out around Bimini.  Besides Bimini, the only real land we saw today was North Rock.  It was a little island large enough to hold a flashing beacon to warn you about the rock, that's about it.  North Rock was on a separate little island off the northern coast of Bimini.  Anyway, once we went around it, that was the last land we saw all day.  At sunset we stopped motor/sailing and threw out the anchor.  We were in about 20' of water.  In the Great Bahama Bank it stays pretty shallow, so 20' of water is pretty normal.  We're still a couple of hours away from Chub Cay and Nassau is about 55 miles way.   We will probably skip Chub Cay in the morning and head straight to Nassau.  We need to get in some "protected" waters before the cold front comes through on Wednesday.

There isn't a lot to do when there is nothing but water around you.  I read a book, I walked the deck, I found out the best speed to run the engine (2550 RPMs), we washed a load of clothes and caught a fish.  I just threw that last one in there to see if you were paying attention.  We really did catch another fish today.  Daniel threw the line out and we waited about an hour and the rod started squealing and the line started pulling out.  We started reeling it in and Daniel said, it isn't very big.  We had already picked out which rice we would eat with this fish - there was going to be a good dinner tonight!  Daniel reeled and reeled and finally brought our dinner close to us and it turned out to be (we think, because we aren't fish people, remember?) a barracuda fish.  We came to this conclusion because he was long, thin and had HUGE teeth.  We decided he would probably eat us before we were able to eat him, so Daniel took him off the hook and let him go.  He was happy, we were happy - a win/win for everyone.  (HUGE thanks to Daniel's friend, Tony, who helped supply us with the needed fishing equipment - THANKS SO MUCH!)

As I said, the sun has set and it really feels weird to be "anchored" in this place with no land anywhere in sight and nothing to see but water, water, water.  There are a few other boats anchored we can see in the way off distance, but it still feels like we are out here alone.  Kind of strange, but in a nice way.