9.4 knots , woohoo!

Rob and I I finally got our circumnavigation underway as we enjoyed our last dinner in the states in Marathon at the lobster and steak house: great food, and lots of it! We had leftovers for both of us for lunch the next day. We stayed at the marathon boat yard for a couple of nights getting some work done and the staff there are very friendly and accommodating, and the rates are very reasonable . We got underway at about 830 after fueling up and had four specialty sail changes within the first 5 to 6 hours changing from an asymmetric spinnaker to a spinnaker to a code 0 and finally settling on our standard main sale and Genoa. We made the passage uneventfully with the winds picking up to 21 to 22 kn at the tail end then dropping down to 2 kn as we were 2 miles from shore. We didn’t use the engines at all once we left the channel in Marathon until we reach the channel at Bimini. That’s our new challenge to see how little we can use diesel fuel.

Rob and I have another challenge which is who can record the highest Boat speed on their watch and I got him on this passage with Boat speeds over 9.5 but I’ve got the 9.5 knots on film to prove it. He won the record for slowest boat speed at 1.2 knots and we may have been actually moving backwards in the Gulf stream at one point. Checked in at customs and immigration,docking at Brownies, which is owned by friends of mine, Alan, Tina and Kenny Levine.

Looking forward to spending a couple of nights here while we go back to our secret spot to get some conch and since the wind is going to pick up tomorrow, we should get some good Kite-boarding in, though the manager at Brownies Marina says the bull sharks may be a problem….We just need to outrun them.