Note: We’ll be leaving Bimini tomorrow morning and spending tomorrow night anchored out in the middle of the 70 mile-wide Bahama Bank. That means we’ll have no cell or wifi tomorrow night and therefore no way to post a blog entry. You will still be able to see our position on the satellite tracking map at the bottom of our blog’s home page. Sometime Tuesday evening you should see two blog posts appear (as long as we get a cell signal in the anchorage at Chub Cay).

Paula devoted a large part of this morning to giving the cabin a thorough cleaning- fridge, counters, settees, walls, floors, heads- and doing more laundry. Even with trying to get a few days use out of our outerwear, it still adds up quick in a warm climate where you are often doing work that gets sweaty and messy. The wind is calmer, but still enough combined with the sun to dry clothes quickly, especially if they are Dri-Fit (Paula’s favorite).

Tommy cleaned some mud and sand from the midportion of the bilge that had the potential to clog our bilge pumps. Any mud and sand that we don’t get off our anchor chain as we are pulling it up tends to settle in the bottom of the anchor locker (where the chain is stored) which has a drain hole that leads to the bilge. Our secondary small vacuum bilge pump, whose job is to keep the bilge bone dry, is especially vulnerable to clogging from debris. Even though Tommy hoses off the chain and anchor with salt water as he weighs anchor, a small amount of mud/sand inevitably gets in. We’ve found that encasing this small pump’s pick-up in a muslin nut bag keeps it from clogging and Tommy periodically removes any visible surrounding dirt by hand from the bilge with the aid of a very long pinch grip and sponge. Our larger main bilge pump can just pump any small amounts of mud/sand straight out with the water.

As we were finishing, a 45’ catamaran with a crew of four docked next to us. They had left Florida at eleven o’clock last night, and were just arriving 12 hours later. They looked tired, and described the crossing as “rough” with strong winds right on the nose, and 6 foot seas.

Tommy discovered our lost TV antenna, which we had been looking for, on the bottom just about at the level of our bow, on the port side. We had been looking for it over the stern, but the current apparently pushed it towards our nose. May it rest in peace. While looking over, we also saw an 8 foot bull shark, possibly the same one as was pictured last night. All Paula can say is “Nope.”

We ate leftover snapper with salami, onion, mustard and cheese in soft tortillas, and took a brief rest. Then we walked into Alice Town, to see what stores were open, and whether they had any items on Paula’s “wish list”. We lucked out at the store: six beautiful limes for ceviche and other uses plus some new clothes pins to supplement our stock.

We admired the beautiful views and Bimini homes, streets, and vehicles once again, knowing that if all goes as planned, we will be leaving them tomorrow. What a unique island.

As Paula writes this, Tommy is reading in the cockpit, the breeze is blowing into the cabin, and we can clearly hear the town’s only ice cream truck tooling slowly down King’s Highway. Yes, it plays the same dinky tune as do the ones in the states. A passing barge is bringing the Bimini’s trash truck back from whatever island it was unloaded upon. It shares the channel with huge yachts motoring past, ladies in hats on their back decks.

Periodically the seaplane buzzes the marina on the way to the Hilton resort in the north of the island. Small boats are zipping by, some playing hip hop music, some island tunes.