A beautiful afternoon for a swim.

A beautiful afternoon for a swim.

Friday morning we were finally ready to get out of Bimini. We took a short hop down to the anchorage at Cat Cay. It was still bouncy since the winds had been coming across the banks for a few days, but at least the wind and waves were coming from the same direction this time around. Once we were safely anchored, we decided to take our dinghy over to Honeymoon Harbor, about 2 miles from our anchorage. We had heard that it was a great place to stop and we are glad that we did!

This one practically climbed my leg!

This one practically climbed my leg!

Carter loved being able to touch the stingrays as they swam by!

Carter loved being able to touch the stingrays as they swam by!

We knew that Honeymoon Harbor was famous for having stingrays, but we made sure to hedge our explanation to Carter to manage his expectations in case they decided not to show up. Luckily, that was unnecessary because there were plenty for us to see! As soon as we waded into the water, the rays would immediately start coming towards us. They made many passes close enough to rub your hands along their backs and even a few times rubbed against our legs as they went by looking for food. We spent the whole afternoon playing on the beach and swimming with stingrays, exactly the kind of day we had dreamed of for years! Both Dan and I commented afterwards that it was actually somewhat unnerving to have the multiple stingrays gliding straight towards you in the water. Regardless of how cool it was, we were children of the 90’s and remember distinctly the unlikely death of Steve Irwin at the tail of a stingray.

Our first fish was a black fin tuna!

Our first fish was a black fin tuna!

We left early the next morning to start across the Great Bahama Bank. The wind and waves weren’t nearly as calm as predicted by our multiple weather sources, but the first day wasn’t too bad. We even caught our first fish of the trip, a small black-fin tuna! Unfortunately, our second catch of the day broke our leader and stole our good trolling lure, so that was the end of the fishing for the trip. We’ll hopefully pick up another good one at one of the shops in Nassau and some stronger leaders too!

Our first view of New Providence Island was a relief.

Our first view of New Providence Island was a relief.

We kept going back and forth on whether to stop for the night at the Northwest Providence Channel entrance or just continue on overnight to Nassau. In the end, we decided to do a little of both. We anchored around 7 pm just behind the shoals north of Andros island to have dinner and get Carter to bed, since we knew it would be hard for him to fall asleep with the engine on. Dan and I got a few hours of sleep before pulling up the anchor at 1:30 am. It was important to us to get into Nassau harbor before dark the next day and it turned out to be a good choice because once again the weather didn’t cooperate as we had hoped.

Carter and the dogs prefer our land days.

Carter and the dogs prefer our land days.

Throughout the day, we ended up with wind right on the nose and waves opposing which meant no sails and more engine time. We also discovered that the back-light for the engine thermometer was wired incorrectly, making the engine temperature appear higher than it actually was. This made us keep the engine running slower than normal, which made our trip about 3 hours longer than we had hoped to make the trip. The waves, time, and the added bonus of Carter and I both being seasick for a few hours meant that we were all exceedingly happy to see New Providence Island on the horizon. We went through Nassau Harbor with no problems and were all relieved to be back on land for a few days before heading to the Exumas.

The view of the Atlantis resort from the harbor

The view of the Atlantis resort from the harbor