Bimini

We finally have achieved our goal of making it to the Bahamas!!  When we were in high school and college, it was sailing around the world now it is making it to the Bahamas and some day maybe further south.  It was a very fast sail thanks to the gulf stream.  We averaged 6.6 knots for the 12 hour trip.  For us that is fantastic.  We had to sail south of our rhumb line because the current was pushing us north at about 2 kts. When we were hand steering and went in the direction of the current, we saw speeds well over 8 kts.  Since our theoretical hull speed is 7 kts, that's darn good!  The waves weren't too bad but we still sail at a pretty sideways angle a lot of the time.  The wind was strong and we had a reefed main and jib.  By the afternoon we were double reefed in the main and had only a small slice of jib out and we still made over 6 knots.  It was amazing.  It will be hard to go back to averaging only 5 kts on a good day. 
We left Rodriguez Key about 4am to make sure and arrive with good light to make it into the narrow channel between South Bimini and North Bimini.  It was hard steering in the almost complete darkness but we had a snail trail on our GPS to follow out.  We then had to thread between two reefs that were only partially lit.  We had our high power Q-beam out to locate marks we knew should be there but weren't lit.  I think the experience was preparing us for the Bahamas.  We have been told that many of the marks are not lit and the rest are just plain ol' missing.  Very different from our experience on the ICW in Florida.
We came into the harbor calling for a marina that we had been told was a great place to stay.  We were almost to their docks and they still had not responded but this other marina kept telling us to come on in and they had room.  We decided to reward the entrepreneurial spirit and are we glad that we did.  Brown's marina is very nice and charges the same as the place were were headed.  We spent the evening with a couple who is at the other marina and they would never do it again.  The bathrooms/showers are filthy and there are no other facilities and they pay the same as us.  I guess we got lucky this time.
We are berthed next to a couple from Boise, ID (Tom they said to say "Hi")  They are taking a year to travel with their young sons, I think about 9-12.  We tagged along with them to a shark research center on south Bimini then walked a nature trail over there.  Great time.  We were joined by another couple on the nature trail and turns out they are in our marina as well.  Across from us is another David and Pat but they are from Canada.  We had a cruiser's potluck tonight along with another couple.  Now we're cruising!
We plan to be here for at least another day, possibly longer depending on weather.  Our radar stopped working so David will climb the mast tomorrow and see if he can fix it.  He knows it's getting power from the base of the mast so the next step is see what's up with the unit itself.  We would like to have it for the rest of the trip but won't pay Bahamian prices for a new one so we may have to adjust our style.  We still have a lot to see.  The people are all so friendly and nice.  All the cruisers who have been around the Bahamas a lot tell us this is the old Bahamas.  I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow.  I am having some power and bandwidth issues that I hope to resolve tomorrow.  Keep the prayers and good wishes coming.