As we sat at Big Game Marina I began to worry about the ability to get safely out of our slip.  There are several issues coming into pla.  First is the shallow (for us) depth that limits movement to higher tides.  Next is the current that rips trough the marina making a 90 degree turn more difficult.  Finally is the winds from the east that work against an easy exit from the confined slip.  If we were a twin prop motor boat with a shallow draft not a big issue.  But the sailboat has a deep keel and only a single props.  Yes there is a bow thruster but not much help in strong winds or tides.  So we departed when the tide was high slack and the winds had not built up during the day.

 

Now we were still waiting for the cold front to come through so we headed north to Resorts World marina.  I spoke with several large motor yacht captains and they confirmed that it was a safe easy to maneuver marina.  Heading north up the deep dredged channel was easy.  Berthing at the floating dock marina was easy and the staff was right on top of helping us.

 

Good side of Resorts World marina is a well built floating dock marina (at least the northern side the south is not so good), good restaurants at the casino and pool side.  Downside is the intensive construction work, totally mucked up water and loud obnoxious boaters from Miami during the weekend.

 

The resort is a continuum of failed starts to build something that then got new money and started again.  Now it is building a new cruise ship pier on the west side, new hotel next to the casino and of course more villas.  Not badly done just not built well or maintained properly. 

 

Snorkeling off the beach was fine, berth was calm and basically an empty marina.

 

Of course as this was a shakedown trip several items went south.  The main refrigerator lost its Freon, the ice maker stopped working, the inflatable kayaks had their glue fail at the seams, most of our frozen meats thawed and there is really not place to properly provision on the island and the winds just kept up in strength from the east where we wanted to go.  So now we were looking at heading to Nassau to provision but it would be a slamming trip against the 20 knot winds.  End result was to call off the rest of the trip and head back to Fort Lauderdale to make proper repair.  There is no repair capability in Bimini or nearly all of the Bahamas.

 

Still not a bad time.  Got to check out the boat, snorkeled in the sea, had good local food, relaxed, Gibbs got his sea legs and began to get back into the cruising life.