Immigration and Customs Offices

      The alarm was set for 4:45 am.  This was the day, the weather window was here.  Our hopes were soon to become reality.  We are heading to North Bimini in the Bahamas.   The ground work we had laid down on the previous day with laying plot tracks was put to use as we departed our anchorage at Belle Isle at 5:30 am and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean.  All books we had read, and all the discussions we had with others boaters told us to clear the outer range markers and take a heading of 127 degrees. true  This was done to offset the push/drift caused by the Gulf Stream.  As we were crossing our chartplotters were once again tracking our progress.  We soon realized that our heading continued to take us to the ESE.  But where was the drift?  As best we could tell, it never developed.  In retrospect, we could have taken a direct heading of 95 degrees true from Miami to the Biminis.  On the first leg the seas were on the bow as we took 4 foot waves.  Comfortable but you still need to grab handrails as we moved about the boat.  At one point we heard a loud noise come from the galley.  On Sharon's inspection, she discovered that the refrigerator had come open and near full gallon jug of milk had exited the confines of the refrigerator bars and laid on the floor intact.  Before the jug milk hit the floor it made contact with the garbage can and left a very large dent in the lid.  That could have been very disasterous to have spilled all that milk.  We would have had a milk crisis onboard Big Run.  In other words - a milk shortage!
      The second leg of the journey had the seas laying down and the ride was much better.  Then, out of the blue ,Michael on Second Star proclaims "Land Ho!"  There it was, the Bimini Islands, our destination.  We made the crossing safely.  Within 2 hours we were docked and had raised our quarantine flag and proceed to the Immigration and Customs offices.