Bimini | Part Two

Posting Part II of our Bimini vacation seemed like it was only appropriate 

to do so on a Monday. I mean. Raise your hand if you want to trade in your Monday

mornin' Starbucks for some type of a Rum concoction out of a pineapple. 

MEEE!

If you missed Part I get yo butt caught up to speed and click HERE.

After the most fabulous night of sleep in the history of EVER, we woke

up bright and early and dived right into (pun intended) Day #2! 

Seeeeeriously?! That blue water though.

After catching WAY too much Barracuda (#toomuchcuda) we finally

caught us a nice keeper! Hello, king fish!

 

The Sapona was clearly our favorite spot- I think we went there everyday!

We anchored the boat out and just floated and snorkled around most of the time. There was SO

much life around the wreck- sting rays, angel fish, blow fish, nurse sharks, grouper.

And jutting out of the water at almost 40 feet, it just had "JUMP OFF ME!"

written all over it. 

{{ Enter a big CHECK off of my 30 before 30! }}

Let me tell you though, getting UP this sucker was no easy task.

Had I not had the liquid courage of a few shotgunned beers that day (see earlier photos)

the above events may have never even transpired. 

First of all, the waves were crazy and this thing was CONCRETE. 

All it would have taken was one big wave and, smack, you could have been slammed

right into the ship. Ouch... And as if that wasn't enough, there was rebar sticking

out everywhere. Once we got into the ship, you had to climb about 15 feet of a rope ladder,

then you had to swing (yes, SWING) over to another short ladder.

Again, thank you, liquid courage. BUT! It was fun! Little painful.. but

definitely cool and everyone did it. 

I can just hear my Mom saying, "Corin, if all of your friends jumped off

of a huge concrete ship into unknown waters, would you?" Ugh... yes, Mom. 

That night we grilled up some lobster and fish and just hung around the

house and did a little beer drinking/hammock swinging. S - O relaxing.

Next up, Day #3!

Days 2 and 3 were by FAR my favorite :)

Other than barracuda, king fish and spearing a few other out of season delights,

we really didn't catch anything CRAZY but when you're in the Bahamas, on the gorgeous 

water in a beautiful boat with friends, who the heck cares? 

Bimini | Part One

Let's just cut straight to the chase... I have fallen completely in love with an island.

AND... I firmly believe that, once I share all of these pictures, you will too.

First things first, you'll probably want to know where exactly this 

little slice of paradise is located. I won't lie, I had never even heard of Bimini until

Real Housewives of Miami (and Bryan says those shows have no intellectual content!) 

Mr Fishing-Obsessed, on the other hand, claims he has watched tons of fishing

shows on the island and was fascinated by all of the fish forums and stories.

I remember the plane ride home from our honeymoon; while starting to descend into Miami,

Bryan pointed out a little sliver of an island that had hundreds of boats around it and said

"We are GOING there!" 

Bimini is located in the westernmost district of the Bahamas. 

It's only around 50 miles or so east of Miami, Florida. 

The island is comprised of North and South Bimini and is only about

8 square miles in its entirety. 

Now, how do you get your Pina Colada sippin butt to Bimini you ask? 

You can definitely fly there from Miami- it's only about a 20 minute plane ride

but those private planes will cost you a pretty penny.

There's also the Bimini "Super Fast" which is owned by Resorts World

(one of the largest resorts on the island) that basically looks like a small

cruise ship that charters people from Miami to Bimini for around $100 bucks per person.

OR... you could be completely awesome and adventurous and take your

own boat. We opted for the latter :) 

Six of us loaded up on Tuesday evening to head

South on our friends' beautiful 30' Sail Fish to put in at Pompano Beach

and our first evening went a little something like this.. 

6:30 PM - Everyone loads up the luggage and we hit the road.

6:35 PM - The girls already have to pee. We stop at a gas station.

6:35 - 11:00 PM - The girls talked. And talked. And talked. The boys

eventually whipped out their ear plugs (which Landon so thoughtfully

purchased for all of them) and blocked us out.

11:00 PM - We all hear a loud noise pulling off the interstate and turn around to see one of

the trailer tires flying off and rolling down the road. Great.

11:05 PM - We pull over to find not one, but two trailer tires have been blown.

11:30 PM - The boys call a tow truck driver after relentlessly trying to find

a tire repair shop that is still open. 

11:30 - 1:00 AM - We sit. And wait.

1:30 AM - Someone suggests the brilliant idea that the girls go to Walmart

to grab our groceries for the trip while we wait for the tow truck driver, so we don't

have to go in the morning.

2:00 AM - We discover the Walmart in Palm Beach Gardens is actually

the worst place in the entire world at 2 o'clock in the morning.
But. We get the essentials.

2:30 - 4:00 AM - The tow truck driver tries to repair our tire. The girls sleep.

4:30 AM - Tire is finally fixed!
(All hopes of renting a hotel room where we can comfortably lay down
our heads for the night are out the window at this point)

5:00 AM - We arrive at the bait shop to grab all of the necessities for the trip.

Because waking up to the smell of fresh bait after only 1 1/2 hours of sleep

is something every girl wants to do.

6:00 AM - The boys purchase an obscene amount of Bud Light and all

this girl wants is an extra-frickin-large coffee.

7:00 - 8:00 AM - We gas up the boat. This literally takes an hour.

300-gallon tanks are super fun!

9:00 AM - Boat is FINALLY in the water and we are 

O F F I C I A L L Y 

on our way to Bimini. On 2 hours of sleep. In an Excursion. 

After what felt like the longest night of my entire life, I must say, 

once we hit that turquoise blue water of Bimini... it was all worth it.

After docking at customs and getting all of our passports stamped (by the way, you need a passport!)

we cruised around to South Bimini and docked at our new home for the week-

which was absolutely adorable and RIGHT on the water. 

We snorkled around for a little bit and then we jumped back

on the boat to cruise around and explore the beautiful blue waters.

Photo with Starfish: Checckkkk!

 The Sapona or "Concrete Ship"
Ignore the water spot in the photo- we're still working our way through
taking still pictures on the GoPro. This is an absolute must see when you visit Bimini.
The ship is located off of South Bimini and is prime time for snorkeling
(or jumping! - See Day 2)

We headed back to our little Bohemian villa and everyone showered

and jumped on the golf cart to head to dinner at the Big Game Club on North Bimini.

At this point, most of us had been up for almost 36 hours so pictures weren't happening
and honestly, we almost fell asleep, facedown, in our entrees.
We literally could NOT wait to get into our beds and go to sleep.
(You almost forgot that we were running on practically NO sleep didn't you?)

Next up: Days 2, 3 and 4!

Treasure Island & Beach Bag Essentials

Due to lack of shenanigans this past weekend

Seriously, we went to the movie theater twice.. who are we??

I'm sharing my beach bag essentials and LAST weekend's mini vaca with Mom. 

Treasure Island seriously never disappoints.... 

But first! I read the funniest article the other day on how you can tell if people have kids

or not by the items that they bring to the beach. Like their children, for example. No, I'm kidding.

People without kids usually bring a cooler of beer and maybe, if they're smart, a sandwich.

People with kids bring water, Gatorades, juice boxes, 4 different types of sandwiches, cheese sticks,

fruit, chips, cookies.... I mean how do these people even have anything left in their pantries for the following week?? I literally have to laugh because I think its a hassle NOW to load up and go 

to the beach that I can't even picture a beach trip as a family of four. 

1 // Floppy Hat. Shades your sweet face and hides your hot mess beach hair! Win, Win!

2 // A Magazine. People watching isn't enough. Your ADD will eventually kick in

and you'll need something to do to preoccupy yourself because your Mom

doesn't want to hear you talk for 4 hours straight. This was supposed to be relaxing, remember?

3 // Obnoxious shades. Because the hat isn't obnoxious enough AND

they were only $12 from Old Navy. Weeee!

4 // Tanning Oil. LOTS. To the point where you look like you're ready to compete

in a bodybuilding competition. 

5 // Some type of a beverage. One of my girlfriends turned me onto the new

Coors Light summer brew and I. Am. Obsessed.

Run to the store immediately and get yourself a 12-pack.

6 // The Cube! Or something to blast your tunes. Unless you're playing Jason Derulo

"Talk Dirty to Me." If that is the case, keep that one to yourself.

#overit

7 // Noodles! For when you get hot and need to bop

around in the ocean. Also multi-purposed as a head rest. You're welcome.

Early Saturday morning we packed up all of the goods and started making our way towards Tampa.

My parents have had their beach condo in Treasure Island for a little over 3 years and I swear

this was their best investment (other than myself of course) because I am SO in love with this little beach town. See also National Best Friend Day Beach Weekend.

I wasn't kidding about the Coors Summer Brew.

Suns out buns out!

After getting way too much sun, we headed to the casino!

I thought I would play it safe and stick with the roulette machine rather than sitting at an

actual table. $120 dollars later. Wrong. 

Coffee tastes better at the beach :)

Pretty solid $5 dollar investment I have there!

 This was way too funny not to take a picture of.

What you're looking at here is an obviously empty beach chair, 

several empty beers and a pair of men's underwear. 

What. 

The beach was completely empty when we walked down Sunday morning,

with the exception of this. Someone clearly had a top notch Saturday evening.

 ...You then grab a Strawberry margarita even though it's only 10:30 am

and jump into selfie-mode while your Mom relentlessly tries to plant the umbrella into the sand.

After an obvious fail, she needs your help as she's engulfed in the very

umbrella that she was trying to set into place.

The wind is blowing like crazy, your margarita practically flies away and

all hell is breaking loose. But no, you grab your iPhone and snap a photo

of all of the madness. Looking back, Mom now finds this photo pretty funny.

Not at all the case as it was happening. 

 All is calm. After we ditched the dysfunctional umbrella.

 Being a kid, per the usual.

Side note: Mom S W E A R S as she was taking this picture a sting ray came jumping out of the 

water behind me. The guy pointing at something is probably a pretty good indication that there was. Treasure Island is usually swarming with them but I've only seen one jump once.

I had to google it because I was convinced there was some radioactive, flying creature in the

water at the time that it happened. Please tell me I am not the only one who has seen this occurrence..?!

Beach ice cream is the BEST. So is beach coffee.

...Actually, everything is just better at the beach.

Happy Monday!