Back to Bimini
Engle Saez, Bimini Big Game Club, Bimini, Bahamas, circa 1996
Back To Bimini
Head SE from Florida’s Hillsborough Inlet, 53 nautical miles, and you’ll come upon North Bimini, a boomerang shaped island perched on the edge of the Gulf Stream. The eastern arm of the island, barely 700ft at its widest point, stretches to the northeast for about 7 miles before making an abrupt swing to the south, where it widens across the shallows of the Great Bahama Bank into a swarm of mangrove forests that still today, are considered one of the world’s most ecologically important nurseries for all matter of fish and shellfish. This international treasure of wilderness is overshadowed by the sportfishing adventures of men like Michael Lerner, Zane Grey and Ansil Saunders that brought fame and notoriety to this humble spit of sand. Their stories, recounted and magnified tenfold in the cavernously crusty old bar of the Complete Angler Hotel, were amplified by newspaper and sporting journals…and by one particularly noteworthy bit of writing: Islands In The Stream, published in 1970, written by one of Bimini’s best known protagonists, Ernest Hemingway.
Beach Haven Yacht Club; Harrold T. (Piney) Parker; Ernest Hemingway
Our Bimini Short Sleeve Shirt is built to be the best for the purpose for which it was intended: fishing the Gulf Stream, in comfort. And you can’t have comfort without the proper fabric. We use a 140x1 compact yarn to build our Bimini Short Sleeve shirt. Why? This combination of yarn size and compact construction yields a finer, smoother fabric that is extremely light weight, just 3.4 oz / sq.mtr. And attitude plays a big part in how this shirt is patterned out and constructed. Uncomplicated. A simple camp collar design that lays the entire collar down… around your neck, not up on your neck, and in front, down and away from the throat. You’ll stay cooler that way. One center back pleat, an ample sized front chest pocket and of course properly cut shirttail that you wear tucked or untucked, with our signature shirttail flap buttons.
While we are pretty sure few of these shirts will ever absorb the hot sun and the breezy salt air of August in Bimini, sporting one at your next neighborhood bar-b-q will take you to Bimini and back…before anyone realizes you’ve been temporarily away from a boring conversation about your neighbor’s lawn fertilizer.
Capt. Johnny Williams, Caliban - 58' Merritt, Pompano Beach, FL
The Bimini Shirt in Snapper Red
James Lowry, master finish painter, vanisher - Merritt's Boat & Engine Works, Pompano Beach, FL
Bimini Shirt in Blue Marlin Blue
Capt. Tom Lihan, Popey, 45' Rybovich - Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Bimini Shirt in Tarpon Green
Details:
- 4oz., premium long-staple cotton, yarn-dyed and woven in Portugal
- Camp collar, single-needle construction with single loop neck closure
- Double needle construction throughout
- Just-right shirttails…wear tucked or untucked
- Single center-back placket
- Signature shirttail flap button
- Machine wash, dry-clean…or soak in a bucket of salty, Gulf Stream water, with a handful of Sargassum seaweed -- lay flat to dry on the dock
- Built in Portugal