04/26/2007, 30:54N 079:48W
It is 2:47 am on Thursday morning and Jeannie has just gone to bed. She takes the first watch, to midnight, then I do midnight to 6 am, when she takes over again. I am a napper, so can sleep in early evening and morning, while Jeannie finds this difficult, so this schedule seems to work best for us. Last night's tuna was delicious! It was done with olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper and rum, and done on the BBQ. With it we had rice and cole slaw (a new recipe from a boat we met in Alans-Pensacola Cay). And to accompany, a nice sparkling San Pelligrino (no wine when sailing). On this leg, we are using the gulf stream to our advantage. It runs north at about 3 knots. So we get a lift from 7 knots to 10, a considerable advantage. But it is surprisingly narrow, and we sailed out of it an hour ago, so are now re-crossing to try and find it again. Our instruments (wind speed, depth, boat speed) aren't the newest (about 18 years old) so don't have all the fancy stuff today's do. On new depth sounders you can get water temperature readings, and this is a great way to find the stream, as it is significantly warmer than the surrounding water. But we will just have to watch our GPS speed, compared to boat speed to tell. The forecast is for the wind to switch to north winds on Friday for a few days, so we will spend 2 nights in Charleston and, if the winds cooperate, we will do another offshore hop. But if it doesn't, we will head up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) that runs from Norfolk, Virginia to Key West, Florida in protected waters. In places it is natural (although usually requiring periodic dredging), while in other places it is just a man-made ditch. And there are lots of bridges crossing it, many of which we need to open for us to pass. And they often only operate on fixed schedules (opening on the half hour and hour, etc), so although it is interesting in places, it can also be boring at times and slow, and we have to motor as there is not room for sailing in many places. So we just decide at each point whether to go inside or outside, as we come up. 2:12 am,,,I see a radar contact. Must go and investigate. Well, I'm back. It was a large merchant ship of some sort, and we were on a collision course. Normally I call them on the VHF and discuss the situation. And as a sail boat, we still have the right-of-way, but if requested, we will alter course. But this time I received no reply to my repeated calls. So what to do? If I change course at the same time as he does, we might just cause more trouble! In the end we did gybe over to starboard, and headed away from him. The problem is that it is not always easy to determine where "away" is. But we usually get it right. Safety is an important part of passage making, and night safety is doubly important as one of us is alone on watch. So we have some rules. Number one (and I guess they are all really number one) is lifejacket on at all times. And safety harness (attaching us to the boat) is always worn when in the cockpit. And nobody goes on deck without the other person in the cockpit at the time. It is now 4:01 am. I have had a few more radar contacts, but all have passed safely at a distance. The wind is a perfect 15-18 knots from the south-west. Through the water we see 7-7.5 knots steadily. And we are back in the stream and back up to 9.5-10.5 knots across the bottom. At 4:51 I see 11.9 knots briefly on the GPS! Although this is great, I know it can't last. Within a couple of hours we will exit the stream (still 80 miles from Charleston) and slow down to our 6-7 knots, and as we approach the coast, the wind will drop. So Charleston still looks like late tonight (Thursday) or early Friday. So once again we have missed Georgia! On our way down last fall, we sailed offshore from Beaufort S.C. to St Augustine Fla, and skipped Georgia completely. The weather had turned cold, so we scrambled south. But on the way back up, we had planned to stop to see Cumberland Island, reported to be a beautiful wildlife preserve, and to see Savammah. But the weather window was just too good, so they are put off again until the fall.
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04/24/2007, 28:47N 079:26W
This morning we were wakened by the continuous blasting of a tug's horn as he passed by our stern pushing a fuel barge. Then over his PA, he called to "the white sailboat" (thank goodness we're not white!) that if he didn't move, he would take his dingy off next time he came through. I saw two startled heads appear on the boat behind us watching as the tug rushed by within feet of their dinghy trailing astern of them. The anchorage where we were is quite small, and they had anchored a bit too close to the narrow shipping channel. It looked OK when they anchored, but during the night the wind swung south, and they swung with it out into the channel. When I next looked out they were making a hasty exit. But it was just as well as we watched about a dozen sail boats coming in after their crossing last night, and they would be looking for space. So we followed Oasis (the white boat) out of Port Canaveral. The first of the incoming boats was True Love, from Montreal, with whom we have spent quite a bit of time at various locations during the winter. We didn't stop to chat as they were obviously tired and anxious to get cleared in. So we motored out of the harbor heading north again. I called Chris Parker on the SSB this morning and he told us to expect light winds (10-15 knots) from the south for the next couple of days, so we will head north and see how far we will get. Our objective is Charleston, South Carolina, but if it is too light, we will divert into Savannah until things pick up again (probably on the weekend). Either one is OK with us, as we have not seen Savannah, but our preference (is this a deep seated migratory instinct?) is to push north. So we left Cape Canaveral and heading north-east until we were back in the gulf stream, which will give us a 2 knot push, then we headed north with it. Tonight will be fresh skipjack tuna for dinner. I caught a nice one, about 8 lbs I think; enough for six nice steaks. It is probably a good thing I did, as we are beginning to run short on supplies. There was no grocery store near us in Port Canaveral, and there are none out here, so our next stop will include a large grocery shopping expedition. Our last major shop was in Marsh Harbour in the Abacos, two weeks ago. We were able to pick up some fresh things in some of the smaller towns we visited after, but that was last week, so we're running low. But I think we can hold off starvation for a few more days. I just checked in with St Jude. St Jude is a ham operator, well, actually a group of them, who monitor the location of cruisers. Check-in is twice daily; at 0830 hrs on 6227 kHz and at 1700 hrs at 8152 kHz. You give your position, weather and destination. That way someone always knows where you are. It's a great service, and you also get to hear who is near you and where the boats we left with from Great Sale (on Monday) are. I also listened to Herb Hilgenberg at 1600 hrs on 12359 kHz. But I did not call him, as he focuses on offshore passages. But we did hear Eric Orms on Tabitha, who has begun his solo passage across the Atlantic. He left yesterday and is about 100 miles NE of our position. We will try to establish contact with him tonigjt or tomorrow. The SSB is both useful and a great source of entertainment. We can listen to short wave radio for news (except for Radio Canada whose signal stinks) and there are a few right-wing wacko stations that are fun for a short while, but can get boring quickly. Our route to Charleston is about 290 miles and, with luck, we can do it in about 48 hours averaging 6 knots. That will have us in Charleston early Friday morning. Right now with the boost from the gulf stream we are doing between 9.5 and 10.5 knots, so that will be quite a help!
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04/24/2007, off Port Canaveral, Florida
Well, we decided that the slop in the gulf stream wasn't worth it, so we put in to Port Canavewral, arriving about 6:30 am, a run of 156 miles in 23 hours. But it wasn't just the slop that developed when the wind died. The original forecast was for the winds to swing to the ease from the north-east, but they didn't do it, so during the day, when we had 15-20 knots, and wanted to head north, the wind was still in the north-east, making it an impossible sail, so all day when there was wind, we were being forced across towards the Florida coast. Then when the winds died, the slop drove us out of the gulf stream ASAP! So Port Canaveral it is. But that's not so bad after all. It is an easy place to check in, as it is a large cruise ship port, so it has combined customs and immigration in one office just 5 minutes walk from the marina. And from there we will go into the ICW and spend the day travelling north in calm waters, then check the weather forecast and jump back outside when the forecast has some good winds. That may be Thursday or Friday, and if we can get a 2 or 3 day window, we'll take it to get a jump up the coast to the Carolinas. About 10 pm, we got into some heavy comercial traffic, but with radar and lots of calling on the VHF, we were able to stay out of trouble. But other than that, the crossing was un-eventful. So now for a culture shock experience. Although there was nothing organized, we were crossing with about a dozen other boats, and we checked in on the VHF or SSB every couple of hours. And we coincidentally sailed side-by-side for most of the day with a catamaran, Cocimo, who we have run into a few times over the winter. So it makes it a bit easier with someone else out there to call and chat with over a strange radar contact, or gulf stream currents. We will see them in Port Canaveral when we arrive, as we are less than a mile apart as we approach the entrance.
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04/24/2007, Port Canaveral, Florida
We arrived as expected, at dawn at Port Canaveral, and with the dying winds, motored the last five miles. There is an anchorage just off a marina that holds about 3 boats, so we pulled in behind Kocimo, the 34' PDQ catamaran we sailed across with. We had seen them a couple of times in the Bahamas, but never really spoken other than to wave and say hello, so it was odd to meet up with them after we had been chatting all night as we crossed. We anchored and then dinghied in to the town dock for the 20 minute walk up to check in. It was quite an odd feeling to be plunged back into the US culture in a major city after a winter in remote cays and small towns where everyone spoke as they passed. Jeannie waved at passing cars until I reminded her that people don't wave here. At customs and immigration, we handed in our passports and applied for a cruising permit (our first, although we have been cruising in the US for 4 years). First they needed our documentation (Canadian boat registration) then I had to fill out a form that was designed for a commercial freighter, talking about cargo, load lines, etc. So it was 90% blank, but they needed it filled out. In it, I wrote my name and address on the same page four times. But after one hour, and three people working on it, we have a cruising permit. A few years ago, cruisers lauded Mexico for relaxing their foolish regulations that required cruisers to check in and out at every port they entered. A great step forward for all the American cruisers who found the Mexican red tape silly and useless. Now that's the procedure we follow. If we land (anchoring is OK if we stay aboard) we have to phone Homeland Security to check in. One Canadian got caught last fall not doing it and was fined $5,000! That's progress! Today we are a bit tired, as we napped in shifts, but it was so rough in the Gulf Stream that we didn't really get much sleep. So this afternoon is a quiet one. And tomorrow we will be off again, this time to Fernandina Beach on the Florida/Georgia border. It will be a 160 mile run of about 28 hours again. This is to avoud the long and boring ICW here. The problem is not only that it is boring, but also the exits to the open ocean are so few that once comitted to it, you are forced to stay with it for about 100 miles. And the forecast sounds a bit light, but good, so we'll be off again in the morning.
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04/23/2007, Little Bahamas Bank, Bahamas
Saturday night we had Cracked Conch with rice & beans and plantains for dinner, with Guava cake (with whipped cream) for dessert. A typical Bahamian dinner. Bahamian food is delicious, but not too healthy, high in fat (cracked conch is fried in a lot of oil) and in calories. But we wanted to celebrate both our anniversary and a great winter in the Bahamas. Jeannie brought up the question of next winter, and I realized that our start (September) is only 4 months away! So I guess it is time to start thinking. One idea is Belize and Guatemala. But we will have to do some planning before we decide. Yesterday morning (Sunday) we decided to sleep in as Chris Parker is not on on Sunday, and it is his 6:30 am weather forecasts that gets me up. So I was awake at 6:15 anyway, up reading. I then sent an email for the NOAA weather forecast for the gulf stream (I email a computer and specify the file I want, and have the latest forecast in about 5 minutes). It still looked good for Monday, so our plan was still on. Then we had time for a big breakfast, so I made poached eggs with fried ham and toast. And of course we have been careful to keep the coffee inventory high, so we have fresh ground "Kicking Horse" coffee with it. By 8:00 am, we were pretty well ready to leave, and about half the boats had left, so we hoisted sail and set out for Great Sale Cay, a distance of just under 40 miles, in a nice following breeze. But as the morning wore on, other boats began appearing until we were a parade of sail with 21 boats. Rounding up to the anchorage at Great Sale Cay in early afternoon, we entered the large (fortunately) anchorage and found 28 boats already anchored! By the end of the day, the count was over 50 boats at anchor! This cay, looking like it is located in the middle of nowhere (as it is) is quite a yachting center for today at least! It has an excellent anchorage, but that's it. There is no where to land due to the rocky shoreline, and even if you could land, the dense growth would prevent going anywhere. But it was just as well, as I had a few jobs to do before we leave. And Jeannie baked some muffins for us on the crossing. Dinner was Bob Gray's stir-fry chicken and vegetables as it will be something that will give us leftovers that are easy to re-heat. For dessert, we had some more of our coconut pie with whipped cream. This morning (Monday) we listened to Chris again, and the weather looks good for today. So we were off at 7:30 am in a east-north-east wind of about 15 knots. An ideal sail across the banks. It is about 60 miles across the bank where we will enter the Strait of Florida and the gulf stream. We will be there in late afternoon, and when we get into the stream, turn NNE and ride the stream up along the Florida coast. This will give us a boost of 2 or 3 knots, so greatly improve our speed. So tomorrow morning should see us off Port Canaveral where we will decide whether to head in there or carry on further up. It will depend on the weather, which is for lighter winds tomorrow. How light will be the deciding factor. If they are too light, we would just be motoring in a swell, not fun.
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04/21/2007, Allans-Pensacola Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
Today is our 34th anniversary. Little did we think today 34 years ago that we would be doing this today! We left Powell Cay just after 9:00 am, having gotten all the weather forecasts and gotten organized. We hoisted the main while at anchor and sailed off to the north-west in a 15 knot easterly breeze, past Spanish Cay, Hog Cays (there are a lot of Hog Cays in the Bahamas), Angelfish point, Ale Cays and finally bearing up towards our anchorage, and dropping anchor at just past noon. It is a short day, but we wanted to come here, and there is really no place to spend the night between here and Great Sale Cay, our destination tomorrow. Allans-Pensacola Cay was originally two separate cays but were joined during a hurricane a number of years ago. When we entered the anchorage between the cays, there was just one other boat anchored. Our cruising guide said that the holding for the anchor was not good, and the first two tries at anchoring, the anchor just dragged over a rocky bottom. But on our third try we got it nicely set in a patch of sand. I checked it and could see it nicely buried, so we know we are safely anchored. Then, as we had lunch, about 8 boats came in in quick succession, dropped their anchors, and just went below. The last to come in, Osprey, are friends of ours, and they were more careful trying to set their anchor without success. Finally I got in the dinghy and found them a spot of sand. When they set it, I checked and they too are well anchored. But this afternoon when we were in the dinghy, I sneaked a peek at a couple of others, and I know that they are not set, but just sitting on the smooth rock on the bottom. If the wind blows, it could be interesting, but there is no one in front of us, so I think we're OK. After lunch, we dinghied ashore and took a path across the cay. In the 1960's it was used by the US as a missle tracking station, so we went to try to find the ruins, that were shown on our chart. All that now rmains is a tall solid concrete tower that must have held the tracking antenna. Then we looked at a "signing tree", a tree where cruisers have left mementos, usually a board or something else, an old bottle, etc. with their boat name and date on it. It is really interesting, and we found Tabitha's entry, so that was fun. Back aboard, I went diving to check on the propeller zinc, which inhibits corrosion. I changed it in January, and it is still OK, but will need to be done again before too long. And I gave the bottom a bit of a scrub as the growth is starting again. But I didn't do a complete job. I did that about 6 weeks ago, and I think it will be OK until we get back. The problem with bottom growth is that it an have a big impact on speed and, when motoring, on fuel consumption. But if today is any measure, we are fine. We had a beam reach in 18-20 knots and with 2 reefs in the main and the jib also reefed, we came up here averaging just over 7 knots which, for us, is excellent. By late afternoon the anchorage had swelled to 16 boats, and someone has organized drinks and nibbles on the beach at 5:00 pm, so we will be off to that, then back for our second last night on the Bahamas. Tomorrow we are off to Great Sale Cay, our jump-off for the US on Monday.
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04/20/2007, Powell Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
This morning, we planned to be off early, but it was 10:30 am before we cast off our lines. And that is with getting up at 6:30 am! Things just took longer, as they often do here in the Bahamas. After breakfast, I filled the boat with water and washed the deck off (salt accumulation can really build up here. Then we made a couple of phone calls with our cell phone. It is a Bahamas Telephone Company type and will only work here. And after 3 months of no use, the account and phone are both canceled. And it is a pre-paid account, so with $20 still left on it, I called my sister Fran in Halifax, then we checked our home voice mail, and Jeannie then called her brother Fraser in Ottawa. By the time we were done, there was $1.29 worth of time left on it. We gave the phone to friends John and Gail on a trawler, Sea Paws. They can buy more time by buying a card, scratching off some black (like scratch and win cards) and entering the number into the phone. The rates are actually not too bad, about $0.50/minute for a call to Canada. So they may get some use out of it. Then we chatted with some more recent acquaintances from Shelburne, NS who are heading back up the coast but on a slower pace than ours. Then checking out of the marina took 45 minutes to get the bill ready, and then just as we were ready to leave, another Bristol ( a 48.8) owner came in to chat. So we were off at the crack of mid-morning (about 10:30 am). We just motored out the narrow cut and anchored off New Plymouth, the only town on Green Turtle Cay. We left our camera on the boat, thinking that we have enough photos of cute Bahamian towns, but we regretted it immediately. As I have said before, each town has its own distinct character, and New Plymouth also had its own. It is a pretty town with quiet, clean and narrow streets. We walked up them (3 streets wide, four blocks long) and tried to find some woven place-mats, but were unsuccessful. The closest we came was when two young women said that if we waited until next week they would sell some to us, but that they had to keep them until graduation (next week) from the course that they had just completed in straw weaving. But we declined to wait. So we headed back to the boat with some fresh fruit and vegetables, as it was our last place to buy groceries before heading to the US, which will be about 5 or 6 days. Then we set sail for Powell Cay, about 15 miles away, reaching it in mid-afternoon in a light following breeze. There are six other boats in the anchorage with us, but only one other even went ashore, and they just took a dog for a short walk on the beach in front of the anchorage. No one lives on the cay, about 2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide. We dinghied round to the east (ocean) side, and landed for a walk. It was interesting, as if we were in a Walt Disney nature film. First we found some green slimy things about the size of a softball. They had black rings on them (not spots) and were lying just above the water's edge. After watching for a while, one began to unroll and we think it was some sort of snail without a shell. Another one was digging itself into the sand, so we wondered if it was laying eggs. There were about a dozen of them. Then we came across some tiny shore birds, like piping plovers, that had young. When we approached, the young began to run, and the mother ran up to them made a call and they froze in the seaweed, disappearing from view! But if we stayed put, they couldn't resist running and it would start all over. They always stayed in the seaweed, where they were perfectly camouflaged from the sky. And then we saw why. A couple of gulls came along, flying slowly over the seaweed, obviously on patrol. And the birds really froze this time. Then we walked on, returned to the dinghy and found a trail cut across the cay. So we hiked across the cay on this sometimes not very visible trail. Along it we saw some more interesting birds, and lots of little curly-tailed lizards, or whatever they are. But by then it was time to get back to the boat, take off the outboard (as we always do when we are sailing) and get settled for the night. As I was tidying up this morning before leaving the marina, I came across the dinghy lock we bought before coming to the Bahamas. We have never used it. We never locked our dinghy the whole time we were here, or anything else for that matter (except in Nassau) and never heard of anyone else locking anything either. And we never heard a single report of anything stolen. We heard about a few lost dinghies (mostly recovered) due to the owner's negligence in tying them up, but not a single instance of theft. That impresses us! And now as we plan to leave, we are wondering about our plans for next winter. Our departure is only four months away!!! Tomorrow we will push on again, planning on reaching Great Sale Cay on Sunday for a crossing on Monday.
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04/19/2007, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
Last night after we dropped anchor, I got out the fishing rod and immediately pulled aboard a nice yellow-tailed snapper! But then it got more difficult. But after about an hour I had three other fish, another yellow tail, a small French Grunt, and a "Mystery Fish". So we had supper, accompanied with rice & beans and a vegetable stir-fry, it was delicious. The Mystery Fish wasn't as tasty as the others, but all good. This morning's weather forecast continues to look good for a crossing next week. So we will head in to Green Turtle Cay for only one night, then head out west towards Great Sale, our jump-off point on Monday. That will give us a few more nights in the more remote areas of the Abacos, and tonight we will go out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary, our 34th, which is actually on Saturday. Just after the forecast, I spoke to Eric Orme on Tabitha. Eric is in Vero Beach, waiting for a weather window to head across the Atlantic single-handed in their Rival 40. We first met Eric and his family (wife Sue and daughters Elspeth and Pita) in Pulpit Harbour Maine, and continued to bump into them as we worked our way down the coast. And in the Bahamas, we traveled from Thompson Bay down to the Jumentos with them and had a great time together. Now Sue and the girls are back in England, and Eric is waiting to get away. But our good forecast is his bad forecast, as he wants to head east, and we are looking to travel west. So he is getting a bit frustrated. But it was good to chat with him on the SSB. But he is talking with Herb Hilgenberg, the Atlantic weather guru from Toronto, and Herb has advised him to sit pat until there is a shift in the weather. After breakfast we set off for Green Turtle, entering just about high tide, mid-morning. And inside we met half a dozen boats we have been with before. This is a popular spot from which to wait for a weather window, so it looks like there will be a crowd on the water next week heading back to the US. We spent the day doing laundry, talking with other boaters, took a walk, and generally just messed around. We would have gone to New Plymouth, but it was too far in the dinghy in the winds, and the golf cart rental was closed (for no apparent reason). So our plan is to leave here tomorrow in winds that will have clocked around to the north-east, making it a nice quiet anchorage off the town tomorrow. Tonight, there was an informal meeting of boats planning to cross to the US next week. We attended, but there were so many different plans and ideas that I left thinking I would just keep our plans to ourselves. Everybody seemed to think his plan was the only good one. But also, no one is going to head north. All are just going straight across, and we want to head further north, so we will see them at Great Sale Cay on Sunday, but probably part ways on Monday morning. Tonight we went in to the marina restaurant for dinner... Bahamian night with a buffet of ribs, chicken and lobster (or, as it is called locally, crawfish) and the usual rice & beans and cole slaw. It was excellent and great fun. We met some more boaters, and were back aboard stuffed (like after a PEI lobster supper). At sunset the wind finally moved into the north-east, which we have been waiting for. So, tomorrow we're off to begin our run north-west and hope to spend a couple of more nights in the cays with some snorkeling and stuff before our departure.
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