05/07/2012, Cape Hatteras to Norfolk
The numbers were mind-numbing for the first part of our journey from Stuart, Florida to Baltimore (to put these in perspective, a normal 24-hour distance for Options is 144 nautical miles): 232 nautical miles the first 24 hours; 223 nm the next 24 hours; and 122 nm the following 12 hours, which brought us to Cape Hatteras. While there were some bumps in the road early on, most of the ride was smooth, fast and pleasantly warm. The only thing we could possibly have wished for was more sailing and less motoring.
Over the next 24 hours, it was time to pay our dues. At sunset on Saturday night, we skated right past Cape Hatteras in flat, calm waters. The thunderstorm to the north of us was a specter of things to come. Instead of a hard, cleansing rain, we were given a drizzle that mixed with the salt on board instead of washing it off.
The forecast for the night was for light and variable winds. We expected to motor right along, albeit at a slower pace without the Gulf Stream adding its 3-4 knots to our speed. Instead, the wind piped up from out of the north. At first it was 15 knots, but it climbed through the night and into the next day, peaking at 25 knots on Sunday afternoon. The waves grew as the wind rose. In addition, the wind changed direction as it grew, creating waves that came together from different directions to pile up on us. We had spray over the top of the bimini (the cockpit roof), which is 10 feet above water level. The wind and waves created a swirling salt mist that covered every surface in the cockpit.
We knew we were losing the warmth of the Gulf Stream, but I didn't realize the water temperature would drop from 81 to 55 degrees in a matter of a few hours. We thought we would get to Norfolk in 14 hours. It took us 23 hours instead! When we were eight hours away, it took eight hours to get halfway. When we were four hours away, it took four hours to get halfway. The wind and waves brewed head winds, jolts that acted like speed bumps and a tremendous current that, by itself, slowed our speed by 2-3 knots.
Payback indeed! All things considered, though, the 24 hours of challenging sailing made us appreciate the 60 hours of good sailing even more. Life would be dull if it were monotonous!
As I'm writing this, we're bumping along on the way to Baltimore. As we hit various waves, I find my laptop jumping and causing me to write things such as ";dsfalkj", which was actually written by waiting for a bump! Time to end this...
David
P.S. The picture is of the sun setting into the coming storm.
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05/04/2012, East of Georgia?
Deliverance?
24 hours after departing Stuart, FL, we had covered a remarkable 232 nautical miles! There were lots of high-fives and self-congratulations, celebrating what great sailors we must be. I know--you can cover that distance with your car in 4 hours or less--but an average day's total for Options is closer to 160 nm. Truth be told, we were able to accomplish this amazing feat only because of the Gulf Steam, which gave us a boost of 4 to 5 knots for most of the day.
Once we got out to the ocean, it was pretty turbulent until mid-afternoon. With 5-6 ft. seas, I had to be careful to kept my eyes on the horizon while I got my "sea stomach" back (that is, to avoid seasickness). As the day wore on, the seas laid down and we have had a comfortable ride every since. Flat seas mean light winds, so we've been running an engine since just before midnight. We've kept the sails up to add a knot or three to our speed. It's now 2 pm on Friday and we've covered almost 300 nm! Still smoking'!
We're sweating Cape Hatteras. I'm guessing we will get there in the middle of Saturday night and find winds of 15-20 knots in our face. With both engines running full out, we'll be lucky to manage 5 knots of forward progress. Once we turn the corner and head northwest towards the mouth of the Chesapeake, there's a chance the wind will be from the northeast, which would give us a good angle for sailing. Until then, we'll be praying for deliverance!
David
P.S. We had a group of up to 4 dolphins playing in front of the port bow this afternoon. Soon after, I discovered a very bold (and tired) bird. I couldn't believe he landed on my stomach! He knocked the wind out of me.
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05/03/2012, Stuart, FL
Ahoy mateys! It's Thursday morning, May 3, 2012, sunrise in Stuart, FL. Two bridges to clear before we can head out to sea. We just waited 20 minutes for two trains to pass before the RR bridge could be raised; now waiting for the old Roosevelt bridge to open up for us. At 7 am, we are through the bridges with no more obstructions in our way. It will take us an hour and a half to motor downriver and through the pass to the ocean. Another half hour out to sea and we'll be on the Gulf Stream conveyer belt, which will likely add 2 knots to our speed.
There might be just enough wind to sail today, but more likely we'll run one engine to boost our speed. We'd like to average 8 knots (about 9.2 mph), which would get us to Cape Hatteras in 72 hours or so. The forecast for Sunday morning at Cape Hatteras is not good: 15 to 20 knots of wind right on the nose. Hatteras is one of the most dangerous capes in the U.S., a place where currents collide and storms tend to concentrate their power. It can make for treacherous conditions.
We will see what the actual conditions are as we get close. There are a couple of inlets where we can duck inshore before we get to Cape Hatteras. That would give us more protected conditions, away from the oceans swells. On the other hand, we would have to thread the needle in parts, going through some narrow channels. It can be kind of like driving a car down a liquid highway, with water sometimes flowing across your path and pushing you off the highway made invisible by the water. On the ocean, you can pick a spot and often head straight for it. The inland waterways are often circuitous, adding many extra miles to your trip. Taking the inside track to avoid Cape Hatteras will likely add 1-2 days to our journey.
I've got the satellite phone charged up with more minutes, after letting it lapse for the last year. They now have a plan where you can add minutes for a month at a time for a reasonable price, so I'll be talking to Brooke a couple of times a day to update her and get a weather update in return. That will be important as we approach Hatteras.
This will likely be my last blog for at least 72 hours, unless Brooke decides to do some updates in between. With us luck and don't forget to track our progress on-line. The easiest way is to click right under "Favorites" on the right-hand side of our Sail Blog page.
The photo is of Brooke at an RGA function in Orlando on Tuesday night, telling me not to take the picture. I thought she looked great!
David
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01/06/2012
Boy, it's been a long, long time since our last blog post! We got lazy in the fall as we cruised down from Baltimore through North Carolina and never wrote a single blog. We hope to do better in 2012.
We took the oh-dark-thirty flight out of St. Louis on Tuesday, getting up shortly after we went to bed, rented a car in Miami and made it down to Key West by 3:30. It was Anthony's first time in the Keys, so we stopped at No Name Pub for the pizza and ambience. We were amazed at how crowded it was, even when we left around 2:30. BTW, Anthony is Julie's significant other.
I had chartered a boat in advance to make sure we would have a ride out to the mooring. I was worried that they might close up the boat rental place because of the high winds, which indeed they did. Luckily, I called Mark at the boat rental place to tell him we were running late. He was at home but came down to the docks to see what the conditions were like--the waves were up to four feet--and ended running us out to the boat himself. Thanks Mark!
Julie went out to the boat with me to get it opened up and underway. When we got to Galleon Marina, I experienced a first: In spite of the strong winds blowing us off the dock, we not only got docked on our first try, but every line Julie threw and Heather (who works at Galleon) heaved and cleated required no further adjustments-a miracle! Hats off to Julie and Heather!
After that, things did not go so well and I was quickly reminded that BOAT stands for Break Out Another Thousand. We had diesel maintenance already scheduled for the following day and that by itself turned out to be a BOAT situation: Besides the usual oil and filter changes, Andy, the mechanic, had to replace both water pumps. Those little puppies were about $225 each.
Ah, but the fun did not end there: The port toilet had died: its pump had frozen for good. Believe it or not, we had a spare toilet on board! We had Mike come out and install it. After a $100 fee to take a look and two hours at $115 per hour, the spare toilet was working well. (Hey, that's only one third of a BOAT!)
As we were coming in from the mooring field, I felt a shudder in the propellers and our boat speed wasn't up to par, so I suspected some rope was wrapped around one of the props. John the diver got the rope off in just a few minutes and then proceeded to clean the bottom of the boat for a few dollars more. After sitting in the mooring field for six weeks, the bottom was in need of some cleaning. This cost only a small fraction of a BOAT.
I was able to fix the BBQ grill all by myself, thanks to Dave Burgoon's tutoring. Two years ago, he suspected the gas nozzle was plugged and figured out the trick to unplug the gas from the grill. So I repeated his steps, soaked the nozzle in Lime Away and reamed it with a straightened-out staple. We grilled our steaks on the BBQ last night.
Brooke refilled two of the propane tanks and bought some new flares to bring us up to Coast Guard code. The guy at West Marine said the old flares might be good for as many as 15 years. As there was plenty of room in the flare container, we kept them. All in all, Wednesday was a busy but successful day--we got Options in good shape to head back to sea--or some we thought!
On Thursday, we were underway at dawn, bound for Marco Island. Anthony and I got the boat underway while the ladies slept in. Once we were out of the Key West channel, it got pretty rough: We were motoring directly into seas of about 4 ft. that were being driven by 13 knot winds. Pretty soon, all four of us were fighting to stave off seasickness. Then we got a "lucky break" around noon: One of the engines started smoking. We turned it off, continuing on with one engine, and watched our speed drop from 6 knots to 3 knots. In addition, the steering became very difficult and erratic without the balance of two engines. Making the decision to go back to Key West was not hard: Andy, the mechanic, could no doubt fix the problem there, plus the ride instantly turned from rough to gentle--what a difference it makes to go with the wind rather than fight it!
On the way back to Key West, I was about to trouble-shoot the problem: when we added water strainers to each engine three years ago (the boat manufacturer did not install any!), we used the wrong kind of hose to connect the water strainer to the water pump. It did its job for a while, but the hose was now collapsing when the water pump sucked harder at high revolutions. The collapsing hose was starving the engine of the water it needed to stay cool. I was able to observe it at different engine speeds: at 2200 rpm, the hose let just enough water through to keep the engine cool. At 2400 rpm, we had smoke again. We usually cruise at 2600 rpm. Here it is Friday morning at Galleon Marina in Key West and Andy is swapping out hoses.
Our plan now is to hang out in Key West until we head up to Miami for a wedding on Sunday and then over to Naples for some meetings the next week, so it may be a while before we have another boating adventure to report.
David
P.S. The picture is of Anthony and Julie at Mallory Square.
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08/27/2011, BWI Airport
Irene is approaching, currently whacking the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It's forecast to go back out to sea but hug the coast on its way up to central Long Island. Having just sailed down much of that coastline, we can vouch for the hundreds of miles of communities along the beaches of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey that are threatened with devastation.
Options is snugged away in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. We've docked the boat so it is facing north, where we expect the strongest winds to come from. We have a total of ten dock lines holding her in place, several feet away from any dock. There is only about a quarter mile of water to the north of our dock, so not much room for big waves to be built up by high winds. Any waves from the north should largely be broken by the two rows of docks in front of us and the boats attached to them. Options is in the very last row of boats, with one hundred foot high Federal Hill covering its back.
We spent most of Friday getting Options ready for Irene. I woke up in the wee hours thinking about all the things we could do to prepare Options. After tossing and turning, I finally got up and wrote down a page-long list of things to do, starting with "Batten down the hatches," whatever that means.
One of the risks is a surge of water coming up the Chesapeake, perhaps raising water levels as much as 10 feet above normal. At last year's dock (Herrington Harbor North), we would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle--our dock there would end up 6 feet underwater with a 10 foot surge! Not so at Baltimore Inner Harbor where, thankfully, we are on a floating dock with pilings that rise up about 15 feet above the docks at normal high tide.
It's almost noon here at BWI airport. We're on one of the last flights out--the airport closes at 12:15. Gotta go, time to board!
David
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08/24/2011
We slept in on Saturday and didn't leave Cape May until almost 7:30 am! We timed our departure to maximize the current going up Delaware Bay. It actually worked like a charm. Running just one engine, we were able to average over 8 knots most of the time! Without a current boost, we can't average more than 7.5 knots running both engines. We got into Delaware City late afternoon, in time for a free 5:30 pm concert in the park. The musicians were very good and they were all over 70, as was most of the audience. They played a nice assortment of music, including "Your Mama Don't Dance" as we were walking up. The guitarist played some hot licks, spicy chords and never missed a note--reminded of my friend Dr. Bob Coates. It turns out this guitarist played with Bill Haley and the Comets for eight years and was his main guitarist. Everything he played was smooth and seamless, no matter how fast the notes flew by!
We spent an extra rainy day in Delaware City on Sunday, sneaking in an afternoon excursion to Fort Delaware. We learned a lot talking to the Union soldiers who were "in character," from the loading and firing commands for a Civil War Union infantryman, to marching orders, to the purposes of the cannons on the three different levels of the fort: take out the sails and rigging, blows holes in the side of the ship, and skim across the water and gash the ship at its water line. They were "in character," but not obnoxiously so. As thunderstorms rolled through, we were confined to the entryway. The ferry that got us to Pea Pod Island was cancelled until the storm cleared. We had visions of spending the night sleeping on a rock floor, but the ferry resumed and had us back to Del City by 4 pm.
Monday morning, we were back to our old tricks, off the dock and on our way to the C&D (Chesapeake and Delaware) Canal before sunrise. This time, the current charts lied. We were supposed to have maximum current pushing us through the canal, but instead we had a little current going against us. We pressed on with both engines running for about 3 hours and then a miracle happened: The current turned to help push us forward and the wind freshened, coming from a direction that actually allowed us to sail. Imagine that, a sailboat sailing! That hadn't happened in a long time. We sailed for hours down Chesapeake Bay, under the Annapolis Bay Bridge and didn't douse our sails until we made the turn into Annapolis! Boy, that was good!
As always, it was great to be in Annapolis, although there were two calamities. The 5.9 magnitude earthquake rattled the populace and caused some damage. Brooke was shopping in town and heard what she thought was a canopy falling off a roof (actually her first thought was that it was a sail on the roof, but that made NO sense). There was a bit of damage, but really not too bad. Brooke got out my cell phone to call David who was on the boat, but could not get through. As she looked around, at least 90% of the people around her on the street we already on their phones. It took about a half an hour to get through to David's phone. He said he heard a little rumble and felt a small wave, but had no idea what had happened! But FAR worse was the unprovoked attack on our dinghy by a band of duck hoodlums while we were eating dinner ashore. They defiled our dinghy in ways that were disgusting and rude, to say the least. It took much spraying, scrubbing and a little gagging to get rid of the evidence. We will never again look at those cute little ducks swimming around with the same fondness.
David with Brooke
P.S. The picture shows a new development right after the earthquake: Previously, there was no gap between the two buildings!
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