Jane's Fifty Hours Off Shore
18 May 2010
Dear Friends and Family ~
After leaving the dock at Camachee Cove marina at 8:30 am Wednesday morning, we were headed out the St. Augustine inlet within 15 minutes. The sun in our eyes made it difficult to pick out red (keep on the left) and green (keep on the right) buoys marking the channel. This was our first transit of this inlet so I had a few butterflies. There were breaking waves on each side of the channel indicating low water and shoaling. This is one of the inlets on the NOAA charts not shown in detail because waves and shoaling constantly change the channel location. Rather, you must depend on the buoys that mark the channel at your time of passage.
We did thread the buoys and made it through fine, out to the whistle buoy, about a mile offshore, before turning northeast toward Cape Fear, North Carolina, a little over two days and nights away.
I experienced some seasickness just outside the inlet because I was below putting movable things away. We should have done that before departing. Candles, guitar, fruit baskets, knife holders, dishes and more . . . all had to be secured to berths or stowed in lockers (cabinets and closets). We were bouncing fore and aft and rolling side to side, so lots of things were falling and crashing. By the time I was done I was really queasy.
In October of '08 we bought some "snake oil" at the Annapolis Boat Show which was guaranteed to prevent sea sickness. I put a dab behind each ear lobe, then went back above. It's much better to be in the cockpit in the fresh air and with the horizon in view. The rocking and rolling quieted some once we put up the sails. Once all 3 sails were out and making 7+ knots with an east wind 7 to 12 knots, 2 to 4 foot chop and 6 to 8 foot rollers, we were finally sailing! It was about three hours before my stomach was fully settled by the snake oil, some ginger ale and a few ginger snap cookies (ginger helps seasickness). I had no problems after that.
Our friend Stu hailed us on the VHF as we were setting sail. He saw us leaving the inlet from his back deck in South Ponte Vedra and radioed to wish us safe voyage. We really appreciated his call.
We set the autopilot for a course of 35 degrees, the direct or rhumb line to the Cape Fear inlet, and followed that course for almost 300 nautical miles to the inlet's whistle buoy. We lost sight of land only three hours outside the St. Augustine inlet and didn't have it in sight again until we were about 10 miles off Bald Head Island Friday morning. Our farthest distance from land was about 60 miles off Savannah, GA.
So what was it like being aboard for the passage? First of all, we followed a three hour on / off watch schedule. When on watch I was in the cockpit scanning the horizon 360 degrees for other vessels and monitoring the VHF radio, checking the sail set and making (or calling for) adjustments as needed, watching the engine temp gauge to prevent overheating (when the engine was on), eating to keep up blood sugar, drinking to stay hydrated, monitoring and logging our progress and (rarely) adjusting the autopilot as needed to fine tune our course. Wind, waves and current occasionally combined to push us slightly above or below the rhumb line. When using our magnetic compass, we steered 40 degrees magnetic to make 35 degrees true. During daylight hours, I read and worked crossword puzzles between these tasks.
When off watch, I slept or tried to sleep, got food and drink for Bob and occasionally helped with sail changes. I was able to get at least one hour of sleep each off watch, sometimes almost three. Bob did not sleep until Thursday night, his last two off shifts. The motion kept him awake he says but I think he was unable to relax fully when I was on watch. Finally he got so weary that he had to sleep and so he did.
Sometimes we stretched out in the cockpit with the breeze blowing over us. Other times when it was particularly rolling, we slept on the salon settee. We used a lee cloth for the first time, a canvas cloth that affixes to the front of the settee and is tied vertically to the cabin ceiling. This creates a cloth "wall" that keeps you from rolling off the settee. When the wind became calmer and the bow was not rising and falling, we slept on our forward berth which was the most comfortable, soft and large enough to prevent rolling off.
From our experience crossing the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas last year we learned that preparing a meal isn't as easy on a rolling sea as it is at the dock. For the 18 hour Bahamas passage, I had stocked our fridge with leftovers like stew, soup and casseroles and envisioned heating things on the stove top or the microwave, both of which were impractical for several reasons. The microwave doesn't work well when the boat is healed because the turntable doesn't turn, the dish inside ends up at the back wall or on the door and the food doesn't heat evenly. Using the gas stove isn't much better although the stove is gimbaled and swings freely to an (approximately) level position. But you still have to stay below in the galley to ensure that food doesn't spill as the stove swings to and fro and on a rolling boat you know what that can do to one's stomach. When in the cockpit it is difficult to eat with a plate in your lap. And putting a plate on a cockpit table while under way practically insures that food will spill all over. Then comes the washing up, again done below while rocking back and forth, staring at roiling dishwater. All of this discourages normal food preparation and consumption.
The solution for us turned out to be pre-preparation of finger foods and eating just a little bit every hour or so. For this passage I assembled carrots, radishes, beef jerky, cold chicken thighs, oranges, apples, hard-boiled eggs, cheese sticks, granola bars, brownies and ginger snap cookies. Bob and I filled a small bowl with a few items and munched our watches away. We did make sandwiches, egg salad and chicken salad, when the seas calmed. Ice water, ginger ale and Crystal Lite rounded out the beverage list.
As the passage progressed, the wind veered from east to southeast and lessened to 4 to 6 kts and a four to six foot swell kept rolling in from the stern quarter all day Wednesday, rocking Voyageur, sometimes violently, fore and aft and side to side . . . at the same time. We raised the iron jib (turned the engine on) about 5:00PM Wednesday afternoon to help with speed and stability and we kept it up the rest of the way. By Early Thursday morning, all sails were furled as the wind continually lessened and its direction became unpredictable. At one point Thursday night, while motoring under bare poles, I put out our big Genoa (jib) for a couple of hours when the wind briefly picked up to 5-10 from the southeast. This steadied the boat and helped Bob got his first real sleep. In fact, he was still sound asleep at the appointed time for watch change so I let him sleep another hour as I was doing fine.
We saw few other vessels. Once in a while we saw a sail close to shore or on the horizon east of our course. Two freighters appeared from the north, miles away and two casino boats appeared the second night out off the South Carolina coast. During the day sport fishing boats appeared as the seas moderated under a beautiful cloudless sunny sky.
Thursday afternoon, 41 miles off Charleston, we passed NOAA buoy 41004. Such buoys collect and relay wind, wave, temperature and current data which is subsequently reported on a NOAA maritime website. Our GPS chart plotter showed us on a course that would take us directly over the buoy. So when we got close, we slowed and scanned all around us but couldn't spot the buoy. I envisioned us hitting it, putting it out of commission and the NOAA website saying "41004 not functioning, hit by Bob & Jane Fulton aboard s/v Voyageur". We didn't know what it looked like or how tall it was. I was wishing that it was night because the buoy's flashing light, if operating, would allow us to see it more easily. Finally, we spotted it about half a mile off our starboard bow. It looked to be a frame 5 feet high but not very substantial. Whew!
Several times, dolphins, individually or in groups, joined us, racing along side or plunging under Voyageur's bow, riding it's compression wave for a good distance. Thursday afternoon a pod stayed with us for quite a while, adults and several youngsters. The youngsters swam alongside us just underwater. The sea was so clear we could easily see their spotted backs and light grey bellies just under the surface. Occasionally an adult would calmly swim over to join the juveniles, perhaps to ensure that they were all right or to impart wisdom gained by experience regarding this particular kind of surfing. When on watch just before dawn Friday morning I sensed dolphins were on both sides of the boat. There was a lot of splashing going on close to me.
We did, from time to time, check our progress against our endurance. For example, Thursday afternoon at 2:00 pm we considered an option to continuing on to Cape Fear, then 112.5 nautical miles away. There was a more southerly inlet available so we consulted the tables on our GPS chart plotter and compared tides, currents and other data for both destinations. Voyageur's GPS chart plotter is more than a navigational device displaying position and course. Its computer, processor and memory combine to provide helpful info such as tides, currents, speed, time and distance . . . both covered and remaining. Additionally, we listened to NOAA's weather forecast on our VHF radio which included predicted wind and sea states. All looked and sounded favorable for continuing on our original course. Assuming that we would lay the Cape Fear whistle buoy Friday morning at slack tide and current, we thought we would hold on for another 20 hours.
I had trepidations about the Cape Fear inlet which has currents of up to 4 knots on an ebbing tide and almost 3 knots on a flood tide. Voyageur does 7 knots under power. Additionally, Cape Fear is one of the few east coast inlets where harbor pilots are required to guide commercial ship traffic thru the inlet. Our sailing friend Linda cautioned us not to try the inlet when wind and tide are opposed. She says she "almost lost her life there" the one time she did it. The chart of the area is littered with ship wreck symbols and the name of the cape itself is scary!
So we checked and double-checked multiple data sources for times of tide and current change. If we could start in the inlet by 9:30AM, during slack current between ebb and flood, it would be safest. We constantly checked our progress Thursday night and early Friday morning to ensure that we would arrive at the whistle buoy on time. As it turned out, we arrived at precisely 9:30 with the wind at 5 knots or less and the seas calm . . . benign conditions.
A large freighter was coming out the ship channel just as we started in. His wake produced the largest waves we had seen for 36 hours. At just the right moment, Bob turned Voyageur perpendicular to the freighter's wake, we hobby-horsed a bit and the waves threw water over the bow. It was over in five seconds. From that moment, it took two hours to transit the ship channel and tie up at Southport Marina's gas dock. My legs were a bit wobbly when I stepped ashore after 50 hours at sea but we had made it! Having reached this milestone in our sailing experience, we now have a better idea how to handle a long passage.
Jane Fulton
May 2010