Kaimusailing

When I got up for my morning 8 AM to 11 AM watch, I got up almost an hour early. The boat was shaking us around again. Ron was on watch and had let out a bit of the jib. He said maybe we should roll it back up to where it was, I said no, we’d be OK. We got a huge roll on an unusual wave and I heard things clank down below. One of the barf buckets slid across the cockpit, an ominous sign.
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Down below, my precious pot of coffee was nowhere to be seen. Coffee grounds and coffee were splattered all around the stove, all over the clean dishes in the dish drain. The coffee pot had vanished behind the stove, leaving a debris trail down there. Fortunately I knew how to disassemble the stove top to simplify the cleaning process. Unfortunately in the middle of the cleaning, the boat rolled again and the stove top, which is on a hinge, swung back down on the back of my hand, also smearing a coffee grounds stain onto my otherwise clean tee-shirt. Nautical language followed. I cleaned things up and started another pot of coffee, rinsed the shirt with cold water and repeatedly squeezed out the stain, but it will still be there, although faint, I will always see it and grumble.
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The wind was up and down, from low teens to 20 knots, and the seas likewise would go from benign to large rollers. It would be like this till we got to the Old Bahama Channel which blocks any seas from the East with its shoals.
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We will arrive there sometime in the middle of the night, then begin a gradual arc to the northeast and meet up with the Gulf Stream on our approach to Miami. The owner had found a slip on the Miami River and we should be able to pass our mast under the 3 75 foot clearance bridges along the way. We think our air draft is about 73 1/2 feet.
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The forecast is for the North wind to slowly clock around to the ENE and drop to about 10 knots. If we arrive at the Gulf Stream with an East wind, that is good, if we still have a North wind, not so good. It would be nice to ride the Gulf Stream for a bit and pick up that strong current on our last leg.
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All three of us were on deck somehow, so I said I would make an early lunch out of the mahi filets and sauteed them. I made sandwiches with big thick mahi pieces and a sauce made of mayo and catsup. There are still 2 1/2 filets in the fridge but time is running out to use them. Still good right now. The boxes of muffins are down to just 3 muffins, but they are now moldy. No more muffins. The bags of bread, hoagie rolls, have been in use for the mahi, for peanut butter sandwiches, and maybe we’ll have burgers later today and use of more of them. They were originally two dozen rolls and now we’ve started into the second dozen and I hope they don’t turn out like the muffins. Otherwise we have tons of food, yogurt, eggs, small ham, hot dogs, salad greens and sweet peppers, onions, mushrooms, plus we have dry goods, pasta, pasta sauce, canned tuna, and a couple of chocolate bars. There are two ripening avocados, pico de galo, and with one of the onions we can make guacamole.
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After eating the messy mahi sandwiches we talked about the new destination on the Miami River, a slip at a private residence. The owner has made arrangements but he has again made a
questionable choice. We are sure the mast is at least 73 feet off the water, maybe 74 1/2 feet, and on the Miami River are at least two fixed bridges listed as having 75 feet of clearance.
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The wind is veering, or clocking, going aft on our starboard reach now becoming a broad reach. Apparent wind has dropped and our speed is hovering around 6 1/2. Acceptable but not cheering us as the 7‘s and 8‘s had. The owner had wondered why we felt like we were flying at 8 knots but feel like we are standing still at 6. The boat seems to come alive at the higher speeds.
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A new satellite phone call to the owner has us going to Palm Beach to finish the delivery instead of Miami. I was now going off watch and made egg drop soup by dropping beaten eggs into a quart of Knorr chicken noodle soup made from a dry mix.
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I couldn’t sleep and once again it was the chinese firedrill on deck in a rain squall. We were becoming well trained in reducing sail, getting wet in the rain, and getting the boat settle down in high winds. This time the wind also abated and we were poking along at 6 1/2 knots. I made popcorn down below and reviewed the detailed chart of the entrance at Old Bahama Channel. The channel shoals from over 1000 meters to 2 at the edge of the channel. The distance from our waypoint to the shoal is only about 2 1/2 miles.
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The rain squall was one of a bunch that blocked our view of other shipping, and they sent wet rain onto the cockpit bimini making the only relatively dry spot the lee cockpit seat up forward under the dodger. A ship astern disappeared in the rain and didn’t reappear after the squall passed. I heard intermittent chatter on the VHF and saw two lights to the North. It was in the vicinity of the shoals that lie along the right side of the Old Bahama Channel. Perhaps they were Cuban fishermen talking to each other on the radios and fishing on the bank.
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After going off watch and getting some sleep I was on duty again and relieved Ron. I made a couple of super egg toasties for us for breakfast. We were sailing up the Old Bahama Channel and a lot of shipping was coming in the opposite direction but well spaced away from us to the southwest. We were to the northeast of the westbound lane, kind of like being on the shoulder of a super highway. I kept moving waypoints so that our track ran closer to the shoal and allowed plenty of room for ship traffic.
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Skipper came on to relieve me and spent considerable time studying the chart of the Bahama bank. We altered course to cross the bank, avoiding an 11 foot depth near the edge. We had about 25 feet average depth along our new route.