Passage Sandy Cay Bank - Pelican Yacht Club, Ft. Pierce, FL. USA
80 NM 13.0 Engine Hours
7:00 AM Underway
6:01 PM Docked stern, port side to in slip 5 Pelican Yacht Club

It was very quiet at anchor. Quiet like most of us never have. No street noise. No aircraft. No boats moving. Really quiet. And dark with no moon. The stars were amazing. Did I say it was quiet? I heard faint voices. And, there wasn’t a boat at anchor in sight. I thought the voices were from a radio I had left with the volume all the way down, or one of the iPhones. Or, they were not voices at all. Boats make all kinds of noises when it’s quiet. People have gone mad trying to find rolling soup cans, doors that rattle and noses from places on the boat you cannot pinpoint. But, what I thought I heard were voices. And, then Susan laying next to me said “ Do you hear people talking?” So, it wasn’t just me. I looked around outside and saw no one - ever. Guess we were hearing pirate ghosts. We never figured it out.
Also very bizarre was a drone I believe hovering near us. I was gazing at the stars and thought I was seeing a plane, with navigation lights and some flashing lights. It was quite some distance up and away. I looked at the craft in my binoculars and it was stationary. It finally moved off aways and hovered more. This was no toy drone. I couldn’t hear it at all. It was 12 miles from the nearest land. Military? Maybe? Or UFO. You know we are in the Bermuda Triangle. I keep my AIS transponder on to transmit who we are to all ships, boats or any land station. So, if we were being spied on, I was easily identified. That and the voices without people around - well it’s enough to make you think you are going crazy. I guess extreme quiet and darkness can play tricks on you.

We didn’t sleep too well at anchor. It was almost calm with a slight wind out of the Southeast. We were only a couple miles up on the Little Bahama Bank with really no land protection from waves. Liquid Therapy aligned itself into the oncoming tidal current running up onto the bank. That is fine except, the slight wind was from the stern causing Liquid Therapy to be confused about what to align with. The anchor was not being tugged on at all as the weight of the chain laying on the bottom going to the anchor was enough to hold Liquid Therapy in place with the two opposite forces. So Liquid Therapy rolled a lot from side to side all night long. This of course got worse as the night lingered. I got up and check our position several times to see just what way we were pointed. I’m certain there is a compass inside my head that lets me know when the boat swings around. The anchor alarm was fine too. We were not drifting outside the radius I set for the alarm to come on. Still we didn’t get much sleep. And, then there was the excitement in the big 80 mile run to the US in the morning help keep me awake. I finally got up about quarter of 6 and made coffee. I did my engine room check. I was ready. Now I just needed enough daylight to get off the Bahamas Bank into the deep Atlantic without running aground on the sandbars scattered in our path.

We pulled the anchor a few minutes before 7AM. Sunrise would be 7:20. The twilight was enough to get underway and so we did. I took a few pictures as the sun rose and we passed the “Memory Rock” into the Atlantic we were. We would be on course 300º all the way across to the Ft. Pierce entrance 75 miles away. Susan and I watched the depth meter plunge with me announcing each 100’ deeper until we reached 855’ The depth meter couldn’t read any deeper than that. We would be in 2460’ at our deepest point and well over 1,000’ of water depth until we were about 18 miles from the USA. The water is so deep blue in the Atlantic and the gulf stream too. Pictures just do not capture what the eyes see.

The seas were rolling predominate from the NE. Long slow swells. The very light southerly wind was generating small ripples from the South. The ride was excellent. When we reached the gulf stream there were a little more waves coming from different directions. This was interesting to observe and made me wonder what this would look like on a bad day. We had a nice ride all the way across until we started coming up into the shallowing sea about 15 miles from the US. The waves were building as they met the ever shallowing bottom. This was still nothing to worry about. Again it was just an interesting observation. The waves were hitting our stern slightly on the port side and we would be lifted, surf and then repeat for several hours.

My course to steer to compensate for the gulf stream didn’t work out. Not sure if my calculation was wrong or the gulf stream was running harder with the south wind as it sometimes does. I was steering about 15º more southerly and it did take me about 1 mile further south of my intended track until the gulf stream swept us North. We were in about the middle of the gulf stream when the boat was swept passed my intended track. I then set the autopilot “track” function on and it followed the intended track line to Ft. Pierce. The autopilot steered the boat’s heading as much as 25º to the left to compensate for the gulf stream’s northerly push until we were out of the streams influence. That is not the most efficient navigation, but it works. As we got out of the gulf stream influence the “heading” and “course over ground” equaled out.

We got to the assigned dock almost exactly when the dock master, Vonnie, was getting off to go home. I told her we could dock without her staying, but she was there to catch our lines anyhow. Thanks Vonnie. Yes, her name is Vonnie, not Bonnie. I know how she feels because lots of people call me Brooks, not Brooke.

Susan then call the Customs and Border patrol and told them we were in. We registered with them some time ago and sort of do a self customs check. That way we don’t have to take a cab to the international airport and go through customs.

We were exhausted and the boat is very salty. But we were too tired to do anything but go to Dave’s 24 hour diner, eat corned beef & cabbage and go to bed.





I’m really starting to doubt my engine hour meter. Or, maybe we also went through a time warp. 13 hours engine time and an 11 hour run doesn’t make sense. We run the engine longer than we actually move because it takes time to warm up and get underway and docking sometimes we idle a while. But we certainly didn’t idle for 2 hours. Maybe the alien space ship put us in a trance and used the boat while we were sleeping.

I’ll feel better tomorrow.

Today’s picture is me throwing a message in a bottle at 12:00 noon. We threw one over in 2012 as well. We haven’t been contacted by the 2012 bottle yet. It should be in Iceland by now.