As you can see, the above photo of palm trees waving in the breeze is not Charleston, South Carolina. After being boarded and inspected by Customs and Border Protection, a different police vessel with the tried and true blue flashing lights circled us just before dark but left us alone. However, when the sun went down a helicopter from either the Coast Guard or Police Department made repeated swoops right on top of Vanish with searchlights trained down on us barely 150 metres above us. As there were no other vessels anchored in the harbour, we could not imagine why they were doing this. I tried to get a picture of this harassing behaviour but every time I ran out in my underwear, the spotlight lit up Vanish like a Christmas tree so I had to duck back inside before they took MY picture. We’d had enough. If USA citizens were searched at any time day or night for no probable cause in their own homes by officials with guns or treated with such suspicion for no reason, I don’t think they’d like it very much. Given that Maynard was born in Topeka, Kansas and lived in the US for over 30 years, he finds it all very hard to swallow. It was time to leave the US and go somewhere inviting where we could relax and enjoy ourselves and as we had a perfect weather window to the Bahamas. We motored 440 miles along the US coastline, then cut across the hot Gulf Stream near Fort Pierce, Florida but not before we were once again hailed by a Coast Guard Cutter off Cape Canaveral as they wished to check us out. We were asked on the radio to maintain our course and speed while they must have checked their computer records and then left us again to find someone else to check.

We arrived in Westend, Grand Bahama today. We were at sea for two nights and just over two days and this time Maynard, Jake and I took three hour individual watches. This allowed Renae to sleep all night and stay fresh so she could keep the boat tidy and the rest of us well fed during the day, a huge bonus for all of us. This was the first time I’d done a watch on my own in charge of an 80 foot vessel at night so I certainly felt the weight of responsibility. Dodging lightning storms, fish havens and ships made for interesting watches. Jake said I was “very situationally aware” which I guess means that as an old broad, I still have my marbles allowing him to rest easy in his bunk on my watch!! We are so thankful to have these two wonderful hard working happy people with us.

We left Maine in the USA five weeks ago with 4,300 gallons of fuel on board. We have arrived in the Bahamas with 2,100 gallons of fuel remaining on board. Over those five weeks we consumed a total of 2,200 gallons of fuel. Almost all of this time was spent on anchor resulting in over 260 hours of genset use consuming approximately 450-500 gallons of fuel. This means that to cover the 1,600 miles between Maine and the Bahamas, the engines consumed a total of 1,625 gallons of fuel. Therefore our average was 1 nautical mile per gallon. Maynard is very happy with this given that the boat is fully loaded and that after we run each engine for 24 hours, we de-carbonise the engines by running them at 2,000 rpm for at least 15 minutes. At this high rpm and speed, we are consuming nearly 80 gallons an hour so to average 1 nautical mile per gallon moving at 8 - 9 knots with a full load in real world conditions is outstanding and proves once again that fuel is NOT the main expense in running this yacht.

Coming into the marina, Maynard spun the boat around in the small basin and realised we’d lost most of the power of our bow thruster. There was still a little bit of bow thruster left so he decided to attempt to dock Vanish which took longer than normal with a lot of cross throttle work in a 15 knot blow off wind and got to the dock without any damage or hassles or anyone helping us with lines onshore. On arrival, Renae leapt onto the dock, grabbed our bow line and tied us on just in time before we blew off as the bow thruster had completely stopped. Just what you don’t need after 52 hours at sea. We’ve since found that the issue is with barnacle growth on both thrusters. Once Jake cleared the barnacles with a blade and screwdriver in the 30 degree crystal clear water, we now have our vroom back.

One hiccup though. A low named Invest 99L formed late yesterday just south of Cuba and is likely to become a tropical low in the next few days. It is expected to affect a very large area of the Caribbean and eastern Florida, and may even affect the USA coast as far north as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina with flooding rains and high winds. Had we stayed in the US, we would still need to deal with where to go. The southern Caribbean may have up to 15 inches of rain and landslides and we may experience winds 30 - 50 knots and 5 - 10 inches of rain. Maynard is supposed to be flying to Los Angeles at the end of this week for an important meeting. With the forecast low coming in at the same time, he will need to make a very tough decision. The very last thing we want to deal with is a hurricane so we are watching this weather event extremely closely.