Wayward Sun Sailing

Vessel Name: Wayward Sun
Vessel Make/Model: Tyler 42 Slipper Ketch, built by Tyler Boat Works (UK)
Hailing Port: Pittsburgh PA
Crew: Dave & Margi
About:
We have owned Wayward Sun (WS) since July 2005 and sold everything we owned to set sail for the Bahamas and beyond Oct 1, 2007 from White Rocks, north of Annapolis, MD. [...]
Extra:
When using the Winlink Position Link - enter the callsign KB3OND in the top left ocrner of the map to take you to WS's position reports. Winlink will be the most up-to-date position as we can post that without wifi. However, winlink is the opposite showing most recent in RED, while the blog map [...]
20 April 2019
09 April 2019
03 April 2019
29 March 2019
20 March 2019
17 March 2019
13 March 2019
06 March 2019
24 February 2019
13 February 2019
10 February 2019
05 February 2019
24 January 2019
18 January 2019 | Soldier Cay
Recent Blog Posts
20 April 2019

Heading home

First group of dolphins, these were two little ones from the group.

14 April 2019

Laid back Key West to "Hard" times at Stock Island

WS (on the "Hard") getting some final touches from the Capt'n after finishing the bottom

09 April 2019

The Last Key

Sunset over the Key West mooring field.

03 April 2019

Marathon of Lazy Days

Capt'n with the marina bikes after shopping.

29 March 2019

Back in the USA

Picture above is some of the Marathon fishing fleet tied up in the canal that leads back to Castaways.

26 March 2019

Weather to stay or go (whether...)

Picture is Exuma Land and Sea Park mooriings at Warderick Wells. Horseshoe of deep water surrounded by sand banks on each side, pretty cool spot.

Weather to stay or go (whether...)

26 March 2019
Margi Floss
Picture is Exuma Land and Sea Park mooriings at Warderick Wells. Horseshoe of deep water surrounded by sand banks on each side, pretty cool spot.

Wednesday, March 20th everyone left the anchorage at Pipe Cay, so we were there all by ourselves again, nice. Planned to leave around 7 and either go to Warderick Wells or Hawksbill, we'll find out from the park around 9am if we got a mooring. Well, luckily the Capt'ns indecision didn't hurt our chances to get a mooring at Exuma Park, Warderick wells. The quote from the last blog, indecision may or may not be his (my) problem, is from a Buffet song and Capt'n says that a lot when he can't make up his mind, which is, well, a lot. Anyway, we left beautiful Pipe Cay around 7 am, tide was still rising and we didn't see anything less than 9 on the way out in the shallow area. Good time to leave too, the "marked" channel is not wide with a sharp bend in it, the last thing we want to see is a Mega Yacht heading the other way there (I still have flashbacks from last year going into Chub Cay). Leaving early definitely lessened our chances of that. We got up to the Park around 10 AM and were assigned ball #10, which was great, in enough to be really protected, but not too far in. The whole mooring field is a horseshoe surrounded by very shallow water on each side, with the sun not fully above it was a little hard to see the shallows, but we knew from last time (11 years ago) we came in on the outside of the moored boats sticking very closely to them. It worked and we were tied up to our ball with no problems. Took a trip to the Park Office, came back for our anchor beer then nice long hike, including a stop at Boo Boo Hill and then a dinghy ride late afternoon to Emerald Rock. So, Boo Boo Hill is named after an old shipwreck where all the people perished close by. They say you can hear their ghosts up there when the wind blows fiercely out of the east, something like that.

We are heading to Highborne today, Friday and left the mooring around 8 am. Boats were facing north (they ride the current not the wind) same way as when we came in so we exited on the outside. Someone came in yesterday when boats were facing south and went on the inside, which makes sense actually. So, we are beating into it right now heading to Highborne, not a ton of fun, but not too bad. We have only CP's weather to go by so far and propagation was again so bad that no one could hear him so didn't get the gist of it all for next week. There is a low forecast for the Southern Atlantic and trail a cold front next wed into to the Bahamas bringing high winds for who knows how long. CP said it could be a day or a week or even more. Capt'n doesn't want to sit in Great Harbor for a week or more so we are thinking of heading to New Providence tomorrow, Chub on Sunday and take the last weather window for quite a while on Monday crossing over and getting back into the states sometime Tuesday. We'll make a final decision when we get to Highborne today and hopefully have cell and internet service again were we can look at more weather models.

I take that back, as soon as I went up on deck weather turned for the worse and we were beating into 20-25 knots and 4'seas, not good. Instead of a 3 or 4 hour trip it'll be more like 6 or 7, not good! CP's forecast was for 12-14 knots, wind finder had 11 and seas 1.7 feet, oh well. Capt'n wants to bail out for Normans, but there's no protection from the N winds there.

Luckily, we didn't bail out as it settled a bit and we got to Highborne around 2:30 pm and got a nice anchor spot close to the marina entrance protected from the wind. Since we were at high revs beating into it we decided to dump the jerry jugs into the port tank and refill them at the marina. Nice ride in, got the jugs filled and some stuff at the not so cheap store then had a very wet ride back to the boat (at least I did standing in front of the Capt'n!). With the two diesel jugs the dinghy again would not plane. So we are pretty much topped off with everything and ready to head back to the states.

Saturday, March 23rd I was up trying to listen to CP as he doesn't broadcast on Sunday and trying to find out about the crossing for Monday. Capt'n was ancy to leave so I got my little SSB out and listened that way with headphones, ever so aggravating the Capt'n since I wasn't paying much attention to the boat and getting the sails up. The only thing I heard worthwhile was someone ask about going from the Berries to Fort Worth Sunday or Monday and he warned them they need to go Sunday and be in port by Monday night. The front will roll off the Florida coast Monday night and bring N winds along with it. Well other weather models I'm looking at just say light winds Tuesday and nothing high until Tuesday night and I'm thinking we'll be okay since in addition we are heading much further south the Lake Worth. However, needless to say, we've got caught out before not listening so that was bugging me about being into port by Monday night. We got caught out on our second night coming back from Mexico with 20 knot winds opposing the gulf stream (forecast was 5-10) and it was not pretty with the bow crashing down into huge waves, of course during the night, always has to be when the bad stuff hits. Anyway, we were doing a good speed heading from Highborne to Nassau and I did the calculations and if we kept up over 6 knots we could make it to Chub Cay by sunset and head back to Florida Sunday and get in Monday instead of leaving Monday and getting in Tuesday. That would also give us a calm anchorage at Channel 5 in the Florida Keys, hoping we make it there again and a short hop to Marathon the next day. So we pushed on and luckily everything worked for us, once in the tongue of the ocean, from Nassau to Chub the wind and waves picked up and we were doing over 7 knots for most of the time. Got tucked in between Bird Cay and Chub and anchored around 6:30 with almost an hour to spare, phew! Oh, I was also really happy not to have to go into West Bay, not only can we never get the anchor to bite on the 1st try, but it would be wind against current leaving, not good and we'd have to use the southern exit adding on a few more miles. Not to mention West Bay, New Providence is ALWAYS rolly in high winds and very uncomfortable. Our anchor spot in Bird was nice and protected and no surge.

So now it is Sunday and we are on the Banks with 20-30 knot winds forecast from the E. Good sail to start, but winds have let up a bit and with them behind us we now have rolly seas and are motor sailing. Either way it always seems to be a motor sail, Monday was much lighter winds, but the seas would be less. Hoping the seas aren't too bad in the Gulf Stream, but probably will be at least 6. Still hoping we did the right thing leaving Sunday, CP had also said that front would bring gale force winds out of the N, something I definitely don't want to see in the Gulf Stream if the front accelerates and moves quicker than expected. Sad to leave the Bahamas, but it'll be nice to be back in the states. Hopefully! We can get a mooring in Marathon and just chill for a bit before heading to Key West to have the boat hauled for bottom paint.
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