Breeze On

We arrived home last evening at 7:30 pm after sailing and motoring for 90 nautical miles in 14.5 hours. We had nice wind for sailing but the jib car (part that holds the jib to the track on the deck) broke the day before and we couldn’t use the jib. Much of the time our speed was too slow with the mainsail only so we used the engine to increase our speed. In addition to the jib problem we are also having problems with the autopilot. We feel fortunate that it functioned at all during the trip home because it would have been an even more exhausting trip if we had to hand-steer the entire time.  Today we have been pacing ourselves unloading the boat. Since I like to be organized, we inventory the food before we put it away. However, that makes the job quite tedious. Now that is done and we can move on to the easier jobs on our rather long list.  Passing the Choptank River Lighthouse on our way into our harbor. 

At dawn yesterday morning we left Cape Lookout and headed for the Chesapeake Bay. There was some residual light N wind so we had to motor into the wind and chop until the wind shifted to the S. Even then the wind remained light enough to require motor sailing. We rounded Cape Hatteras just after sunset in relatively calm conditions. We eventually had enough wind to turn the engine off for a few hours of very pleasant sailing. The sea temperature was 55° so it follows that the cabin temperature was the same by this morning. The cockpit was slightly warmer and we were certainly glad to have the enclosure to keep out the cold wind. We entered the Chesapeake Bay in the early afternoon and continued on until we reached an anchorage on the Piankatank River, six hours from the mouth of the Chesapeake. We are looking forward to a good night’s rest under warm covers.  Sunset on Godfrey Bay on the Piankatank River.  Today’s passage dinner—mac & cheese with apple and red cabbage slaw...

We had another weather window yesterday to go further up the coast of NC and we took it. We left the dock in the dark over an hour before sunrise. It was a bit of a challenge since I hadn’t recorded a track going into the marina. I am not sure why, because I normally do record a track when going anywhere new. In any case, George used the spotlight to find the marina’s channel markers—which were not indicated on our chart plotter—and we made it out without hitting anything or going aground. Success! After 17 hours of motoring and sailing we pulled into the anchorage at Cape Lookout just before midnight. It is a large anchorage but there were already two boats here. We decided not to try to maneuver around them so we anchored just inside the entrance. It was relatively calm overnight and we slept well. This morning, though, the combination of N wind and the ebb tide made it very bouncy. We pulled up the anchor and went deeper into the anchorage where we are evaluating weather windows to ...

I have mentioned before that sailors tend to be superstitious and we are no exceptions. When I wrote my last blog post I considered whether it was wise to share our plans to leave Southport. Might I jinx our opportunity to leave?  Turns out I did. When we checked the weather early yesterday morning we saw that the forecast had changed and we would have NE then E wind in the mid-teens for most of the day. That meant we would have wind on the nose and would be bashing into waves all day long. Not a fun trip. We decided not to go. All is not lost, though. My friend April—who inspired me to knit when I saw the gorgeous sweater she was knitting last year—sent an email telling me that there is a yarn store in Southport. We walked there this morning and I found some beautiful yarn that I plan to use to make a new sweater.  Angelwing Needle Arts is a great store. I am new enough to knitting that I don’t automatically check for yarn stores wherever I go. Thanks to April, I found this....

During the past two days we have divided our time between boat chores, laundry—washing that long underwear!—walking through town, going out for dinner and coffees, and relaxation. We have enjoyed our first visit to Southport and have appreciated the wind protection we have in this marina. We are looking at weather windows to move further up the coast of NC, then eventually around Cape Hatteras and into the Chesapeake. We are considering leaving here mid-day tomorrow and heading toward Beaufort, motoring into light wind for the first few hours. We will make the final call tomorrow.  My mother loved camellias which were in full bloom in Southport. (This photo and the next.) After stopping at Southport Coffee Co. this morning we sat for a while by the water. It was too blustery to stay long.  This gnarled live oak tree, known as the Indian Trail Tree, is said to be 800 years old. 

The wind, current, wide catamaran in front of us, and trawler behind us made for a tense departure from the dock in Brunswick. We had to abort the first attempt after it became apparent we wouldn’t clear the catamaran. George, who was standing at the bow, estimated we came within a foot of hitting the catamaran. For the next attempt we took the advice of the owner of the trawler behind us and used a spring line to point the bow toward the dock and back out toward the trawler. It worked and we got away without hitting anything. After 41 hours of motoring 258 nautical miles, we pulled into the marina in Southport just after 8 am this morning. We slowed down for the final 8 hours in order to arrive at 8:00. When we made this reservation we told the marina we would be arriving early & were told that would not be a problem! George had been hailing the marina on the radio but hadn’t received a response. At that point we were already in the narrow channel of the ICW and had three sailboat...

This morning’s temperature of 46° gave us an opportunity to wear some of the socks I have been knitting this winter. Truth be told, we would rather it be warmer so we didn’t have to wear them, but we can’t have everything.  We had a lovely visit with my brother, Dave, yesterday. He took the long drive up from Ocala and we appreciated the effort he made to see us. He drove us over to beautiful St. Simon’s Island which we had never visited even though we had been to Brunswick many times. We had lunch then walked around the park at the pier before he took us to the grocery store and the West Marine.  We plan to leave here this afternoon and head for Southport, NC, arriving early Thursday morning. We considered staying here where it will be a few degrees warmer, but the weather windows are so few and far between these days we decided it was best to keep moving when we can.  We are happy with our socks that are keeping our feet nice and toasty. Don’t be impressed by the stripe...

It has been a blustery, rainy, foggy day and we are grateful to be tucked in at Morningstar Marina. We have not yet ventured off of the property but plan to do that tomorrow when the weather is better. I spent a few hours in the laundry room waiting for a washer to be available, then doing our laundry. George kindly finished baking my seed crackers while I was in the laundry room.  A view of a portion of the marina.  The schooner, Lynx, spends her winters here in Brunswick at the end of our dock and her summers in Nantucket.  After we anchored the other night, George checked into the country on the using the CBP ROAM app. In the morning he lowered our Bahamas courtesy flag. 

We are about 25 nautical miles from our destination, Brunswick, GA, and expect to be dropping the anchor between 10 and 11 pm tonight. Tomorrow we will raise the anchor and go to the Morningstar Marina in Brunswick, where we will wait for the next weather window. With any luck we will have a window to travel further N for at least 24 hours within a few days. This passage hasn’t been bad, although it was almost all motoring. The Gulf Stream increased our speed by 3 to 3 1/2 knots for several hours. Very early this morning the wind turned to the NW, kicking up some chop on our bow which we had to bash through. Eventually the wind went to the NE as we were exiting the Gulf Stream and we were able raise the sails and turn the engine off for two hours.  Finally sailing. The moisture on the dodger windows was salt water that splashed up when we were bashing through the waves.  The water is calm now as we motor toward Brunswick. 

We spent most of today getting ready to depart the Bahamas and make our passage to the United States, leaving tomorrow morning.  I did one last load of laundry—in a real washer and dryer!—and made a cabbage and apple slaw that we can eat during our main meal. I normally prepare a green salad to have along with our main dish but during passages I prefer to be in the gallery as little as possible. In addition to the slaw we will have a cold lentil salad that we will eat while we are in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. I used to prepare meals that could be warmed in the oven but have found that using the poorly insulated oven while it is already warm outside makes the cabin very hot. Once we get out of the Gulf Stream on Friday we will heat up some leftovers for our meal.  George “pickled” the watermaker since we won’t be using it in the US. For non-sailors—pickling refers to running fresh water with a preservative through the filters to prevent bacterial growth. That isn’t ne...

Since early yesterday morning we traveled over 120 nautical miles from Spanish Wells to Lucaya, Grand Bahama. In between we anchored for the night on the east side of Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands. As expected, we had a little swell from the east causing the anchorage to be a little rolly. Nevertheless, we were able to sleep more than we would have if we had traveled overnight. Also, we didn’t have to dodge as many cruise ships as we would have overnight.  We motored and motor sailed yesterday but today we had surprisingly good sailing. We will stay here until we see a good weather window for crossing back to the US.  Sunrise this morning. 

George and I were entertained this afternoon by a large fishing boat maneuvering in the narrow harbor beside us. Several fishing boats here in Spanish Wells appear to be getting ready to leave and are loading supplies onto their boats. To make it easier, they move their boats to the wall across the harbor from us. The boat we observed this afternoon, First One, came from up the creek, turned around right beside us, then maneuvered into a tight space on the wall. It was quite windy today so the operation was not an easy one. First One did not seem to have thrusters, so two small boats acted as its thrusters—or tugboats—and pushed it into place. It was quite impressive.  Earlier in the day we took the dinghy up the creek so we could go ashore and walk to the grocery store. As we dinghied past another fishing boat we watched the crew handing supplies one to the other as in a bucket brigade. That went on for hours.  We plan to leave Spanish Wells tomorrow and head NW toward Lucaya...

It has been windy all day long. The harbor has been choppy so we decided it wasn’t worth the wet dinghy ride to go ashore, even though it would have been a short ride. We have had plenty of chores to keep us busy, including planning when and where we will go next. So far we have identified five different options.  Whitecaps in the harbor. The sailboats on the right are tied up to mooring balls, as are we. There are six balls in a tight space but all of the boats are playing nicely with each other in the wind. 

The forecast changed so we changed our plans once again. We had thought we would be sailing overnight to Lucaya, Grand Bahama tomorrow night but now we plan to stay in Spanish Wells until the end of the week.  We had a very busy morning. George ran the watermaker before breakfast, I did two loads of laundry, and we moved from The Bluff to Spanish Wells. All of this before 10 am. In the afternoon we went for a walk to the beach on the north side of the island and saw the sign shown below. That pretty much sums it up.  The sand bars were exposed even though it wasn’t yet low tide. We made a point of timing our walk before low tide so that we would be able to get the dinghy close enough to shore to get over to the stairs and out of the dinghy without walking on the very mucky bottom.  Talk about free range chickens! We see chickens all over the Bahamas but we disturbed this family resting in a front yard this afternoon. The hen and her chicks were resting in the divot to the...

We left Hatchet Bay just before sunrise yesterday morning and motored to Current Cut, arriving at slack high tide. We weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the calm conditions to travel and go through the cut. We had to wait for two boats to pass through from the west and another boat waited for us while we went through. There was yet a fifth boat that came through not long after we did. The cut is wide enough for boats to pass each other but I believe we are all happiest if we don’t have to do that.  After anchoring in Spanish Wells—still feeling grateful that the windlass is working—we dinghied to shore to run some errands. Spanish Wells is a lovely town with lots of conveniences but no dinghy dock. It has a concrete wall the length of the waterfront and cruisers try to find a space near steps or stairs to tie up. It was all the more challenging yesterday due to an extra low tide. There were several spots that were too shallow for a dinghy to reach the wall. We did eventually...

Yesterday’s storm was not too bad. We had wind up to 41 knots and heavy rain, sometimes so heavy that we couldn’t see the boat next to ours. It was quite calm by last night and the calm conditions continued overnight and through the day today. We left Rock Sound early this morning and motored north to South Palmetto Point where we dropped the anchor, dinghied ashore, and walked to Eleuthera Island Farms to buy vegetables. On the remains of a concrete dock next to where we beached the dinghy, we chatted briefly with a Bahamian who told us that a tornado had hit a nearby settlement yesterday. Yikes! He also said the concrete dock used to extend far out into the water before a hurricane destroyed it. It extended into water deep enough for supply ships to dock. Unfortunately, there is no discussion about replacing it.  After returning from Eleuthera Island Farms we decided to continue motoring north so that we would be able to go through Current Cut at tomorrow morning’s slack high tid...

The rain started this morning and has continued off and on all day. We were treated to a bright and full rainbow early this morning that was so close I couldn’t get all of it in one photo. We have moved 1.5 miles across the harbor to the western side with the expectation that the strongest winds in this storm system will come from the west. We took advantage of a break in the rain this afternoon to dinghy back across the harbor and join Dee and Ron for a late lunch at Louis Delights. (George enjoyed another milkshake!) By the time we returned the rain had started again but, fortunately, we had our foul weather jackets in to keep us (mostly) dry.  Rainbow in Rock Sound Harbour.  We took a walk to the beach on the East side of the island yesterday with Matt and Marty. 

The weather in the Bahamas this winter has, in general, been better than other years. It had been much better than last year when we had cold front after cold front, causing the wind to clock around a few times a week. We had to spend long stretches of time in protected anchorages and were unable to go to other places we wanted to visit. This year we have had fewer cold fronts—until this week. We have been in Rock Sound for a week and had planned to sail to Spanish Wells on the northern end of Eleuthera. However, the this morning’s forecast showed bad weather—strong winds and potential storms—for early next week. We decided to stay in Rock Sound for another few days until that passes.  Forecast from the Windy app. Greens and blues indicate lighter winds, Yellow, orange, red and purple indicate stronger winds. The forecast for the place we had planned to go was 32 mph sustained wind with higher wind in the gusts and even higher if there was a squall.  During our walk today we t...

Two days ago we had the pleasure of witnessing a Falcon 9 launch and the return of the first stage to earth. SpaceX formed a partnership with the Bahamas to land the first stage on a drone ship landing pad between the Exumas and Eleuthera. Since we are now in Eleuthera we were able to see it and it was quite a sight.  Yesterday we walked a little over 1/2 mile S of town to see the cathedral cave. The long roots of the trees extending down to the bottom of the cave are something. Today we went for a walk with Matt and Marty from Runaway. It was great to see them again, especially since we have barely crossed paths this year. In the afternoon we went back to Louis Delights for another ice cream and milkshake. Yum! George walking in the cave

We had a late lunch at Louis Delights today with a milkshake and ice cream included. As George said when he was paying, he had been thinking about the milkshake for two days! It didn’t disappoint.  Earlier today George ran the watermaker and I did some laundry. We debated about whether we should wash the clothes on board or go to the laundromat. After we went to shore we were happy we had chosen to wash the clothes on board. We encountered a couple walking to the dock with a bag of laundry. They told us the laundromat had been so busy they weren’t able to get their clothes washed before it closed at 3 pm. They had to carry their dirty clothes back to the boat.  We are enjoying the calm anchorage here in Rock Sound—no surge and no wakes from boats racing by. It is so quiet at night, although we may be hearing loud music once the weekend rolls around.  George’s milkshake.  Louis Delights.  Pretty bougainvilleas we passed on our walk. 

Over the past two days we have sailed 80 miles from Staniel Cay to Rock Sound, Eleuthera. We dropped the mooring lines at Staniel Cay yesterday morning and had no trouble leaving the small, narrow mooring field—in spite of the strong current and nearby rocks. We sailed N to Hawksbill Cay in the northern Exumas. Our plan was to stay in a place that had some protection from the waves coming from the SE and traveling up the entire Exuma chain. We also thought leaving from Hawksbill would give us a nice sailing angle to cross Exuma Sound to Eleuthera today.  Our night at Hawksbill was a little bumpy and rolly but I don’t think we could have done much better anywhere else in the vicinity. We took a walk on the beach in the late afternoon and had long chats with two separate couples at different points in the walk. One couple was on a chartered catamaran and have a dream to sail their own boat in the Bahamas someday. They wanted to pick our brains about our favorite places and they even ...

The new parts arrived and the windlass is reassembled, reinstalled, and working! I can’t tell you how relieved we are. This job has been tedious, difficult, and frustrating but we are so happy the effort paid off. Now, if we can keep it working until we get home in April we will be even happier.  George raised the anchor by hand in Black Point yesterday morning. It was windier than it has been so he was very careful to clip the chain to his safety line and let go of the chain whenever the boat swung and the chain became taut—much to my relief. I had visions of his hands being caught and crushed between the chain and the boat.  The parts had not yet arrived in Staniel Cay but we were ready for a change of scenery. Also, we were fairly confident they would arrive by the end of the day. We picked the last mooring ball in a location that had enough depth for Breeze On. Then we dinghied ashore and walked to the Bottom Line restaurant for a nice late lunch of Bahamian food. Then we ...

We are waiting for the windlass parts to be flown from Fort Lauderdale to Staniel Cay. George just called to see if they had arrived yet and they have not.  During our walk yesterday I took some photos of the various ways the residents of Black Point use cinderblocks.  Wall at a new house under construction.  Secure a sign.  Prop up a boat trailer.  Bleachers at the school.  Prop up some trees.