When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

The winter cold fronts pushing from the continent into the Bahamas can be a PITA. Many anchorages only offer protection from the East, while an approaching cold front makes the wind clock to the South, West and North. We have a particularly strong cold front coming, mixed with a developing Low:

Hard to see, but the orange circle is our current position and we are trying to get to the red circle

Doesn't sound too scary, but the weather in the Abacos will be rather crappy and with so many boats anchored too close in the few protected spots at 25-30 knots of wind, we don't feel like staying here.

There are benefits to the cold fronts. The typically easterly winds make it hard to get East to the farther Bahamas Islands. With a strong cold front approaching the winds become more favorable to get there, and that is what we are attempting, a one or two night trip to points further East and South.

Last evening in the Abacos, before heading South

New floor for the dinghy

Several attempts to fix the leaking air-floor failed, including contact cement and 3m5200-fast-set, which was available here. The 'donut-hole' had blown the seam pretty much all around on the top, as well as part of the bottom.







The local ACE hardware carries 3/4" marine plywood and cuts a 4x8ft sheet to smaller sizes for a small tip. We only had some rough measurements and carried home four pieces 34" x 21". The forward two pieces needed to be trimmed to match the shape of the bow of the dinghy. We had the required tools on board: Small circular saw, router with 1/4" round off bit, long-board with 40 and 80 grid sandpaper,  hole saw and generator to power the tools.

It's not done completely (is anything ever?). Next steps would be epoxy coating the boards, put sacrificial rubber hose at the ends towards the pontoons, and some non-skid to boot :-)

At least we have a dinghy that works as our car again. The flat wood floor works better for transporting goods and cans of diesel and water. It is a bit heavier, but not bad. The 5HP engine puts two people on plane, the 9.8HP will do so easily with extra load.

Abacos, Bahamas

Before leaving Stuart, we met up with Pam and Steve Walton. They had bought a trawler and Steve slaved thru the winter getting their boat ready, including teak deck removal, as we did to our boat. So we spent long boat-work hours after corporate-work on our boats during winter, spring and part of summer. They then took the trawler via the Great Loop Route to Chicago, parts of the Mississippi river, Tenn-Tom waterway to Mobile, Alabama. Currently they stay in Fort Myers, where they rented a car to see us before we left to the Bahamas. Thanks for stopping by!

From Stuart, we went out the St Lucie Inlet, sailed some 25 miles South to get back into the Lake Worth Inlet. Being further South will give us a better angle across the Gulf Stream, pushing us north at up to ~3 knots. In Lake Worth we staged for a 4:00am start across the Gulf Stream.

Wind wasn't strong enough to keep the boat speed high to make it against the Gulf Stream to "Memory Rock", one of the often waypoints to enter the Little Bahama Bank. Instead we opted for a waypoint 15 miles North of the first one and had an easy sail. Our plan for the night was to anchor behind Mangrove Cay, but with the extra distance traveled we had to approach that spot past sunset, not really a smart thing to do when moving around in waters only 6-8 feet deep. We managed and had a calm night.

Next day we needed too find a little bit protection for westerly winds and Moraine Cay looked good to us, if a bit out of the way and ocean swell can make it a bit rolly. But we had another good night with some rolling only when the tide changed. Moving on next day, we reached our first Bahamian Settlement, New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay.

In New Plymouth several sailboats were flying the yellow flag, all off them had to check in with customs and immigration, as did we. Sailboat "Bernoulli",a Tartan-33, had just anchored before us, but had more work to get the dinghy ready, so we offered Bernice and Matt a ride to town, to check in.

Customs was easy, after all they get $300 for the 3 month cruising permit, and we were legal in the Bahamas, and what else to do than have a famous Goombay Smash.

Bernice and Matt from sv Bernoulli, they came all the way from Lake Superior. Stories were shared..

We learned about a Junkanoo on Great Turtle Cay on New Years Day, so we may have/want to come back here!

Getting back to the dinghy, we saw our high-pressure air-floor was deflated, bummer, the dinghy still floats, but the feet are sitting in the bilge of the dinghy now and are getting wet. Also, the dinghy looses it V-shaped bottom and we can only move around slowly, this needs to be fixed.
The dinghy is our 'car' to get around, without it we would have to stay in marinas to access land. Yuck!

So, next day, change of plans, we decided to head over to Marsh Harbour, the hub of the Abacos, for

1. Get a Bahamas SIM card plus a data-plan, to have internet
2. Possibly have access to parts and glue to fix the dinghy. We have some on board but the glue is probably too old, and this repair is tricky, so good materials is what we are after.

One good thing, we have some internet and can update the blog :-)

Stuart, FL: provisioning for the Bahamas, and enjoying the 'hood

Enterprise rental car currently runs a special, $13/day with 100 miles included when booking the car over the weekend. That's $50 for three days Fri-Mon, including fees. What a deal! We are using it to fill the boat to the brim (yes, even more!), diesel, gasoline for the dinghy outboards, water, food, and certainly some extra wine and beer since the Bahamas aren't cheap. One more laundry while we are at it. Also buying a few boat parts we didn't think of earlier.

Mike from Mike and Jenny's is working nearby in Florida and didn't plan to go home this weekend, but visit us instead. He knows the area quite well and showed us around, including some wildlife. We saw our first Manatee and a gopher turtle throwing sand.

The lighthouse at Jupiter Inlet is wearing Christmas colors:

It was great to have Mike join for lunch & happy hour!

Stuart, FL - much better

While the cold fronts bring chilly nights here too, they are down to 45F or 7C, this is much more manageable than about freezing in St Augustine. Or think of Michigan with 10F/-12C and 5-8 inches of snow tonight. So glad we are out of there!

We do have to work on our tan

full

Because Stuart is South of the frost-belt, many cruisers stay here long term, the marina and mooring field are typically very full. The protection from NW winds in the mooring field isn't good, we heard some cruisers complaining on the bouncy conditions via VHF radio. As often, we found a very protected spot, away from everyone else. The dinghy ride is a bit longer, but we have quiet nights in NW winds. Tomorrow we move to  a spot with more protection from the South, following the shifting winds. We will be around here for quite a few days for last US mail, paperwork, Amazon orders, before jumping across the Gulf Stream.

not so crowded

Leaving St Augustine, too cold here

While we had some sun, the temps were almost freezing at night.

Time to head South, we chose to go outside overnight, despite chilly temperatures. This saves us three day trips down the ICW for the same distance.

St Augustine, FL

From Beaufort we had plenty of time to make it to St Augustine with an overnight sail. We timed it to use up to 3 knots of ebb current and got out of Port Royal Sound rather quickly. The night on the ocean was uneventful if a little bit too much wave action for too little wind, with sails flogging quite often.

St Augustine Inlet can be a bit rough, and the buoys / markers are not charted, since they are re-positioned depending on where shoaling occurs. We only had a few standing waves from the ebb current against wind, but nothing bad. It was still morning and slightly hazy when we got in.

St Augustine is as pretty as always, we like this place, staying on a mooring ball for a week.

Beaufort, SC

Thick fog in our last anchorage didn't let us go until 10:00 in the morning, even then we didn't always see from one channel marker to the next. The fog burned off, nad we only had the the usual ICW delays: Wait for lower tide to cross under a bridge, then wait for water to come back crossing some famous low spots in the canal. A larger sailboat was stuck in front of us in the Asheppo Coosaw cutoff, so we waited for them to clear before proceeding.

We did make it to Beaufort, SC, but late, grabbed a mooring ball there, watched a parade of lights on boats, then called it a night.

This pic was 'stolen' from a local newspaper, taken from the Beaufort bridge

Wadmalaw River, SC

With our diversion to Charleston we missed out on going all the way to Florida during the last weather window. So we creep South on the ICW, pretty as it is, we only move during daylight hours, which are rather short these days.

We did manage to find a pretty spot to anchor in Church Creek of the Wadmalaw River for the night.

In Charleston, picking up a new liferaft

The Zodiac facility had five liferafts of type "offshore, canister, 4 person, ISO 9650-1"  from a deal gone bad for a good price. We found our old 6 person Solas-A rated liferaft too heavy (180lbs), and re-certifying it (10 years old) was as much as buying one of the 80lbs Zodiac liferafts.

We left the old liferaft with Jenny and Mike, who will give it to the Blackbeard Yacht Club in New Bern for a training exercise, some good cause we think.

To Charleston, SC: First fishing, first fish

On our two day - one night "sail" to Charleston, we dug out some fishing gear. One fish was lost, it was hhhuuuuugggeee. Second one was a 'Little Tunny", an oil and blood rich fish, which needs to be bled immediately to taste any good.

Back to Morehead City

Leaving Jenny and Mike's place

We said bye, with hugs, no tears, to Jenny, and made it some easy 30 miles down to Morehead City.  The plan was to go further, but we arrived too early at a 65 ft bridge and had high tide with not enough clearance to pass. We anchored close by, had dinner, a glass of wine, sun sets at 5:00pm. Well, crap, why don't we stay here for the night, and so we did.

Still floating

after loading. Getting ready. Testing lights.

Last trip by car from Michigan

Homeless now, we had to purge as much as we could and still brought another car load to fit on the boat. There will be more purging of stuff that doesn't fit. What is more important: Tools, dishes, food, clothes? Decisions, decisions..

So far the boat is still floating on its lines.

Breakfast at Jenny's

New Bern, NC:

Last time we were at Mike & Jenny's, it was 2012 and we left our boat in their slip in Maryland, to fly to Germany, before continuing the track back to Michigan. Now, Mike & Jenny have moved to North Carolina, to a very interesting neighborhood close to New Bern. The creeks and man made canals of Fairfield Harbor are filled with sailboats, almost more than power boats, we find that very unusual, intriguing.

Winding up the creek, trying to not get stuck

Mike was out of town working, so it is "Breakfast at Jenny's", with our boat snugged up to theirs.

Abake with Lison-Life, waiting for a dinghy to be made :-)

This concludes the first part of our journey, we managed to bring the boat South enough to not have snow or ice in winter. The boat will stay with Jenny and Mike, we will be back in Michigan by rental car for the next 4+ weeks.

The trip to here also was a test drive, for boat and crew. After all, 5 years of 'normal work' did wear down the confidence level we had in boat, partner, equipment and own skills. It all got passing grades, some improvements needed, but good to go on! And we are not telling what or where...

Hatteras, a cape with attitude

The last four times, up or down, we went inside of Cape Hatteras: The ICW is ideally suited to avoid bad weather and a cruiser can do 40 - 60 miles a day between stops from Norfolk, VA to Morehead City, NC. And we did so delighted the first couple times, then more dreadingly, trying to go outside but not finding a good weather window. Here are the choices, inland route or outside:

Saving 5-7 travel days, problematic with 'outside' is the gulf stream coming from the South, and us waiting for wind from the North. Wind against current creates vicious waves. The gulf stream stays in the deeper waters, >50 fathoms or more, at the continental shelf. At Hatteras, that continental shelf comes right close to shore. Plus we had a strong low further out East throwing big swell from that direction. Long story short, it was uncomfortable, not dangerous as long as nothing breaks, we surely had the forecast 6 feet square wave waiting to board the boat.

uuuuhhh, shit

While Cape Hatteras has the reputation, what we didn't count on is that Raleigh Bay continued to be as rough through all night. At times we thought we had figured out the course of waves, vs wind, vs our course, just to be proved wrong and laid on the side by one weird train of waves. Dirk had a goal: Make Cape Hatteras. Silvie had a goal too: Go into the protection of Cape Lookout after this sh.t. Well... Getting into Cape Lookout was right into the wind after rounding the shoals, but with help of the iron genny, at speeds below 4 knots, we did arrive at dawn.

Catching up on sleep, and maintenance, we did enjoy the afternoon watching pelicans and little dolphins, we are out of the frigid North, and that was the goal after all.

Pelicans

Celebration for rounding Cape Hatteras was on order, thanks to Ali and Rudy we had a bottle of Ruby Port, it served the purpose :-)

Duck, dash, duck, around New Jersey

The morning started reasonably pleasant, but the forecast had winds of 20-25 knots with gusts to 30 knots for all night. The boat was prepared for rough conditions, like dinghy on deck, storm jib prepared in case it gets rougher than the forecast.
We didn't bother with the mainsail, at these wind speeds, and from mostly behind, a little piece of jib will pull us along nicely and is easily adjustable to wind conditions.

Besides the usual commercial ship traffic, we saw several other sailboats using the same weather window for the dash going South. At night these sailboats where just little red, green or white lights miles away, or little blips with arrows  on the Radar/AIS screens. The wind did as promised and kept building reaching peak around midnight. With the wind the 5-6 feet waves joined and kept pushing the boat from behind. The autopilot got a good workout this night.

To get to the Henlopen Harbor of Refuge, one has to cross the shipping lanes, and right there the pilots are boarding and the ships are turning, it is a lot like playing "Frogger" getting across, the wiggly line is to avoid the ships.

We arrived behind the breakwater of Cape Henlopen before any light, the anchor didn't catch the first time (what the heck, 88lb Rocna and all chain?), re-anchoring in 18knots of wind is always fun, but we had some daylight now and anchored closer to four other boats already there. 3 more boats joined within the hour.

The boats that made the dash and anchored here are an interesting crowd. We were able to identify:

• Westerly Sealord 39 "Camomile", Britian
• Amel Super Maramu 52/53 "Perigee", Australia
• Outbound 44 "Toodle-oo!", USA
• Beneteau Oceanis 510 "Eleonore", Germany
• Vagabond 47 "Kalonamoo", USA

By lunch some boats left toward up the Delaware Bay, likely to join the Annapolis Sailboat Show coming weekend. We duck here for the next dash, around the DelMarVa peninsula.

Coney Island, NY

The lower part of New York harbor is busy with big ships moving, other ships at anchor, service boats back and forth, plus fast ferries crisscrossing the madness.

It went well and we arrived to the entrance of Coney Island Creek. Another swell and wave free anchorage, but one has to get in there first.

It helps being a geek, so we scoped out the place using satellite imagery. There is a lot of shit in the water, burned old barges and boats wrecked by superstorm Sandy:

So we probably anchored in a 'low rent district', looks to be the best deal in town, then took the dinghy to the fuel station, were allowed to tie up for buying a bit of diesel and headed for the beach.

The original Coney Island Beach

For lunch we passed on famous Nathan's

but rather splurged on beach front "Tom's Coney Island"