Gulf Stream Crossing - Check!

Synopsys: I would be lying if I said it was smooth sailing.  

Left Thunderbird

We left Thunderbolt, a suburb of Savannah, around 10:00 on the 20th and started the two hour motor down the river to get to the Atlantic. We got a nice send off by dolphins on the way but quickly remembered how far Savannah is inland for such a major port.

Anyways we made it to the Atlantic and the waves had certainly settled down from where they were a few days ago, but that's not really saying much, as we later found out that cruise ships were waiting in Freeport extra days for the weather to calm down!

Waves were pretty short period and around 4-5' close to shore.  They got larger, but at least longer period as we got further offshore. They were hitting us on the beam, maybe a little forward, which does not result in a super pleasant sail. This was proved out because Abe became seasick soon after we entered this weather and went down to his cabin to rest around 1PM on the 20th.  Sue starting feeling less than ideal around 5PM.  

No problem, I'll buckle down and take some longer shifts until they started feeling better. That was a great plan in theory.  In practice, I decided to check on Abe 24 hours later when he hadn't surfaced since. He was awake, but every time he tried to get out of bed, no bueno. Sue was a little better. She was feeling off, but was able to take couple hour shifts at the helm before needing to take a break.  

Single-handing?

Long story short, Abe was basically confined to his bed for almost 72 hours because of how hard this bout of seasickness hit him!  Sue starting doing better on the third day as we made it across the Gulf Stream and things started to calm down.  This is all relative, we were done with the 8-9 foot waves and back to 3-5 footers.

We did manage to sail for almost the entire time and were making good progress if not for the current, which ran at up to 4 knots against us at times.  The expected 48 hour trip turned into 72 hours.  

Land!

We got into Bahamian waters around midnight on the 22nd and still had about 6-7 hours to get to Lucaya, a suburb of Freeport and a friendlier place to clear-in than the very large, commercial port of Freeport.

Navigating close to shore in The Bahamas when dark is generally considered a terrible idea. While there are channels between islands that are a mile deep, as you get close to land, that can quickly drop to 5' or less and there are coral heads. They are not soft. We were happy to be arriving near Lucaya just as the sun was rising, so we wouldn't have to just wait around for daylight. Actually, thinking back and through sheer luck, the timing was pretty much perfect.

The Bahamas

The weather the day we arrived was really nice. We made our way into the relatively narrow channel that goes to Lucaya, then a quirk turn to starboard and the Grand Bahama Yacht Club, where we could check-in to the country, was right there. 

We used their online portal to enter all of our clearing-in information so the visit to the Customs and Immigration office only took about 20 minutes. $300 and we are good to be in The Bahamas for up to 3 months. Of course, as we are on our way back to the boat to shove-off and go the last little bit to the dock-space we rented, the dockhand informed us that they now charge a $50 landing fee.  Of course everything online and in the cruising guidebooks says no charge. After arguing for a few minutes got nowhere, we paid and moved on.  

Scarborough Docks and Villas

We try to anchor whenever possible, however, that's not an option in Lucaya. Fortunately, we stumbled across an entry in AquaMap (BTW, we love this app; if you are a cruiser, you need to use this software!) for what ended up being a fantastic stop for a very fair $75/night, including water, trash and electricity. The owner, Giles, met us at the dock and we were quickly tied up and the trip was done!

Time to Recover

After securing lines and making sure everything was situated, I crashed for a few hours! Abe had a flight the day we arrived and Giles was nice enough to offer to drive him to the airport, so we did make sure we were up to send him off and thank him for travelling with us and then I'm pretty sure we turned in super early to get ourselves back to good.

On our way to The Bahamas!

 After being pinned down in Savannah for quite a while from bad weather, we finally have a good weather window to make the crossing from Thunderbolt, GA (suburb of Savannah) to Freeport, Grand Bahama.  We had a crew member join us yesterday, Abe.  He and his wife found out about a hull slot opening for a Vision 444, came to meet Sue and Mira in Oriental, NC for a tour and to hear about our experience, and decided to jump on the open hull slot!

 Welcome to the Vision Family Abe and Anna!

Abe has been on standby as we have all collectively waited for good weather.  That storm that came up the coast was creating 30-40 knt winds and 12-15 ft waves!  That is finally passed and the weather will be a little bumpy, but we have great reaching winds forecasted the whole way there.  Should make for a fast sail if that forecast proves true.

We expect to arrive in Lucaya (the non-commercial port right next to Freeport) around mid-day on the 22nd.  We'll explore there for a few days and move on, probably to Nassau, where I have to see the US Embassy about getting a new passport. UGH!

I'll add another post soon to cover what we did in Savannah and add one once we arrive in The Bahamas.

Beating to Windward

I forgot to mention in our last post that we are being joined by our friend Jared K. for the trip to Savannah. We’re glad to have him aboard and help with the watch rotation, but we’ll keep him slightly anonymous so that his work doesn’t find out he is working extra-remotely from home…

After the unfortunately eventful trip down Adams Creek to Beaufort, we topped off our diesel tanks and Jerry cans at Town Creek Marina.  Shout out to them! Easy access and the price of diesel was under $4/gallon! The only down side, was that the nozzle was the diameter of my arm, making filling the Jerry cans a nightmare and even the main diesel tanks were no picnic.  

We found a nice spot to anchor in Beaufort (great stop, by the way), visited the local brewery (of course!) and met up with the OCC Port Officer Diane to pick up the couple of items I had sent to her. We didn’t get to stay very long since the weather was looking to get more and more unfavorable as time went on.  

We found (what we thought was) a good time to leave and headed into the Atlantic around 1:00 PM. We knew were going to be close hauled (pointed as close to into the wind as physics allowed our boat to sail) and for the first couple of hours it was unpleasant but tolerable.  For th9sr that haven’t done it, the boat is pushing into the oncoming waves, which are coming from slightly off of one corner of the boat, which pitches the boat up and down, sometimes forcefully. At this point he wins was at about 15 knots and the seas at about 4 feet, though short period, which makes them steep.

Of course that started to build as we got offshore as we pointed to round Frying Pan Shoals, which extends about 20 miles into the Atlantic. The wind was now in the low 20’s, the main was reefed and the waves were building to closer to 6’ (probably!couldn’t see them in the dark). I re-checked the weather and found that a small craft advisory had been issued at about 2:30 and that the wind could be expected to be 30 knots as we got to Frying Pan Shoals,

Not too mention that 2 out of 3 of us were seasick and didn’t take any medicine beforehand, making recovery from medicine now unlikely.  

At this point, Chief Morale Officer Chuck decided we should change plans and head for the nearest, safe inlet.  In this area of NC there is one; Masonboro Inlet, just south of Wrightsville Beach. It would be about 3 hours to get there, but on the plus side, we would be bearing away from the wind, which would increase comfort, but the damage was already done, and seasickness recovery usually doesn’t start until motion stops. 

We eventually got in late (around 2am) and had to enter the channel with pretty large waves rushing in against the outgoing tide.  Hard to know for sure, but some waves seemed to be 6+ feet; thankfully not breaking. We found a nice, close and calm spot to anchor and all quickly turned in to be ready for the next day.

Thud!

PredictWind Blog Entry - November 30th, 2023

Sidenote: I’m trying something new for our PredictWind Blog. Instead of having multiple places to post blogs, I’m going to start posting all of these to our regular blog site, OnANewTack.com and then link to that from the PredictWind Blog.  This will allow a couple of changes that I think will be beneficial.  First, the impact to you, the reader, hopefully will be trivial and have more positive than negative. You will have to click a link on the PredictWind Blog to see the entry, but at least now you will be able to comment or ask questions. For us, it’s just one place to write to!

We are on our way South again after a great stay in Oriental. Friends Erik and Jean (Sailing Knot Shore) put us up at their dock for the stay, which was very helpful given the very low temperatures and our fondness for not freezing at night. 

I went up to PA for my HS Reunion, which was actually a great time, then a stop in NC for doctor and dentist appointments on the way back to Oriental. Sue stayed with the boat and Chuck!

I got to do a quick meet up with some close friends and rode back with Sue’s friend from soccer, Rachel. Her and her niece Hannah wanted to visit the boat, so we were able to get a ride down with them, which really made things a ton easier. The “we”, is me (Mike) and Jared; he is a future Vision owner and wanted the chance to sail with us to Savannah, which will happen in a few days from Beaufort. 

For now, we are on Adam’s Creek (ICW) on our way down to Beaufort and the scary passage under a bridge we barely fit under. 

The title of this post is in honor of the lovely 20’ long pilling that was floating in the ICW that I did not see. It was a pretty solid thud when we hit it going 5.5 knots, and of course it was lying perpendicular to our travel. 

The bow of our boat is reinforced with a lot of solid fiberglass, so no leaking or anything like that, but there is definitely some fiberglass work to do, which will require a haul out. Sigh.

Not ideal, but the boat handled it as well so what can you do?

[Picture to follow]