Adventures of the Jubilee

St. Augustine to the Bahamas

February 11-12-13, 2010 – St. Augustine to Cape Canaveral with Friday afternoon and Saturday layover – 133.7 Miles

After two great days with Wayne and a wonderful meal with him Wednesday night at the Columbia, a Cuban restaurant that's one of our favorites in St. Augustine, it was now decision time again. But as it turned out, that decision was fairly straightforward. All the weather sources were still agreeing on that 2-day window before the next system was forecast to clock through. With only about 125 miles to go and the winds slowly dropping over the course of the morning, we decided to delay departure until after 1:00 p.m. Our delayed departure allowed for the seas and winds to further moderate while setting us up for a Friday morning arrival in Cape Canaveral. An earlier departure would have most likely brought us into Canaveral before sun-up Friday morning, something we didn't want to do.

Wayne drove to our marina to help slip our lines and see us off. We left St. Augustine at about 1:30 p.m. to a receding 3' swell on the outside. Turning the corner to the SSE it was motor sail time again – a little rolly off the port quarter, but not as bad as our run down from Cumberland a couple of days earlier. We were off again!

Our overnight was uneventful, if dark. Uneventful, that is, until 6:00 a.m. when Judy got up to take the morning watch. Bill went into the engine area to switch from starboard to port fuel tanks and found salt water spraying all over! The new hose from the new through-hull to the raw water manifold had dropped down onto the engine-propeller shaft coupler and partially chaffed through! It had looked good in  Brunswick but we suspect it was sitting high because of it being cold and still having the pre-bend from just having come off a new coil of 1 1/2” hose. We thought we had checked everything, but we had not noticed that the Brunswick mechanic HAD NOT STRAPPED THE HOSE UP ABOVE ALL MOVING PARTS! The engine heat and vibration must have caused the hose to sag until it came in contact with the shaft coupler.

Incidentally, that same mechanic had not tightened the hose clamps that attached that very same hose to the raw water manifold! We immediately saw that when the boat was dropped back in the water, after which we tightened those hose clamps and checked the others at the seacock (which were tight). However we missed the fact that there was no strapping to hold the hose up behind the engine. That said, how many of you check every lug nut on your car after the tire shop mounts or rotates tires? You shouldn't have to check up on everything you pay a mechanic to do.

So back to our saga. We immediately shut down the engine and turned the main seacock off. Since we didn't have another 6' length of 1 1/2” reinforced hose on board, Bill slit a piece of spare head hose to make a partial sleeve on the outside of the chafe, adding some strength and structure to what had already partially chaffed through. A half roll of duct tape later and we were temporarily in business with just a slight drip through the duct tape. All this took about 2 ½ hours (this stuff is hard to access), so our arrival into Port Canaveral was delayed to about 11:00 a.m. Luckily that gave us enough time on a Friday afternoon to find someone who could get us the proper replacement hose to install. By 4:00 p.m. everything was back in order. Things could have been a lot worse had we not by chance switched the fuel tanks and discovered the hose break when we did.  A 1 ½” hose can let a lot of water into a boat if compromised!

By about 5:00 p.m. it was clear that the past 2-day weather window had slammed shut as the leading edge of the next front brought gale-force winds and rain overnight. Saturday remained very windy and cold, so we sat tight and watched the big Carnival cruise ships enter and leave their docks across the canal from us. Sunday-Monday promised another good window for departure to points further south.

February 14-15, 2010 – Port Canaveral to West End – 164.2 Miles

A seemingly ideal weather window had opened up for a run from Canaveral to the Bahamas. Looking at our weather sources we decided to leave Canaveral Sunday morning to run down the coast with several options in mind.  If necessary we could head into Ft. Pierce at around sundown, but most likely we would continue toward the inlet at Lake Worth/West Palm, expecting to arrive around midnight. If weather conditions changed we could poke in at Lake Worth and anchor, otherwise we planned to turn to port and head across the Gulf Stream for West End, Grand Bahama Island for a morning landfall.

One might ask why we didn't simply draw a bead on West End from Port Canaveral. While that plan looks good on a chart, it fails to consider the Gulf Stream and leaves you “swimming up-stream” at an oblique angle for much of the passage. Running down the coast to Lake Worth allowed us to hit the stream at roughly a right angle starting about 11 miles offshore, minimizing our exposure to currents that the latest current forecasts said were running about 2.5 knots in the middle of the stream.

So ... we took it one step/option as a time and headed south ... and hopefully east.

Port Canaveral dawned cccold again. Love those NOAA VHF forecasts: “wind chill 35 to 37 degrees”. Wind chill in Florida?  We wondered if we should check our GPS out. Maybe we were really in Maine.

Sunday morning the winds out on the ocean were NNW about 10 to 11 knots and again right on our tail. Like our past jumps south on this trip, it was too lumpy and slow to comfortably sail downwind wing and wing. So we just let the jib out and motorsailed, and later as the wind eased simply motored, keeping us moving about 6.5 knots or so.

Andover friends Bob & Judy Snyder on Greenstone were about a day ahead of us at this point, popping out of Lake Worth Inlet around 5:00 pm a bit before we passed Ft. Pierce. That put them about 7 hours ahead of us for the crossing. A couple hours later they contacted us on Single Side Band to recommend we hold off crossing ‘til Monday morning as they were experiencing extremely rough 10-12 foot seas on the beam in thick of the stream. We subsequently downloaded new GRIB files (wind predictions) and the latest text weather via our sat phone and determined that delaying our departure ‘til about 6:00 am or so from the Lake Worth area (rather than about 1:00 a.m.) might make our crossing much more comfortable. Forecasts were showing sharply diminishing winds gradually clocking to NE, then E, then SE overnight. We immediately slowed the boat down to a little over 3 knots to arrive at our Worth-area turning and final decision point around 6:00 a.m. instead of 1:00.

Another weather check at 5:00 a.m. confirmed our plan. Conditions had improved significantly over the prior 9 hours. We turned east around 5:30 a.m. to head for West End. We did see some six or so foot rollers in the thick of the stream, but they weren't terribly uncomfortable and certainly weren't dangerous. After the thick of the stream the rest of the trip was easy going, arriving at West End around 3:30 p.m. Clearing customs by 4:30 it was now official. We lowered the yellow “Q” (Quarantine) flag and sent up the Bahamian courtesy flag. We had officially arrived!

All together we had logged 408 miles since leaving Brunswick on the 7th. After giving Jubilee a good bath to scrub her salt off, we were off to the Marina restaurant for a 1-day-belated Valentine's day dinner. Life was good as we sat out on the restaurant patio with our happy hour Goombay Smash's.

February 16 Lay Day in West End

Around 4:00 a.m. Tuesday morning we awoke to a howling wind, got up, and readjusted our dock lines. It was clear that the Gulf Stream crossing weather window had just slammed shut as yet another frontal system swept through with strong northwesterly winds. Had we not left the Florida coast early Monday morning we would likely have been sitting in Lake Worth for several more days waiting for this next northerly system to settle down.

With the front again came cooler temps. Nothing like what we'd been seeing in Florida and Georgia, mind you, but suffice it to say that no one was sunning on the beach or playing in the pools. But it was a good day to catch up on reading and enjoy the moment. We're in the Bahamas, Mon.

At this point we aren't sure of our plans for the rest of the week. Tomorrow might be a good day to move the boat a bit further south to Lucaya, just past Freeport. Or alternately we might join a group of cruisers who also crossed on Monday for a van trip down to Lucaya. While it would probably be best to get the boat down there (a better jumping off point to the Berry Islands about 50 miles further south), the group going to Lucaya are some great folks. The trip with them could be a blast.

So what should we do? Decisions, decisions. We'll leave you with that cliff hanger until our next post.

... And Some Other Stuff

For those of you who might be interested we might add that the online boating magazine Mad Mariner just published Bill's article on transiting the Welland Canal. You can read it at www.MadMariner.com. The site will probably ask you sign up for a free trial subscription if you don't already take the publication, but the trial carries no obligations unless you decide at the end of the trial to subscribe.  The article is presently at the top of their home page, but will gravitate to subsequent pages as other new articles displace it (MadMariner is updated with new material almost daily).  If you don't find the article on the first page, click Seamanship, then Piloting.

 

Brunswick, GA, to St. Augustine, FL.

February 7, 2010 – Brunswick to Cumberland Island, GA - 45.8 Miles

Finally, three weeks to the day since hopping in the car to leave Minnesota for Brunswick, and after 2 ½ weeks of re-commissioning and provisioning in Brunswick, we've finally slipped the lines to head further south.

The prior two days it was blowing like stink in Brunswick, heeling our boat against the dock and making it impossible to get out of our slip had we tried.  We didn't try.  Southern Georgia was seeing the tail of that huge mid-east storm that dumped more than two feet of snow on Washington DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities in that region.  The surface weather charts were showing hurricane strength winds in one low off Cape Hatteras, while another even deeper low about 1500 miles to the east was also showing hurricane strength winds.  As they say in the weather business, conditions have been “unsettled”.

So we stayed put for a reasonable weather window. A short two day break in conditions on Sunday-Monday provided the opportunity we were looking for. Our first jump (Sunday) took us outside to our favorite Cumberland Island anchorage.  On Monday a second hop brought us to St. Augustine. 

What a difference a day makes. Instead of the near-constant cold 25-knot westerlies of Friday and Saturday, today we found north winds of about 10 knots.  Lynn and Ann on Sea Tramp kindly came over to assist us off. Outside we found light N winds, and since we were going south that meant motor sailing to keep our speed up in apparent winds that dropped to about 4 knots.  It was good to be on our way again.

But tropical sailing it was not ( notice how cold Judy looks coming out of Brunswick). Temps were in the mid-40's when we left the dock Sunday morning, and about 55 degrees (same temperature as the ocean here) while underway.  We had the hook set just north of the Cumberland Island Park Service Dock by 3:00 pm -- the only ones in the anchorage. Maybe other south-bound cruisers are smarter than we are. A chilly mid-30's low is forecast for tonight.

The Florida border is only a couple miles south of our anchorage. We're hoping it will warm up when we get to Florida tomorrow, but we suspect that story will be the same as the "Free Beer Tomorrow" sign we saw in one of Brunswick's watering holes last week. Of course the same sign was there the next day, and the next, and the next.  We suspect it will be quite a few days and at least a couple of hundred more miles under the keel before our tropical "tomorrow" arrives.

February 8, 2010 – Cumberland Island, GA, to St. Augustine, FL – 64.8 Miles

Monday dawned crisp, clear and sunny. Sun is good. Up at 6:00 and with good enough light a little after 7:00 to start raising the hook, we were on our way by 7:30.

The prior night had been cold, but an opened sleeping bag as an extra quilt over our normal bedding made for a comfortable night. Most of inland northeast Florida and eastern Georgia were seeing frost. Brunswick reported 31 degrees at 6:30. Our overnight lows were probably in the high 30's, the result of water temps in the mid to high 50's. Gotta get further south!

Outside we we found light NNE winds – another motorsail day. In fact, we didn't put the jib out 'til after 10:00, as we were only seeing 2 knots apparent.

But lack of wind didn't mean lack of seas, as 3-6' swells continued to roll off the port quarter from somewhere – perhaps the snotty weather further north from a couple days back.

We arrived in St. Augustine's Conch House Marina by around 4:00 p.m. thanks to a little current boost down the coast. We'll definitely stop here again. It's just south off the main channel entry to St. Augustine. Simply follow the well marked Salt Run channel toward the distinctive St. Augustine Lighthouse and you can't miss it. Unlike the St. Augustine City Marina, there's little current here to complicate docking, no noise from adjacent bridge traffic, plus there are restraunts and lounges on the property.  The only negative is that it lies about a mile from the Lions Bridge and the heart of St. Ausustine.

Our friend Wayne Leblanc from Centerville, MN, stopped by shortly after we docked, having taken a break from his own boat projects at a marina about 10 minutes by car from Conch House. We had dinner with Wayne that night at the marina restaurant, catching up on all the projects he has going with his “new to him” catamaran, but more on that later.

February 9 & 10, 2010 – Lay Days in St. Augustine.

We had always planned on spending a couple of days helping Wayne with projects on his and his wife Cynthia's new Victory 35 Catamaran.  We can't imagine anyone ever finding a cleaner boat on the used market, She had obviously been very lovingly cared for by her prior owners.

Catamarans provide incredible amounts of living space for their length, but Wayne and Cynthia's new cat is absolutely huge for a 35 footer. With a generous galley and saloon up, the starboard hull has a master stateroom plus a head with separate stall shower. The port hull has another stateroom aft, a sink and vanity mid-hull, and another smaller stateroom forward.  Unlike many cats which have a trampoline between the hulls forward, the Victory has a solid bridge deck between the hulls there. Aft is a generous cockpit with elevated steering station (helm seating for two), sugar scoop transoms, and davits for the dingy. Propulsion is by a single Yanmar Diesel driving a steerable and retractable sonic drive between the hulls.

It's truly an innovative design that should be a pleasure to live/cruise aboard.

Tuesday was rainy so we mostly poked around inside the cat, checking out everything from plumbing to wiring to engine maintenance and working on a couple of projects along the way. Cruising sailboats are complicated machines, and as any cruising boat owner can attest, owning one of these machines requires the ability (or at least raw courage) to jump in and do some of your own diesel engine work, plumbing, wiring, electronics installation and interfacing, fiberglass work, general maintenance and more. Wayne spent hours picking our brains during our two days in St. Augustine, seeking any information he could glean about new-to-him boat systems. We hope we didn't give him too many bum steers.

Tuesday's clouds and rain cleared on Wednesday, giving Wayne a chance to climb to the masthead of his new boat for the first time to check out all the hardware and wiring aloft. Their one powered winch made easy work for Judy to crank him up the mast while I helped with hoisting logistics. All his mast systems checked out fine, just like everything else on the boat.

As the sun set Wednesday afternoon it felt downright cold in St. Augustine. And it was downright cold. We couldn't believe it. Could this really be Florida? Of course we shouldn't be complaining – the mid-Atlantic had just been hit by yet another monster storm and the weather charts were showing another frightening low with hurricane-strength winds heading east off the mid-Atlantic states. When will this cold and crazy weather end? How far south do we have to get to escape it?

As we knock off Wednesday evening we're expecting to leave St. Augustine about mid-day tomorrow to take advantage of a short, 2-day, weather window and head non-stop overnight down to Cape Canaveral, hopefully arriving Friday morning before the next storm system arrives Friday night. If the outlook changes by tomorrow morning we'll revisit our plans and likely head south down the ICW to the Daytona Beach area. Such is life working around weather windows.

Stay tuned for news on what we decide, hopefully posted from points further south.

Where in the world is the Jubilee?

So – are we there yet?

Well, yes – and no. To loosely quote a recent past president, it depends on your definition of “there”.

If your “there” is the Bahamas, no we aren't there yet.  But if your definition of “there” is Brunswick, GA, yes, we very definitely are there.

We arrived here in Brunswick mid-day on Wednesday the 20th after an easy drive in beautiful weather.  Our original goal was to have slipped the lines and pointed the bow south by now, but a couple of little surprises set us back several days.

Boats, of course, are full of surprises.  Surprises should be no surprise anymore.

The biggest surprise was a leaking sea cock (valve) meant to shut off sea water feeds to the main engine and genset cooling systems and the refrigeration heat exchanger.  Bill discovered it when changing the main engine raw (sea) water impeller that drives cooling water to the engine's heat exchanger –  a little piece of preventive maintenance we do each year.  With the sea cocks closed, water started running out of the impeller housing as soon as the cover was off!  Not a torrent, but definitely more than a drip, and something that needed to be fixed before heading out. 

Fixing a through-hull of course requires a haul out.  We had to wait a couple of days to get hauled, than another two for the repair.  That plus having to put some of our provisioning on hold before hauling (our refrigerator-freezer won't work when the boat is out of the water) set us back several days on our time line.

And then there was the gen set water pump that had to be replaced because, yes you guessed it, its rear seals started dripping salt water.  Since that pump model has been discontinued and repair kits are no longer available, we had to have a new (improved?) pump sent out UPS blue label.  Bill got that in yesterday.  And oh yes, the pressure/temperature relief valve on our water heater started leaking too. It's a simple part, but Jubilee's water heater has 1/2” pipe threads instead of 3/4” that home water heaters use.  Unfortunately that meant no Lowes or Home Depot solutions for us.  Another special order from a plumbing supply was required. 

As that renowned philosopher Roseanne Roseannadanna always said on SNL: “Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it's always something”.

The good news is we're finding these issues now.  Plus in the broad scheme of things none of it is big stuff.  But it all involves a little extra unplanned time.

In the mean time it's turned a bit chilly here in the tail of the storm that ripped through the nation's mid-section.  Cold is relative, of course, but we're glad to be dock-side and plugged in, especially as the nights are getting down into the 30's. 

All that said, we're hoping to be off for points south before the end of the week, projects and weather permitting.  Our immediate goal is St. Augustine where we hope to spend a couple of days helping our friend Wayne Leblanc with projects on his and Cynthia's new-to-them Victory catamaran.  Exciting stuff!  Stay tuned.