February 16-17, 2011 - St. Augustine to Port Canaveral - 131 Miles
Timing our departure to allow for daylight Port Canaveral or Ft. Pierce arrivals, we cast off our Oasis Marina lines at almost exactly 11:00 am. We might have left even a bit later than that to assure total slack tide at the Augustine entrance, but the Bridge of Lions doesn't open at 12:00 noon, so we went for the 11:30 opening. Everything went well until we started out the inlet.
The St. Augustine inlet is always a bit problematic. Bill and Wayne contended with shoaling across about half of the channel when they entered in November, but no dredging had been done since that time.
A couple of weeks after Wayne and Bill ran the entrance, another boat slammed hard on the shoaling bottom, bending their rudder shaft to the point where they lost steering. They quickly deployed an anchor and called for TowBoat US assistance. When the TowBoat US boat arrived it was overturned in the surf, leaving the operator in the water for about 90 minutes before the Coast Guard could rescue him. Luckily the towboat operator and both vessels were safely recovered (click to see news story). But even with this situation we'd heard that shoreline residents near the inlet continue to lobby against dredging, thinking that dredging will somehow hurt their surrounding beaches. We guess safety isn't too important to some people.
But on to our own departure. With steep waves caused by the entry shoals we had all we could do to power out, plunging the bow into troughs and sending green water over the bow and up to the pilothouse windows as we powered over the top of the following crest. Those of you who've run inlets well-know the drill. Our 2005 re-powering again paid off in spades. After about 1/4 mile of fun we were out in the ocean.
Winds from the prior few days had created 6-8' confused seas (several directions), which didn't seem to subside as we continued on. To add to the fun, there wasn't enough wind to steady the boat as we motored south. When Lao-Tzu talked about a journey starting with a single step, we don't think he meant stepping into a washing machine! Although the seas laid down somewhat by midnight, they were still by no means comfortable. And with Judy temporarily on medications that made her nauseous even on land, it wasn't a fun passage.
But all things do come to an end. Upon hitting the smooth, flat, entrance channel into Port Canaveral the next morning, all was again right with the world. Our total trip took us a little over 20 hours. Hopefully our next hops will be more enjoyable. At least we were now on our way!
February 18-19, 2011 - Port Canaveral to Lake Worth (West Palm Beach) - 126.2 Miles
What a difference a day makes. With continued lighter winds accompanying the present high pressure system, the seas calmed down for what appeared to be a perfect overnight run to Lake Worth. The wind GRIBS looked good. The NOAA forecasts looked good. The weather router, Chris Parker's, outlook looked good. We hoped all of the predictions would turn out to be spot on.
Joining us on our departure from Port Canaveral was Carnival Cruise Line's Monarch of the Seas. Once out of the channel they quickly horizoned us while their guests were no doubt hitting the bar and the appetizer tables. There was to be no bar for us tonight, and the appetizers were pretty spartan, but we were motorsailing nicely in reasonable seas while getting both some push and steadying from our raised main. Life was good.
The entire night was like this. Clear sky. Full moon. Comfortable temperatures. Gentle seas. Late the next morning we started getting a bit of a shore breeze about five miles from Lake Worth Inlet and tried sailing without motor assist for half an hour, but that short period of 10-knot breezes quickly eased. The motor came back on again.
It seemed that all of South Florida was out fishing on this President's Holiday Weekend morning. And once inside the inlet things got really crazy with power boaters and jet skis running everywhere. Luckily, harbor patrol boats were all over the place, reminding folks to hold to reasonable speeds in the harbor, and pulling over those that didn't. But once past the bridge and into Lake Worth there were no more wake restrictions, and we were promptly passed by a cigarette that had to be going 40 or 50! It's folks like that who give weekend power boaters a bad name.
Our anchor was down in the north arm of Lake Worth by about 1:00. We would hang out here until the next Gulf Stream crossing window - Tuesday, just two days away
2/19-21/2010 - Lake Worth Anchorage
Clearly we've arrived "south". Daytime temperatures were now in the comfortable 70's. Just beyond our anchorage were the condo high rises of West Palm Beach. But even as we began feeling far from frigid Minnesota, we learned that our anchorage neighbor turned out to be a northerner too - from Winnipeg, Manitoba - almost "next door neighbors" so to speak. And on Monday a Thunder Bay, Ontario, boat arrived and anchored near us. It felt like old home week!
Sunday afternoon brought a dingy trip "to town" for ice cream, another West Marine visit to find a standup spring for our new mainsheet traveler car (didn't need one with the prior car), and a quick stop at Publix for some fresh bread and veggies. With it being President's weekend we decided to remain anchored in Lake Worth rather than move nearer the inlet where all the holiday powerboat craziness was no doubt still going on. It would mean another hour going out on Tuesday, but quiet and peace of mind won the day.
2/22-23/2010 - Lake Worth Anchorage to Nassau - 200.8 Miles
Since we had gently touched the mud within the Lake Worth approach channel twice already (once coming in initially and another time on our quick run to a marina and back for fuel), we decided it best to wait for good light for our departure. Plus it always takes a bit longer to raise anchor at Lake Worth - the holding there is great, but the thick mud takes quite a while to wash of the chain while hoisting the hook. After all that we were on our way by 7:05, just after official sunrise. The winds (mostly south) had laid down considerably from the prior day, allowing the seas to subside outside while still leaving enough punch for us to motorsail with reduced revs. Life was good! We were off to the Bahamas!
At around 10:30am we were treated to the sighting of a ~150' German 3-masted sail training ship, the Thor Heyerdahl sailing north with the Gulf Stream under full canvas on a course from Havana to Bermuda (photo from Thor Heyerdahl information on the internet). Unfortunately we weren't close enough for a good picture, but we did raise the captain on the radio to chat. During the past 24+ years, over 20,000 high school aged youth have participated in its sail-training passages. What a wonderful opportunity for those students!
At 2:10 pm we encountered an interesting AIS "sighting". The 140 foor pleasure boat Incentive showed up on AIS with two signals - one for the mother ship and another for her 46' tender. Hmmm. Let's think about that for a minute. Their "dingy" is longer than our boat! Somebody must have received at BIG incentive bonus to purchase that pair of vessels! (see accompanying clip from our AIS display)
Aside from the normal gaggle of shipping around Freeport, at 10:30pm and around 25 miles past Freeport we were treated to a fireworks display by the cruise ship Disney Dream about nine miles off our port beam. Not to be outdone, an hour later the much smaller 200' mail and passenger ship Fiesta Mail was treating their passengers to a searchlight scan of the thin scattered clouds above. (Well, maybe they were outdone by Disney Dream.) There's no lack of entertainment out here on Tuesday nights.
Overall our Gulf Stream passage had been pretty uneventful (see above movie clip), a welcome change from that overnight between St. Augustine and Port Canaveral. After a beautiful 30-hour overnight passage
we passed the flotilla of Nassau Harbor cruise ships and went on to dock at our usual stopping point in Nassau, the Nassau Harbor Club marina.
With the good weather lots of other boats were also arriving at Nassau Harbor Club and other marinas in Nassau. As a result we had to wait a while for customs clearance, but by around 4:30 a very efficient woman arrived from customs to clear us in. The yellow "Q" flag (vessel in quarantine) flag could now come down from our starboard spreader, replaced by the Bahamian courtesy flag which Judy had just finished repairing while underway. Wednesday night brought a celebration dinner at the Poop Deck, a harbor-side restaurant just down the road from our marina. After three hops since St. Augustine for a total of 458 miles and 72 hours underway, we had arrived!
Thursday was spent doing laundry, getting a hair cut, catching up on email and business back home, and attending to ever-present boat chores before leaving for the Exumas on Friday morning. Our next posting will likely be coming your way in about another week from our favorite spot down this way, the Exuma Land and Sea Park. See you in the park!
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