It’s Monday morning and we are about 125 miles from making the turn at Cape Hatteras and toward the Chesapeake Bay.  We still plan to stop in Hampton for a day or two and then will make the final 120 mile run north to Annapolis where Pandora will be moored for at least the next month.

From a few miles after leaving Ft Pierce, I have worked to keep Pandora solidly in the middle of the Gulf  Stream with the hope of squeezing the most out of the northward current to push us along.  Chris Parker gave me a good number of way-points and I put them in the plotter with the hope of capturing as much of the favorable current as possible.

We have been motoring for the entire way even though there has been wind behind us, especially over the last 12 hours (more about that in a bit) as we want to keep our speed up.  At minimum, I have set the RPM of the engine high enough so that with the modest lift from the light winds and the engine, we keep moving though the water at about 6-6.5kts.

The gulf stream, sometimes referred to as an enormous “heat transfer conveyor belt”, moves northward at a respectable rate, often near 4kts.  The water in the Gulf Stream is in the 80s and serves to move an enormous amount of heat from the tropics north.   Being in the middle of all that hot water makes for some sticky conditions, especially in late June.

The Gulf Stream roughly parallels the US East Coast until it reaches Cape Hatteras where it is “kicked” east by the shallow water of the Cape.   It is there that we will exit the stream and head north to the Chesapeake Bay.  Once we leave the GS, we will still have over 100 miles until we reach Hampton.

Some boats are well set up for running dead down wind but Pandora isn’t one of them.  On this trip the wind, when there has been more than say, 10kts, has been nearly directly behind us and that makes for difficult conditions.   Take our forward movement, away from the wind, along with a current of several knots and the “apparent wind”, what we feel aboard, has been around 5kts, not enough to really sail.

Trying to keep the sails full and not banging around is nearly impossible with so little wind and after hours of the main slamming around yesterday, I finally gave up and took the main down.  My concern was that the constant slamming of the boom and sail as the boat wallowed in the swell, would cause breakage and chafe.

That concern was heightened late yesterday afternoon when I rolled out the jib and discovered that the foil on the jib, the part of the system that runs up the forestay and furls the sail, had come loose, with one of the sections separated from it’s mate.  That left a gap in the support for the bolt rope that threads up the extrusion on the jib to hold it in place.   As a result, the two extrusions had rubbed back and forth and cut right through the edge of the sail and ripped the front of the sail back about a foot.  The resulting mess looked quite precarious and I had no interest in going up to put a temporary fix on the sail so I just rolled up the sail and that’s that for the rest of the run.

I expect that we will be in a good position with wind from a good angle after turning at Cape Hatteras but I’ll have to see if it makes sense to put the jib out part way so that the rip is covered and supported or if I will just continue to motor.  I hate to make such a long run with the motor running the entire time but I have enough fuel so that might be the sensible thing to do.

My plan, when we reach Hampton, is to go into a marina and unfurl the jib so I can go up the forestay in the bosun’s chair and see what I can do to secure the separated sections of the aluminum foil and get the two separated sections back in place.  I expect that the repair may be as simple as a missing set screw but a simple temporary repair might be to put some strong tape on the foil and then a temporary repair to the rip in the luff of the sail.

That should stabilize it for the rest of the run to Annapolis and then I can remove the sail and send it out for repair.  It’s unfortunate to see the damage as the sail is new as of last fall.  Bummer.

Other than that, it’s been pretty much an uneventful trip.  Dick, who I have known for many years, is good crew member and I trust him.  After living on his own boat with his wife Anne, for ten years, he knows his way around and I am completely comfortable having him aboard and on deck when I am sleeping or down below.

All and all, it’s been a good trip so far and I am hopeful that we will be in Hampton by Tuesday evening.  The big determinant is if we hit the mouth of the Bay with a flooding tide or at the ebb.  The Chesapeake Bay is the outlet for a huge body of water and the currents run hard at the entrance so arriving at the mouth of the bay at the beginning of the flood can make a huge difference in how fast we will make our way the final miles to Hampton, with the outbound current subtracting from our forward speed.

And, speaking of miles, as I write this, we have gone about 2/3s of the nearly 700 miles of our trip to Hampton in just two days.  With the help of the GS current, we have covered about 220 miles per day, over the bottom, verses in the neighborhood of 150 miles a day through the water.  That’s a boost, from the current, of about 40 miles a day.  That’s a lot of current.

After the difficult run from St Lucia to Florida with Brenda, I’ll admit that I am not too interested in passage making so as far as the Gulf Stream is concerned, I’ll take all the help I can get to get us there sooner.

Here’s to continued luck and a safe arrival in Hampton tomorrow.   We’re nearly there, I am thankful for that.

It’s Sunday morning and we are making good time and are about 1/3 of the way to Hampton, VA, our likely stopping point before we head up the Chesapeake to Annapolis, our final destination.  We are currently about 90 miles offshore from Georgia and have turned toward the NE to follow the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream roughly parallels the coastline and the edge of the Continental Shelf, where the bottom drops from 200′ or less to a half mile or more and after going north along the Florida coast, we have worked our way to a more North East course and as the coastline bears more to the NE, so does the current of the Stream.

We departed Ft Pierce yesterday morning in near windless conditions, as expected, based on our discussions with Chris Parker who said that he expected us to pick up decent SW winds sometime on Sunday, today.

However, even though the winds have filled in pretty well, now in the mid-teens, it’s from the SW and pretty much behind us so the apparent wind isn’t quite enough to make any decent speed.  As a result, more than 24 hours into our trip we are still running the engine, albeit at a somewhat lower RPM, given the push from the wind behind us.  That’s good as it conserves fuel, although I have plenty given the fact that our total run is only about 700 miles and we do expect to be able to sail perhaps 1/3 of the way or more.

As of today I’ve been aboard for a week and I am happy to be underway.  Getting to Pandora last Sunday and having to address the leak in the new refrigerator was really frustrating and having someone aboard installing the new forward AC unit, tiring.  In retrospect, that install was quite simple and I expect that I could have easily done it myself.

However, I am really glad to have the unit in place an even though the aft unit remains to be dealt with, and being able to retreat to the forward cabin when it is hot a real treat.

Interestingly, the forward AC unit is wired to work underway via the inverter, so when we are under power, in flat conditions, which they are, I have been able to run the AC, through the inverter, which has made a huge difference in comfort.   I have never tried this before and am surprised at how well it works.

Dick and I have taken turns sleeping in the forward cabin that has been kept at a very comfortable mid 70s, which is a lot more comfortable than the 90 degrees of the main cabin.  Actually, with the AC unit running and the door to the cabin open, it’s keeping things aft somewhat cooler.

Most of my long runs in the past have been on the wind and I would hesitate to run the unit in those conditions as the water rushing by the water intake, while heeling, creates some suction and puts strain on the water-cooling pump for the unit.  Additionally, the condensation from the drip pan on the unit would have spilled all over the place.  With this in mind, the next time Pandora is out of the water, I will install a small scoop on the water intake, much as I have done on the watermaker and refrigeration to avoid that suction problem.  Additionally, I will install another condensate drain outlet on the port side of the new AC unit so that it can drain regardless of which tack we are on.  At the moment, the only drain is on the port side, and that means that if we are on a port tack, heeling to starboard, the pan will spill over and make quite a mess.  I’ll be sure to do that on the aft unit as well.

However, an overflowing drip pan isn’t an issue on this run yet as we aren’t going very fast, about 6-6.5kts, and are sitting quite level, and the unit seems to be performing nicely.

I should note that while our through-the-water speed is modest, our over-the-bottom speed, with the GS adding an additional 3-4kts, our speed made good is a very respectable 9.5 to 10.5kts.  We are making quite good time and will remain under the influence of the GS until we get to Cape Hatteras, the bulk of our trip.

We were thinking of stopping somewhere, perhaps Charleston, for a few days but with good passage conditions and the threat of Covid-19 just about everywhere on shore, we decided to just keep going and not to stop until we get to the Chesapeake.

I do expect that we will opt to stop somewhere along the way but if the sailing is good, who knows.

For now, it’s nice to be underway, on my way home and away from the torment of fixing broken stuff.  Sure, there’s still more to do but that can wait until Annapolis.

For now, I am happy to be moving along in the clutches of the Gulf Stream, helping us make our way north.

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned.

Pandora is still in Ft Pierce and I will be heading there next weekend to bring her to Annapolis with my friend Dick.  Brenda and I buddy-boated with him and his wife Anne years ago when we first headed south and spent time in the Bahamas.

At the time Anne and Dick owned Nati, a catamaran that they lived aboard for a number of years before “swallowing the anchor” and moving ashore to Florida where they live now.

The Bahamas, where we met Anne and Dick, was our first winter adventure after heading to Florida via the ICW, Intra Coastal Waterway.  Since then, we have sailed many thousands of miles and visited places I never imagined we would go, much less do so aboard our own boat.  Cuba? Who knew?

This is “old” Pandora anchored off of Chubb island shortly after clearing into the Bahamas back in 2014.It seems like just yesterday when we spent months with Anne and Dick moving from place to place in the Bahamas.   I guess that Dick never listened to his mother who surely told him NEVER to stand up in a moving vehicle.  “Down boy, down boy!”   With Anne aboard at least she kept him moving at a stately pace.
At that time we owned our “old” Pandora, a SAGA 43.  She heeled a LOT and to sail along with Nati, a cat that was always level and smooth, was totally annoying, especially to Brenda who often felt she was hanging on for dear life as I pushed Pandora to try and keep up.  While we had to stow everything that wasn’t nailed down, Anne and Dick would just wave to us while taking at tiny sip of coffee as they glided serenely by.We did a lot more fishing back in those days.  Now, I am less inclined to get all the blood and guts aboard as we have found that the biggest problem with fishing is that we catch stuff and when landed I wonder how I am going to deal with ALL THAT FISH.  This was one of my biggest catches that year, a Mahi Mahi.  Notice the beginning of the whole “blood and guts” thing on the cockpit settee.We all had a bit more hair back in those days.  Well, at least it was a lot better distributed.  I guess I’ll have to wait and see about Dick and how his mane has fared.  In terms of sheer volume, my hair is pretty long these days as I haven’t had a “professional” haircut since February but somehow it has become distributed differently, a sort of gravitational migration leaving my own personal “north pole” mostly vegetation free.

I still remember when I had my very first “outdoor” haircut that year in Black Point, Long Island.  It was only time I ever spotted a ray while I was getting a hair cut.  This isn’t me ‘under the knife”, but you get the idea.   That’s Ida, doing the cutting.   And, of course, back in those days, see the guy with the laptop, the only way to get email was to go to a hotspot as cellular Wifi was not as usable as it is these days.  Every day was a scavenger hunt for connectivity.  And, later that same year, a random sighting of what would one day be our current Pandora on a mooring in Newport RI.  We never imagined that we would one day own her ourselves. So, off to Florida and Pandora in less than a week.  And, while I am not enthusiastic about getting on a flight, that’s exactly what I am doing next weekend.   You can bet that I’ll be fortified with my slightly used N95 mask, germicidal wipes, killer spray, hand sanitizer, my own food and well, you know the drill.  Actually, my hope is that EVERYONE else on the plane knows th drill and takes it seriously.  If not, it will be my last flight for a very long time.  Bad flight or not, I hope that I don’t become “positive”, which I suppose could make it my “very last flight, ever” which would be very bad.  Based on our experience in Florida when we arrived there last month aboard Pandora, I am not optimistic about the “locals” taking the risk seriously.

And, fast forward to the fall, am hoping against hope that we will be heading south again but it’s very hard to say what will happen next as Brenda isn’t crazy about that idea and with the pandemic still a threat and no certainty about what island to island travel will look like, who knows…

I guess I shouldn’t stress too much about what the future holds as there is really no way to know what that might look like.   For sure, it will surprise and delight me, if history us any guide, and to think back to that winter in the Bahamas, a lot has happened that I would never have predicted anyway.

It’s been a few years since I have seen Dick too so it will be fun to spend time together.  Perhaps he will have some answers.  Dick?

Here’s to the great unknown and wondering where Pandora will take me next.

Well, the “next” it seems will be Annapolis with a few stops along the way.

Stay tuned and you will be the second to know.

 

 

Well, it’s been over two weeks since my last post and I feel badly about that so let me try to bring things up to date.  Here goes…

First, recall that Brenda and I participated in the Salty Dawg Homeward Bound Flotilla, an effort designed to help nearly 220 boats, stranded in the Caribbean by the Covid-19 virus, return home following the closing of nearly every island.

While some boats in the flotilla opted to take a northerly run directly toward New England, the bulk of the fleet, like us, chose a southerly route, departing from the USVIs, heading west, south of the Bahamas and on to Florida, a mostly down-wind route.

Even now, weeks after our departure, there is still a large flotilla making their way along that same route.  Here’s a screen shot of the group, 65 strong, as of this morning.  While many cruisers decided to take their boats north, some opted to stay in the Caribbean for the summer and not make the long run to the US.  The decision to stay in the islands was easier said than done with most all of the islands still locked down and closed to new arrivals.  As a result, they were faced with the difficult decision of keeping their boat wherever they were when islands closed their boarders, many deep in the the hurricane belt.

To avoid the risk of hurricanes, Trinidad is the only island generally considered to be safe, but that island is still closed and there is much uncertainty as to when the island will open up again and if they will do so before the hurricane season is in full swing.  At this time there is hope that boats wishing to summer in Trinidad will be able to head there, by mid June, at the earliest.

Additionally, getting insurance for boats summering outside of Trinidad, at an affordable price, or at all, is increasingly difficult due to the back to back destructive hurricanes that ravaged many of the islands.

A friend of ours, with a nearly new 47′ Hanse, is paying a premium of nearly $18k to keep his boat in Antigua where his boat happened to be when everything closed down.  That’s a huge premium with many restrictions and is indicative of the risk that the underwriters see for what is expected to be a particularly active season.

Happily, Pandora is now in the US and as long as I am north of Cape Hatteras by mid July, we will be in good shape.   I’ll be heading back to FL in a few weeks to bring Pandora north for the summer.

I say for the summer as opposed to “forever” as I am still holding out hope that there will be a next winter season of tropical sailing but, frankly, that’s looking increasingly unlikely.  Between the ongoing threat of the virus in the islands and the huge number of cases in the US, I expect that many countries will think twice before they welcome us from the US to visit.

The Prime Minister of Antigua recently stated that they may be forced to keep restrictions in place until a vaccine is available.  Additionally, I am wondering about island to island travel once we are there?   Will it be possible to go down the chain freely without a two week quarantine when transiting between islands?

I wouldn’t blame the local governments if they were concerned about visitors from the US given the fact that with only 4% of the world population we have  a third of the deaths and no national testing and tracking plan to manage things going forward.

And another and certainly the biggest complication in all of this is that Brenda, who was traumatized by how rough it was for the second half of our trip, is not enthusiastic about stepping aboard Pandora again any time soon, and surely not about heading south this fall.

As I mentioned in my last few posts, the first half of our trip was fairly benign, with conditions that were pretty much as ordered, modest winds from behind us and seas that weren’t too bad.  We even spent a few days motoring as the winds just weren’t strong enough to keep moving well.  However after we departed Great Inagua, things deteriorated and were much worse than expected.

For the first few days after leaving Great Inagua, Chris Parker advised us to go slowly, no more than 4.5kts so that when we exited the Old Bahamas Channel it would be late enough to have allowed the forecasted adverse winds in the Gulf Stream off of Florida to have calmed down.    With Pandora on a broad reach in 20kts of wind, keeping her speed down was no easy feat.   Even with a third reef in the main and with the boom centered along with a fully furled jib we were still moving along at a good 6kts which was still way to fast.

All I could think of to slow us down more was to trail a sturdy bucket behind the boat, which finally did the trick.  However, just a few hours later, we received another email from Chris telling us to speed up as the forecast had changed and we now had to make landfall in Florida sooner than he had expected in order to avoid a possible tropical low that was developing in the Gulf of Mexico.

So, out came the bucket and let me tell you, retrieving it was no easy task as I had not been able to put a trip line on the bucket and pulling it in was very difficult.   The seas behind us, at that time, were not that large but, never the less, looked ominous.  With the forecast changing, Chris advised us to go as fast as we could to avoid getting tangled up in what could be strong NE winds in the Gulf Stream, bringing with it short waves in the 10-12′ range, punishing or worse with wind and current opposing in the stream.

His email stating that there was a change in plans included words of warning, “this is going to be horrible”.   Brenda loved that…

One of the key issues for us in taking the southern route, below the Bahamas in the relatively narrow channel between the banks and the north coasts of the Dominican Republic and Cuba, was to stay out of the shipping lanes and yet not stray into water that abruptly rose from 1,000′ to 20′ or less. These shoal areas are very poorly charted and waves can pile up and break with such an abrupt change in depth.

You can see the shipping channels, west and east, on this chart.   Our plan was to stay just north of the west bound channel so we could be in deep water and still stay out of the way of shipping.   See the “ruler” showing 3.3 miles on the chart to give a feel for scale.    We didn’t want to stray any closer to the banks than a few miles, “just in case”. A closer view will give a feel for how close to the shoals the channel was, only a few miles.   However, it seemed to me, as I planned our route, that there was plenty of room to work with. However as made our way through the area and were within a few miles of the shoals, I had serious doubts about my plan as I started to get some odd depth readings on my depth-finder.   And, to make matters worse, it was in the middle of the night with no moon so there was no way to gauge the depth of the water by color.

As I came within a few miles of the shallow area on the chart, I began to see readings on my instruments suggesting that I may have strayed onto the shoals.  I have found that my depth sounder often shows random readings, even when the depths are great, which I assume are schools of fish, temperature gradients, seaweed or other debris that cause the instrument to flash random and very shallow depth readings from time to time.

However, in the dark of night and with little sleep, I really didn’t know what to think.   All I could imagine was that the charts were wrong as I was seeing accurate  readings suggesting depths of less than 20′, and counting down slowly to ten feet and less, only to begin counting back up to deeper readings before loosing depth readings altogether as we headed back off-soundings.  It sure looked to me like a grounding was going to happen at any moment.

Here I was, in the middle of the night, sleep deprived, and I wasn’t sure what to think as I just didn’t know what to make of the readings.  After seeing the depth readings methodically count up to alarmingly shallow depths and then back down, I became convinced that I was going to run aground at any moment.

At one point, after “bracing” for what seemed like an inevitable impact, with readings near the depth of Pandora’s keel, I decided to jibe, turning sharply away from the imagined shoals and back toward the shipping lanes only to see a continuation of unexpected readings.  I really have no idea if I was close to running aground or not but the charts, if they were correct, had me at least several miles away from the shoals.   The good news is that we didn’t run aground but I am still unsure if it was the instruments or if I was really in danger.  I guess I will never know.

The first time I had experienced this was was in 2016 off of the south coast of Cuba, again late at night,  in depths that showed on the chart as nearly 5,000′.  It was totally unnerving then too.  In retrospect, with a mile of water under our keel then, the readings were surely false.

After jibing and back toward and area that I was certain were plenty deep, we raced on to the west and Florida.  As we passed the Cay Sal banks to port, our course turned to the NW and we entered the Santaran Channel.  The wind freshened and squalls increased.  Still double reefed and with a fully furled jib we were now on a beam reach and moving fast.

Pandora, sails really well on a reach in those conditions, a double reefed main and no jib and we were flying along at 8.5 to 9.5 kts, sometimes as fast as 11 kts.  We were regularly hit by squalls with sustained 30 kts.  One squall followed along with us for nearly 8 hours.  That was a wild and wet ride and, as luck would have it, was in the dark with no moon so we couldn’t see what was coming until it hit us, and hit us it did.

Regularly, larger waves would slam into the side of he boat and rush over the deck.  One wave hit so violently we both thought that the vinyl enclosure on the aft of the cockpit had been blown out.  So much water came across the aft area of of the cockpit from the starboard side that we really thought that the enclosure had been breached.    As it was pitch dark at the time, it was difficult to see clearly but what we thought we saw, was quite unnerving.   Later, another wave hit the starboard beam with such a bang that I went below, sure that one of the ports had been breached.

Earlier in the trip, when we were running nearly dead down wind, we were “pooped” several times with waves rising up behind us and slamming violently against the transom.  Fortunately, not much water found its way into the cockpit but it made quite a noise.

A 40′ catamaran that was close behind us, was not so lucky and as a large wave ran up their stern, it flooded over the aft deck, stove in their in their big sliding cabin doors, and soaked their cabin.  They were able to clean things up and keep going but sustained a lot of water damage.

And, a number of other boats, mostly smaller ones under 40′, had boarding stern waves shove water up their exhaust, flooding their engines.  As a result, they  couldn’t get their engines started, unable to find a way to get the water out of their engines while underway.   A water-locked engine can be a common problem when waves hit the transom if there isn’t enough rise in the exhaust from the engine to where it exits the transom.   Unfortunately, salt water left in an engine for several days can be fatal to the engine.

Fortunately, Pandora’s exhaust system exits the transom close to the waterline following a large rise that brings it up under the cockpit and then down low again under the companionway before rising yet again to meet the engine.   Given that final rise to the engine, if water were to find it’s way into the exhaust, it would likely not reach the engine itself.

As I have doggedly pursued leaks aboard Pandora for years now, we had very minimal water below, in spite of the rough conditions, with the exception of a “new” leak around the mast boot on deck which got our custom mattress quite wet.  When we arrived in Ft Pierce I fully rinsed the mattress with fresh water and purchased a dehumidifier and a fan to be sure that it dried out quickly before any mildew set in.  I think it’s fine now but time will tell if it ever feels clammy.  Frankly, I was surprised that we didn’t develop more leaks given the massive amount of water that we took on deck.

Crossing the Gulf Stream, in conditions with about 30kts out of the east turned out to be a lot easier than I had expected except that a particularly persistent squall stayed with us for nearly eight hours, making for a miserable night.  We could see the squall all around us on radar but as we moved toward the NW, we were unable to move away from the rain and wind as it was moving in the same direction as we were, hour after long hour.

But wait, there’s more.  Things finally quieted down as we passed Miami but as we approached Ft Lauderdale, an hour before daybreak, we were hit by yet another nasty squall, just as we approached the sea buoy at the end of the channel.

Conditions were quite rough and as I dropped the main, the boom dropped lower than normal and nearly slammed into the top of the hard dodger.  Normally, the hydraulic vang holds the boom up but somehow some of the pressure had leaked out and it drooped down more than it should have.

I thought that the topping lift line was up enough but it wasn’t and the boom nearly crashed violently into the top of the dodger as the boat rocked from side to side in the swell.  After a few alarming moments as the 20′ boom slammed from side to side, I was able to secure an out-haul to stabilize it but working my way up onto the deck as the boat rocked violently was not fun especially after two days and nights with little sleep.

It’s safe to say that all of this was not amusing to Brenda but we made it and finally passed the breakwaters and entered calm waters.  We were back in the US.

When Brenda and I had been discussing the best options for getting us and Pandora home, we decided that her getting on a plane with the risk of contracting the virus so she reluctantly decided to make the run back to the US with me in what would be the longest run for her to date, some 1,500 miles, beginning in St Lucia, all the way to the US.

While the final run from the USVIs to FL was only about 1,100 miles, it was still nearly three times longer than her longest run to date and along the way the only option to stop and rest was Great Inagua, an unpleasant and exposed anchorage, with every other port closed and off limits, if things deteriorated.

So now, with Pandora back in the US, even if it’s only Florida, it’s looking very iffy that I’ll be getting Brenda back aboard any time soon.

Brenda wanted the run home to be a “zepher” but it turned out to be more like a “tempest”.

I guess time will tell with what the next chapter will look like for me, Brenda and Pandora.  For now, I’ll just focus on getting Pandora north and as Scarlet O’Hara once famously said.

“I won’t thing about that today, I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

It’s Tuesday morning and I just shut down the motor that has kept Pandora moving since we left Great Inagua at 15:00 yesterday.  We are currently about 50 miles north of Cuba and making our way west toward the Old Bahamas Channel.  The wind has finally begun to fill in at about 10kts from the NE giving us a nice beam reach sail.  These conditions are expected to continue until tomorrow when the wind should increase 10-20kts, from the same direction.

We spent three days waiting for good weather in Great Inagua and with the exception of a few brief intervals of calm, it was a miserable anchorage, with a steady stream of swells coming around the southern tip of the island, making for very uncomfortable conditions as we rolled violently from side to side, sometimes enough to knock things off of the galley counter into the sink.

On the bright side, the water was impossibly clear and a beautiful shade of blue, a reminder of the past seasons that we have spent in The Bahamas in.   The water in the Caribbean, while nice, is nowhere as clear as it is in The Bahamas.  We were anchored in about 25′ of water and you could see the bottom as clearly as if it was a mere 5 feet deep.  I did go swimming once during our visit and while hanging off of the stern of the boat I could see the anchor chain entering the water and going all the way to the bottom.  I’d guess that you could see between 75′ and 100′ through the water.

As I mentioned in a past post, less than a half mile behind us the 25-35′ depth abruptly dropped off of a cliff to over 1,000′ deep and it was all I could do to keep from looking over my shoulder when I was in the water, imagining a shark lurking up and over the cliff looking for dinner.  Thanks Peter Benchley, you’ve ruined swimming in the ocean for me, forever.

Anyway, the water was a remarkable blue and while I did go swimming, I can’t say that it was relaxing.  Brenda decided to skip it.

Oh yeah, and I did I mention that it was HOT?  Fortunately, there wasn’t much wind as that did keep the wrap-around swell down somewhat but it made for a very hot anchorage.   Additionally, in the evenings, even thought we were hundreds of yards off of the beach, the mosquitoes were terrible.

Each night seemed to be progressively worse and by the third night Brenda and I ended up sitting in the salon swatting mosquitoes, well after midnight, trying to reduce the resident population, at least a little.   We have screens for our hatches but with the very light wind, to close them made it even hotter down below.  Finally, after several hours of swatting, Brenda went back to bed and I sat up alone trying to attract and destroy the rest of the “armada”.    It wasn’t until I had the brilliant idea of lighting a bug coil and placing it in the forward head that the problem was finally solved.   The mosquitoes were still there but somehow, they no longer tried to land on us.  Those coils really worked for us.

Anyway, after that “final” night we swore that we’d not stay for even one more and when you added the boat snapping from side to side, sometimes nearly 20 degrees in each direction, “enough was enough”.

Sympathetic cruisers who were in contact with us suggested that we put out a bridle on the anchor chain to the stern of Pandora to pull her more in line with the waves.  That would normally be a solution but with the light and variable wind, constantly changing direction, that was unworkable.

Chris Parker was advising us to stay there for another day but we just could not stand the thought  of another night at anchor 4-5kts and leave earlier.  The idea being that we would not get to the Gulf Stream until the adverse winds cleared out.   So, we left early but have to go slower.    With that in mind, we are trying to keep our speed down by going under main alone.  I expect that I will need to put in a reef soon, as well.  Making Pandora go slower goes completely against my instinct but, in this case, it’s what we need to do.

A friend of mine, Tom on Aladdin, is a day ahead of us and will be right in the middle of the nasty winds in the Gulf Stream so let that be a lesson to us in keeping Pandora from getting there too soon.

Keeping our speed low is important as we have to be sure that we don’t exit the Old Bahama Channel and Santeren Channel and into the Gulf Stream off of Florida until some bad weather that is forecasted to clear out by sunset on Thursday.

Keeping our speed down will be particularly tough as a NE wind in the 15-20kt range is supposed to arrive here later today and we will need to reduce sail to keep our speed down.   Hopefully, when I speak with Chris Parker this evening, he will say that conditions in the Gulf Stream will clear up a bit sooner than he had anticipated so we can keep moving.

When I say “clear up” I am referring to strong those strong NE winds in the 25+ range that will be in the Gulf Stream later in the week, and anytime that the wind in the Stream opposes the northbound current, you get really steep waves that are very close together.  In this case, they would be 10′-12′ steep waves, really miserable conditions and something that we really need to avoid.

Oh yeah, speaking of seasickness, Brenda has adapted to life at sea, a first for her.   She is eating well, knitting and reading and has also been able to stand watch both at night and during the day.

She is even able to move around down below, something that is normally not possible for her.  I will stop short of saying that she’s “having a ball” but at least she doesn’t feel sick all the time.  That’s good and is making a long trip more bearable for us both.

We are staying pretty loose on keeping watch while underway and it seems to be working out well for her to sleep down below until about midnight and then to stand watch for several hours while I catch some sleep myself.  It’s an informal plan and is working well for us both.

So, here we are on the “final stretch”, sort of, of a 1,500+ journey that began back some two months ago in St Lucia when the Covid-19 virus began to wreak havoc around the world.

I’ll admit that we are both anxious about re-entering the US given the fact that our home country seems to be really struggling to keep things from spiraling out of control.

So, with some luck, any changes in the weather forecast will be for the better and we will still arrive in Ft Pierce by late Friday or perhaps Saturday.  Of course, that assumes that we don’t have to divert to Key Largo or perhaps Miami to wait out adverse weather.

Wish us luck.