Category Archives: Sailing

South of the Tropic of Cancer

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This week in Georgetown has been busy!

We’ve been doing the usual re-provisioning: fuel, water, food, laundry.

We’ve been excited to let everyone know about Amble Resorts and the possibility that I could be their 2012 Island Intern back in Panama (go vote!).

And, most importantly, we’ve been studying up for our big next legs south to Panama.  After tons of consideration and over a year’s worth of hemming and hawing, here’s what we have decided (and are open to feedback on):

How’d we get here?  In short, we wanted to take the 1) safest, and then, 2) most comfortable route.  Without going into too much detail (we’re happy to, just email us) it’s a big combination of studying the weather, charts, pet-entry req’s, clearing in fees and then, prioritizing what we want to see along the way.  Being willing to go “north to get south” (go out of your way to get a better sail) and waiting on the weather will serve you well on making big passages like this, or so we’ve been told.  And, that’s what we intend to do.

First thing’s first, as you can see we’re headed West, with the Trade Winds instead of beating East across the north coast of the Dominican Republic and then beating again across the north coast of Puerto Rico.  If we were to go that way, once we got to the USVI, we’d be set to follow little coastal jumps all the way down the chain.  But, each of the 20-odd countries “down the chain” between “here” (The Bahamas) and “there” (Panama) has different pet entry regulations and entry fees for the boat.  Turks and Caicos alone is $200 to enter (for a couple of days, no thanks) and some of the islands I really wanted to see (Dominica) don’t allow pets on shore.  So, we’d skip these anyway therefore the advantage of short day sails between islands was kind of muted.   Of all the things I’ll miss out on (this time) by not taking the Eastern route, I think I’ll miss the opportunity to see Saba the most: when told roads and an airport couldn’t be built, they did it themselves – my kind of folks!

Also, yes, Cuba (the forbidden zone) is on the way and the anchorage to check in at is just past Guantanamo Bay.  If we stop we’ll likely just anchor off the coast to rest but the coast is so steep that we’ll be really close to land.  So . . . we’ll keep you posted.

And, finally, yes, it’s a lot of open water after Jamaica, but we prefer the open water with the Trades over beating against the wind.  And, we discovered there are a ton of little atolls along the way, which could break up the 3-day trip to San Andres (off the coast of Nicaragua), which is supposed to be great!

From there, it’s a “short” jump from San Andres to Bocas – from 36 hours to 72 depending on the weather.

We estimate the total sailing time on these legs to be about 1.5 weeks, which will be broken up with time ashore and time patiently waiting on the weather.  So, just like that, we’re well on track to be in Panama by June, just as planned.  Famous.last.words. 😉

I’m not sure what internet options will be available between here and Jamaica so stayed tuned on Spot and we’ll catch up on the flip side.

xoxox,

Laurie

ps.  If you haven’t yet taken a second to vote for me for the Amble Resorts 2012 Island Intern contest, what in the world are you waiting for??? 😉  Click here.


Dragging Anchor

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No one wants to drag anchor – it can put you up on the rocks, slam you into another boat or at best, leave you stranded on a sandy shoal until high tide. Suffice it to say, it always sucky, scary and sometimes life-threatening.

We’ve experienced this phenom twice so far and we’ve only been out a month. The first time, we were in Rock Harbor. And, that time we were lucky enough – we heard a transmission about a dragging boat on the VHF radio “right by that catamaran” and even though we thought at the time we were in imminent danger of being hit by a rogue boat – it turns out the dragging boat was across the harbor and secured again before even coming close to us (different catamaran, luckily!). It was one of those life lessons which shouts at you to pay attention while sparing you from any harm; I like these life lessons.

Two nights ago, we weren’t so lucky. For two days, we had already sat in a lovely and picturesque bay just south of Hoffman’s Cay in the Berries. This little harbor is surrounded by several (rock lined) Cays, there is a significant current, especially when the tides change and most of the harbor is grass (poor holding). But, after three attempts, we anchored just meters from the beach in the soft sand, which Damon dug in by hand on the slope of the shore. And there we sat for two days.

We had some company – on the first day we joined two other Gems and a small sailboat – and then, a trawler moved in comfortably to our west. On the third day, the Gems and the small sailboat left and I watched as another, bigger sailboat sped into the harbor, dropped anchor in the grass and quickly went about coming to shore. I was a bit concerned about how easily they anchored given we tried three different spots before hooking in a nice sandy spot without much current. But, they were comfortably to our south, the trawler was to our east and so we sat in a quaint little triangle in the anchorage.

Now, we have a 35-pound CQR with 70 feet of chain we can put out, D usually dives down on it to make sure it’s set and, up until now, I’ve slept like a baby knowing we should really be over-anchored for our boat (the only other time I felt nervous about dragging in the middle of the night was when we anchored at 2am on the churning Shoals on the Great Bahama Bank where only the GPS assured our holding; man was I glad when the sun came up 4 hours later and we skee-daddled on out of there having not moved a degree from our position).

But, on Saturday night, we expected some significant wind to come out of the north – 20-25 knots – which we have experienced before so no problem, right?  And, D dug the anchor in and we were over-anchored, right?  Hmmm. It’s hard to say exactly what happened that caused the evenings dragging-anchor shenanigans (was it us, was it them, what did we/they do wrong, and most importantly: how can we prevent this in the future?). But, here’s how it occurred to us at the time*:

7pm (dark):  D and I were goofing around in the salon, listening to the wind kick up when I got the urge to go out into the cockpit, you know, just to look around. And, what did I find?  All three boats in the anchorage (including us) were lined up side-by-side instead of the nice little triangle with plenty of room to swing we were in for the last 24 hours. It just takes a second to go from “hey, wasn’t that third boat much farther away?” to “oh shit!”**.

7:01pm: D and I grab our head lamps and our huge spot light (thanks again, Dad!), scanned the beach and sure enough we were much further off than where we were “securely anchored” just an hour before.

7:02pm:  The trawler seems to be in the same place, but the sailboat is now a beam to us, all 4 aboard (including an infant) are out on deck, headlamps on, scrambling and tugging up their anchor. They have clearly dragged north and are having trouble getting their anchor up. Our hulls are about 50 feet from each other.

7:05pm:  D runs up on the bow and lets out scope so we fall behind them. We scratch our heads a bit wondering “how did this happen?”, “what do we do now?” and “where are they going”?  With the engine on, I’m able to hold us in place as we trail them a bit to their starboard (their dinghy is probably 15 feet in front of our bow).

7:08pm:  After tugging on their anchor, they yell to us that they’re hooked on our anchor and we should come up on them (um, okay) while turning into them (sure, that seems safe-r, not!). But, getting close enough to have the leverage to unhook from each other was the only option so we went for it. D was up on the bow, I was manning the wheel and with our big engine we were able to maneuver safely up beside them and get unhooked.

7:10pm:  What now?  We were free from the sailboat – and they from us. But, where were they headed and would they/we drag again?  Given we had enough of trying to anchor in the grass a couple of days ago, we opted to head back to the beach and stick again in the sand – this time with two anchors out. We had started this ordeal with them on our port, now we were behind them and they were slipping sideways in the current to the starboard. In a flash, I gunned the engines and came around their port, slipping between them and the trawler (whose captain was watching all of this madness with baited breath I’m sure) towards the beach.

7:12pm:  We eased up on the beach with that (hopefully) perfect speed of enough juice to keep us under control while making sure we don’t beach the boat (we actually can in a Gem but didn’t want to have to dig it out in the morning when the waves and current pushed us aft-in). Within a couple of minutes we had two anchors in, D had set both by hand (in the dark I might add) and we huddled in the cockpit to recap the play-by-play and figure out just what the hell happened.

And, after much head scratching and some geometric drawings, here’s a couple of likely scenarios:

Scenario #1 aka “It was their fault***”:  The sailboat south of us had been slowly dragging all day following the current north. At some point their anchor crossed ours and when the winds picked up from the North, they drug us south, too, so we were all in a line side to side. Then, when they realized they were dragging, they tried to pull up on their anchor and we let out scope, causing us to be behind them. Although it’s still scary-as-hell, we take a little comfort in this scenario because it means our anchor was set correctly and held – our boat, until it was pulled by another boat.

Scenario #2 aka “It was our fault”:  Yes, we held for two days anchored on the slope of the beach but then the wind changed, and by a lot. This is when we should have either reset, added another anchor or both. It’s possible that when the when changed we swung around and the anchor lost footing, so to speak, in the slope of the beach. With the wind coming from the north, and a dragging anchor, we would have drug south. But, in this scenario, I don’t get how they sailboat came ahead of us (unless we caught each other and they pulled up on their chain), which leads me to scenario #3 . . .

Scenario #3 aka “It was both our faults”:  If we drug south (with the wind after dark), they drug north (with the current all day), then our anchors could have crossed and created the sitch. And, we should both know how to prevent this in the future (them with better ground holding and us re-setting with the changing winds).

There is one other, most troubling, possibility:

Scenario #4 aka “Who knows?”:  This is most troubling, of course, because if we don’t know how it happened, we can’t prevent it from happening again. Yes, all the safety precautions in the world don’t stop freak accidents, but you sure as hell try to do everything you can to come out on top.

It should come as no surprise, that after the dragging incident that night it was hard to sleep:  both ‘cause we were pumped up from the incident and ‘cause the last thing you want to be woken up with is a dragging boat (theirs or ours, again!).

Needless to say in the morning, everyone moved:  the trawler and the sailboat apparently had a really rolly night off the beach and moved across the harbor. We are fortunate enough to have a shoal-draft boat and headed into the hurricane hole of Little Harbor Cay where we’ve been riding out the wind in total comfort (Chester and everyone at Flo’s Place have been awesome!).

Life on the water a funny thing:  we can literally see their boats rolling in the anchorage from two miles south in our sheltered cove, but they can’t get here. Yet, last night I couldn’t sleep because I was worrying about dragging again (I’m one of those folks who handle an emergency like a pro, only to freak out later – when danger has passed and I have the space to process it).

I don’t post this to freak you out (Mom, Dad, we’re ok) but to share with you that life on the water takes vigilance, constant education and respect for the wind and waves.

We’re so happy to have another SIBC moment with no real consequences behind us and are on our toes for the next one which I’m sure is around the corner somewhere.

L, D, and Mr. K

*It was dark, there was a crisis, so, no, you have no pictures in this post. But, I think you understand why.

**Sorry for cursing, Mom. But, in this instance, it was warranted. I will put a nickle in the jar next time I’m home.

***Assigning blame to shake our finger at someone was never our intention in determining whose “fault” it was. But, we feel very strongly that figuring out if we or they  – or both of us – could have done something(s) differently is paramount to staying out of this situation again.

Gulf Stream Crossing . . . Aloha, Bimini!

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Well, not exactly, “Aloha”, but maybe irie, mon.

Here we sit in Bimini, in the Blue Water Marina, which we pulled into around 5pm after traveling 12 hours across the Gulf Stream.  Wa-hooo!

For those, like me, who always flip through the pics in National Geographic before reading the articles, here’s the slideshow:

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This was by far the biggest – and most serious passage we made to date and I was nervous (although very well-versed and prepared, as much as one can be for something so HUGE you’ve never done before).

A note about the Gulf Stream:  you can google it if you want and learn all about it.  But, I’ll give you the synopsis of what we learned in preparing for this serious passage:

  • The Gulf Stream is an “ocean river” which is about 45 miles wide, ever shifting and has a current of about 4 knots (2.5 miles) heading North.
  • Because you have current pushing you North, use it, by leaving from south of where you want to arrive, heading due East and then only turning North as you’re about 10-15 miles from your destination (and presumably out of the eastern edge of the stream).
  • Don’t go if there is any wind from the North (headed south) because the wind will kick up the waves as the current (headed north) heads against the wind.  When the wind is coming from the North, even 10 knots can make the seas high and definitely dangerous for a craft like ours under 35’ and even 5 knots of wind can make them surely uncomfortable.  So, we wait for the wind to clock around from the North to another direction, preferably none, but anything is better than North.
  • At about 50 miles to go, it will be our longest passage yet requiring us to leave before dawn to arrive before sunset (we aim never to arrive at any new anchorage after sunset).  Although folks in past have said to leave at night and arrive before noon, this is now eschewed, hence our pre-dawn departure.
  • The Gulf Stream is deep, like the depth sounder stopped working at about 270 feet deep.  It marks the end of one plate along the US, then the (deep) Gulf Stream, and the beginning of the Bahamas Bank.  So, the water will change along with the depths from the beautiful clear-ish green of the Florida Upper Keys to a deep, deep, ocean blue back to the turquoise, clear Bahamas shallows.  I’m looking forward to this (and not much else about this crossing).
  • Like any passage, you can always turn around.  Which is exactly what we’ll do, if we need to.

Turns out, the passage was great!  I think the key was really no big secret: wait until the weather is in your favor.  Good news, bad news is that the wind was directly on our nose so we chose not to to sail much, in exchange for getting to our destination quicker   We did do some motor sailing and as such made great time.  And, the motor worked great!  So far, so good 🙂

Although I didn’t really enjoy getting up at 4am, I joked with D that it felt like Election Day (those days and traveling days are about the only ones I’m up at 4am).  But, the key difference between Eday and Gday (Gulf Stream Day) is that I’ve done tons of Edays before!  It was one of those days I kinda wish I could be hit by a bus so I wouldn’t have to do “it”, while knowing full well that I’ll be so glad I did – when it’s over.

The morning was black – before sunrise, ya know – so it was our first time moving the boat in the dark.  Luckily, my father got me an awesome spotlight for the holidays (Thanks, Dad!) and we had traversed the channel out to the ocean from Key Largo going in.  So, we just followed our tracks (literally, on GPS) and kept an eye out for markers with the light.

They always say if you get out to the stream (about 7-10 miles out) and it doesn’t look good, you can always turn around.  While we navigated in the dark, and I anticipated “The Perfect Storm” conditions (which never came), I kept the “turning around” option close to heart.  BTW – most of you know I’m not a “religious” person, per se, but I am super-spiritual and I definitely asked for blessings before we left (among other things, “Grant us safe and swift passage – wait – not too swift, okay?”).

After a couple of hours, the sun was coming up, we hadn’t hit a crab pot yet, and the seas were 1-3 feet as predicted.  So far, so good.  We had heard that “once you hit the Gulf Stream, you’ll know” and we kept waiting . . .  and waiting . . . and waiting for the sign(s) (flying fish, sea grass moving north, deep blue water and the depth sounder drop off).  Well, these were happening but “was this really, it?”.  It was.  Turns out the Gulf Stream was even calmer once you’re in it than approaching (maybe folks know this but I didn’t, after being skeered half to death with warnings of “elephant waves” – look it up, it’s scary).

All-in-all, the day was uneventful – which is awe-some on a boat.   We enjoyed watching the deep blue deep roll by, listening to mixes our friends made us before we left (apparently “Super Bass” is sung by Nicki Minaj, too, and not just those two little girls from Essex) and watching the flying fish soar (they are soooo cool!).

Oh, one eventful thing did happen:  D has been determined to go fishing as soon as we set foot aboard.  Alas, we did not have a Florida fishing license so the minute I stopped being freaked out by simply being “out in the Gulf Stream!!!”, he dragged a couple of lines.  We had heard the edges of the stream were great places to troll for sporting fish and about 15 miles out from Bimini, D got a bite!  “It’s probably some sea grass”, we thought given it was our first-ever line to drag – what are the odds on actually catching a fish, right?  But, low and behold, D and I watched as he reeled in a 25-30 pound mahi-mahi.  As we salivated about our dinner options, the fish popped the line as it was only 20 feet from the boat – awww, man (at least it surfaced for us before the line snapped so we knew what was fighting on the other end of the line)!  Oh well, now we have 100 pound test line on all the rods and are prepared for when “the big one” does come aboard.

As our mild disappointment waned, D spotted Bimini (he actually said “Land ho”).  We could see the water turning just of the shore from the deep blue to the clear turquoise – you can see 30 feet down!    In just under an hour, we were in a slip (apparently it’s the customary thing to do and at $1 a foot, I’ll take it!), customs forms filled out, the quarantine flag was down and the Bahamian flag up!

We can’t really believe we’re here and we’re so excited, grateful and, well, tired.

We’re catching up on “the real world” tonight (Whitney Houston died???), including checking the weather for our next big passage across the Great Bahama Bank (70 miles of beautiful shallow water until the Berries, Nassau, Eluethra, etc).  If we don’t post for a bit while we check out these uninhabited islands, forgive us.  We’ll catch you up in a couple weeks when we hit Nassau with tons of great pictures and stories.

Because I mean it from the bottom of my (our) hearts and because, yes, we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate our crossing, thank you, thank you, thank you (yes YOU!) for believing we could do this, supporting us with your kind words, gentle jabs and serious doses of “reality”.  All of the advice, love and kind thoughts have made it with us to the Bahamas and promise to keep buoyed as we adventure on.

xoxo,

L, D and Mr. K

ps.  A note to cruisers with dogs: one thing I wasn’t sure about was how strict they’d be about Mr. K.  I know the (contradictory) rules made mainly for air travelers as well as got a lot of advice from cruisers who said “we’ve never had a question or a problem”.  Turns out, this was the case.  D sailed through customs and then said “oh, yeah, I need to pay for my dog” and $10 later, that was that.  Even though I suspected the ports-of-entry pet shuffle to be very lax, we went ahead and made sure we met the highest bar for (almost) all of the Caribbean countries (I don’t want to quarantine K at a facility – on our boat, fine).  K, being up-to-date on all of his shots, having a micro-chip and otherwise in handsome-health easily got his health certificate back in Punta Gorda from a very generous and sympathetic vet who post-dated his international health certificate (Form 7001).  If you have any questions, feel free to buss me or my friend, Rachel at PetRelocation.com.  Rachel hooks pet owners up with transports all over the world and will likely expense a trip to the Caribbean aboard Mother Jones as a site visit – right Rachel? 😉

pps.  I know you’re wondering what I made for Valentine’s Day because I’m such a foodie.  And, while pictures can not do it justice (they photograph like barf), I made chili-con-carne enchiladas (with Pasilla chiles and then some TVP and Velveeta – you work with what you have), macaroons, jalapeno deviled eggs and no-mayo-tuna-salad with capers and red-onions.  Yum!

Greetings from Fort Myers, Beach, FL!

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Our first trip away from the dock in Punta Gorda has been great.  We’ve spent the last week in Fort Myers with family: first my father and 91-year-old Grandmother, then my mother.  It’s been a real treat to share with them our new home.

Getting here, we spent two, easy, beautiful days coming south to Ft. Myers.

Our first night out was amazing:  we anchored easily in Pelican Bay off of Cayo Costa State Park and were greeted by dolphins upon our arrival.  Just before the sun went down, we dinghy’d over to a small spit of beach and Kemah got his first taste of this side of the Gulf – literally he bit the water and immediately recoiled from the salt, rather than fresh, water and then shortly-thereafter had his first case of salt-water-scoots.  Aww, well, he’ll learn soon enough.  That night we were treated to a beautiful sunset on the water, the first of many dinner theater experiences I’m sure we’ll have.

Sunset at Pelican Bay, Cayo Costa State Park, FL

The next morning was a easy motor down the ICW past Cabbage Key, where Jimmy Buffet wrote his famous ballad, Cheeseburger and Paradise.  I hear the Dollar Bill Bar is a great place to stop for a burger but we motored on to Ft. Myers as we were eager to get our first mooring ball at the Matanzas Mooring Field (all the while googling “catching a mooring ball” on our smart phones – ha!).

Well, it seems our googling paid off as our first attempt was an all-too-easy success and here we’ve sat on ball 35 for the past week.

In the mean time, we loved the opportunity to visit with family, take in the local sights and take advantage of their rental car to run a bunch of errands.  In the past week, we’ve run a ton of errands to outfit the boat and we sold our truck (finally!) giving us our cruising kitty for this season as well as the mental real estate to move south without anything lingering behind us – it’s such a relief.

Additionally, had a wonderful time touring the area, sampling sunsets, a day trip to Sanibel Island, an airboat and alligator tour of the Everglades and just generally “hanging” with the ‘rents.

Here’s a little sampling of some fun times we’ve had here in Ft. Myers:

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And, a ‘lil sumthin’ sumthin’ from my Grandmother Virgina, who treated us with this song on our alligator experience:

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And, just for fun, and in case you missed the video of her 90th birthday party fun, click here for another amazing video of my Grandmother Virginia, the Great:

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Finally, yesterday, we stripped off the old lettering on the boat, performed some rituals to appease Poseidon and the Gods of the Winds and blessed the boat with a generous amount of champagne, a Texas flag its new name and home port:  “Mother Jones” from Austin, TX.  Aww, home sweet home.

(pics to come soon . . .)

Currently, we’re deciding whether to push on down the bay today (turns out that generous dose of champagne makes the Mother Jones crew a little slow today . . .) or stay for the Matanzas Mooring Field Oyster Party Meet & Greet and head out tomorrow.  So, in short, stay tuned and we’ll let you know – when we do – when and where we’re headed next.

All the best,

Laurie, Damon and Mr. Kemah

Ps.  Also, of note in the past week is the arrival of two new babies to a couple of dear friends.  Congratulations to Dana and Jason on the arrival of their daughter, Ruby, and to Mike and Kate, on the arrival of Cole, their son.  It’s times like this that weigh heavy on our hearts for not being “home”.  But, in times like these we tend to lift our spirits by remembering we are lucky to have such a wonderful community of family and friends to miss.

Pps.  I was remiss to post other photos of our journey to Florida.  So, if you’re so inclined (and not on Facebook), you can view the full album here.