Oct 26 - Oct 28
We are finally leaving Charleston, SC this morning. Not to imply that there is anything wrong with Charleston - the marina is great and the city has lots to see. But, we didn't plan to spend a week here. Hurricane Wilma kept us pinned down. Since we have killed a week here, we now don't have time to stop along the Florida coast and make some visits we planned to. My apologies to the friends in Jacksonville who we will miss. We will try to stop on the way back north in the spring.
Our plan is to buddy-boat with Dances With Dragons to Ft. Pierce, FL. We originally targeted Lake Worth as our stop, but Dances With Dragons has family in Ft. Pierce, so we will stick with them for a few more days. We were off the dock by 08:00. We motored about an hour out of Charleston Harbor into the Atlantic. Once clear of the jetties, we turned south. On our way north, we ran a straight line between Miami and Charleston, taking advantage of the Gulf Stream. Southbound we need to take a slightly longer route and stay closer to shore to avoid being slowed down by the Gulf Stream. We had been told that the Stream was closer to shore than normal, so we had plotted a course that never got more than forty miles offshore, compared to the seventy-five miles or so we were offshore on the way north. Our course actually took us from Charleston to a point about forty miles off Jacksonville, then south to a point just about five miles off Cape Canaveral. From there we followed the coast to Ft. Pierce. We never did hit the Gulf Stream, which was a good thing.
The wind was directly on our stern the whole trip, blowing between five and fifteen knots. Unfortunately though, it would be five for a minute, then fifteen, then back to five. Very unsteady. The direction kept varying a little too, passing back and forth across our stern. Once we were out of the harbor and turned south, we tried sailing wing-on-wing. This is where you put the foresail out to one side and the mainsail out to the other. I rigged a preventer on the boom to keep it from swinging across when the wind switched enough that we would have gibed. This worked well for about an hour and we were making four and a half to five knots. Unfortunately, our route planning says that we will make Ft. Pierce in daylight if we average six knots the whole way. When the wind would drop to the low side of it's range, we would slow to three and a half knots or so. We wouldn't make Ft. Pierce in daylight if we kept trying to sail. Damn having a schedule. So we fired up the iron genny and picked the pace up to six and half knots. We furled the headsail because it kept collapsing, but kept the main up for stability. Dances With Dragons sails all the time, no matter how slow, and I know it killed them, but they eventually started their motor too, to keep up with us. We had a six or seven mile jump on them since we started the motor first, and we kept that gap for the rest of the trip.
We ended up motoring the rest of the way to Ft. Pierce. Since we were now making better than six knots, we ended up getting in to Harbortown Marina in Ft. Pierce about noon on Friday the 28th. Overall, the trip was good. The winds stayed variable, and were a little less at night, so the seas were about two to four feet during the day, and pretty flat at night. Friday morning, the wind started picking up to over fifteen knots, and the seas built accordingly. Since they were coming from the stern, this wasn't too bad until we turned into the Ft. Pierce Inlet and had the seas right on the beam for about half a mile. We really rolled from side to side for a few minutes, but once inside the jetty, it calmed down.
We had a few highlights on this leg of the trip. Back when we had the dolphins follow us in the ICW, I commented to Barb that the only thing I hadn't seen one do right by us was a full jump out of the water. Well on this leg, we had six occasions where dolphins came to play with us. On each occasion, they would come to the bow of the boat and swim at exactly our speed. Most of the time this would last for a few minutes and they would be gone. The first time though was the best. Three dolphins started swimming with us. The water was so clear, that we could stand on the bow and clearly see them in the water. They would swim right at the bow, then veer off forty or fifty feet from us, then come back. One of them was coming back toward the boat at an angle when he jumped completely out of the water in front of us. It was very cool. I took some pictures of them which are in the photo gallery.
We had some other visitors along the way. Two little birds stopped by to say hello. At the time, we were about forty miles offshore. Why little land birds are this far away from land, I don't know, but here they were taking a break. They sat on the boat in various places, but never came inside the cockpit with us. Dances With Dragons had two little visitors too, but theirs not only came in the cockpit, but they went below, snuggled up in their bedding and spent the night with them. I don't know what type of bird ours were - I need to get better at identifying the wildlife. Maybe some of my bird watching friends will recognize them from the pictures.
The two nights we were offshore were both clear and dark. The moon was rising about 04:00, and it was in it's last quarter, so most of the night we had a spectacular display of stars. It reminded me of years ago camping in the mountains of Arizona where we were miles from anything and could see more stars than you would believe existed. Another thing I need to learn is identifying planets and constellations. Barb and I both saw several shooting stars on our watches. Some of them were so bright that shortly after they happened, we heard other boats on the radio calling the Coast Guard to report that they had seen an emergency aerial flare.
We have seen flying fish several times on the trip. I have read many other cruiser's logs where they mention finding flying fish on deck in the morning. I had mentioned to Barb that I didn't see how that could happen on our boat since being a center cockpit boat the deck is fairly high. I have never seen a flying fish more than a foot or so off the water. Well, Thursday while it was calm, I decided to dump our jerry cans of fuel into the tank. While Barb held the untied cans steady on the aft deck, I took them one at a time and dumped them in the tank. As I passed the aft corner of the deck, I noticed a flying fish sitting there. I reached down and touched it, and it was dead and stiff, so it had been there a while. Another first.
I have a half sister and her daughter who live in Boca Raton. I have not seen them in almost ten years when they lived in Rhode Island. I had planned to visit them by stopping in Lake Worth. Since we stopped here instead, we thought we'd just drive down there and see them. It turned out to be a good thing we stopped in Ft. Pierce, because Hurricane Wilma did significant damage from here south to Miami. We called Enterprise to get a car Friday afternoon, but they didn't have any. So many people have rented cars while theirs are being repaired from storm damage, FEMA has been renting, visiting power crews have been renting, etc. Enterprise told me to call back Saturday morning to see if anything came in.
Dances With Dragons got in about an hour after us and they anchored out in a little bay between Harbortown Marina and the ICW. We spoke to them on the radio, and we agreed that we were just going to relax for the afternoon. We listened to the weather forecast, and the forecast is for the wind and seas to build for the next several days. We may be here longer than planned.
GPS N 27-28.104 W 80-19.649 Miles made good this leg 337. Total miles covered 3589.
Oct 29
Promptly at 09:00 when they opened, I called Enterprise. They did have a car for me and said they could come pick me up in twenty minutes. We had already spoken with Wayne and Nancy from Dances With Dragons, and planned to go to breakfast with them and Wayne's cousin Laura who lives here. So I told Enterprise that they didn't have to pick me up and we would get the car after breakfast. Laura came and got us at the marina and we went and had a great breakfast at a little local place. After that, they dropped us off at Enterprise. We had asked for a compact (cheap) car, but the only one they had left was a new Chevy Trailblazer SUV. They gave it to us at the compact price. The deal though was that it was a two-day weekend rental, even if we returned it Saturday night. (Our original plan was to leave for Key West Sunday morning.) I agreed to that since I really wanted to visit my sister. We got the car and headed south to Boca Raton.
We had not been able to get in contact with my sister to let them know we were coming since their phones and power were still out after Wilma. I had used Mapquest to get a map to their place, so we just headed out, hoping they would be home. I knew from second-hand family info that they were ok after the storm, but didn't know if they were home or in a hotel or what. The further south we went from Ft. Pierce, the more evidence of the storm we saw. While it was nothing like I saw when I came to Florida right after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, there still was significant damage. Most of it is trees and signs down, and wide spread power outages. Many homes have roof damage, or trees that hit them. The majority of the trip, about ninety miles, is on I-95, so we just fly along. Once off the Interstate though, we have to deal with six lane street intersections with no traffic lights. Four-way stops on a six lane street with people turning left are just plain scary.
We found Shirley and Judy & Ed's place just fine. They have a duplex where sister Shirley has one part and Judy and Ed have the other. I didn't know which half was which, so we just pulled in one driveway and went to the door. Turned out to be my sister's half. I knocked on the screen door and hollered "hello" since the inside door was open. Shirley came to the door and was surprised to see me. We sat down inside and started to visit. After a little while Judy came over because she saw the strange car in the drive and wondered who it was. She was surprised to see me also. As I said, although they knew we were in the area, we had not been able to make contact since the storm, so they didn't know when or if we were coming.
Fortunately, their house had no damage. They lost some trees and their backyard fence, and are still without power, but it could have been much worse. We spent the afternoon visiting and had dinner with them. They have a generator, so they have kept their refrigerator and freezer going. We barbequed a nice dinner and stayed until about 19:00. It was great to catch up with them.
We got back to the marina and decided to stay another day since the wind is still howling and the seas are big.
GPS N 27-28.104 W 80-19.649 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3589.
Oct 30
Since we are staying another day, and we are paying for the car anyway, we called some friends in Lake Worth to see if they were up for a visit. Fred and Joan used to live in Ft. Lauderdale, and I stopped at their house when I drove a truckload of relief supplies to Homestead after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. I have seen them elsewhere since then, but I thought it was ironic that I was visiting their home for the second time right after a hurricane.
Similar to my sister's experience, they we fine, and their house was basically ok. They lost the screen enclosure around their pool, had some roof tile damaged, and had lots of tree damage. They also were still without power and were using a generator to keep things going. Given the circumstances, the neighborhood had declared Sunday afternoon to be the time for kids to trick-or-treat, so when we were there kids were coming to the door in their costumes to collect goodies. We visited for several hours, and enjoyed another barbeque dinner with them. We left about 20:30 and headed back to the marina.
We had thought about leaving in the morning, but the wind has still be howling all day and since we have been out late, we decided to stay one more day.
GPS N 27-28.104 W 80-19.649 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3589.
Oct 31
We got up this morning, had coffee and showers, and then I took the car back to Enterprise. Since we are close to Dances With Dragons, I asked Wayne if I could impose and borrow his four-to-one rope fall so I could go up the mast and check out my non-functional anchor light. I installed a new LED anchor light just before we left Kemah. I had LED nav lights and stern light and really hoped the LED technology would work because LED's should last longer than me. Unfortunately, the nav lights and stern light have already failed due to water intrusion. I really hoped the anchor light not working was a bad connection that I had made, since the anchor light is their "new" technology which should be completely watertight. Unfortunately, when I got up the mast, the wiring tested out to be good, and the anchor light fixture was full of condensation. I'll have to get a whole new fixture and replace it in Key West.
The rest of the day was spent doing other boat chores. Barb did laundry, while I changed the fuel filter, replaced a couple of dead interior light bulbs, and replaced the inclinometer that had fallen off a couple of months ago. What is an inclinometer you ask? It is a simple little gadget that mounts at the helm to tell you the angle that you are heeled over when under sail. It's one of those things that really serves no useful purpose since if you are heeled over so much that you care to know how much, you probably don't have time to look at it.
I spent a good part of the afternoon reading Skipper Bob's Bahama Bound book, to prepare for our crossing in a few weeks. Late in the afternoon Wayne and Nancy joined us for dinner aboard MoonSail. About 0:dark-thirty, which is only about 18:00 now that we are back on standard time, we bid them goodbye. We are definitely headed for Key West in the morning, and they are staying here for a couple more weeks. From here they are headed for Trinidad, so it may be a couple of years before we hook up with them again. One of the great things about cruising is the friends you make, but the downside it that you usually have to say goodbye to them too.
GPS N 27-28.104 W 80-19.649 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3589.