Cutting the grass

Fernandina Beach anchorage.

Kintala has found her way to Charleston, SC. In five days and three nights of sailing she has covered nearly 500 nm, lying now about 375 nm north of West End. Friend Kacey, who recently moved from IL to Savannah, arrived this morning for a visit. One of my brothers lives here as well and we hope to get together; something that doesn't happen near often enough. It will be a few days before we set out again.

I am glad of that for, truth to tell, the press to get from West End to here was not as enjoyable as I had envisioned. We have managed some good sailing, made our longest passage so far, handled unexpected conditions with a certain amount of aplomb, and not broken anything. A lack of wind forced the Beast to be awake for much of the trip, which meant hand steering. It turns out hand steering for a short-handed crew gets more tiring on an exponential curve. Hours at the helm later in the trip become multiples more difficult than those at the start. It just flat wears a body out. A day, a night, and a day is about it without an auto-helm. After that heaving-too for a few hours would be about the only safe choice. And that does not include the energy burned if multiple sail changes are required say, in the middle of the night in a sudden 30 knot blow.

Fernandina Beach sunset.

No more turquoise water. Gunmetal gray and cold.

A few days of resting, visiting, and catching up on sleep, food, and quiet times is a gift very much appreciated. We are roughly 1/3 of the way to where we need to be. When it comes time to set out again it would be good to be looking forward to the traveling rather than dreading the miles. If we had to leave today I would be dreading the miles, and that is a bit discouraging. Until these last few days I have always really liked being “under way”. Moving along, nav systems humming, making adjustments for the weather, tweaking the course, making an ongoing series of decisions about the route; to be under way is to be in a unique place known mostly to pilots and sailors. It is a free-form, flowing, evolving bit of life imitating art; creativity for the technocrat. But somehow these last few legs have been more like grinding out a report for the boss rather than writing a short story for the fun of it.

The only other cruising boat we saw between Fernandina Beach and Charleston

I guess I have should have been expecting that to happen. This is, after all, the way we live; not something we do on the weekends. Sometimes you get to plant in the garden. Sometimes you have to cut the grass. And usually, after cutting the grass, it is time to take a break.

Another hitchhiker. They always seem to be warblers.

I want to go back to de islands mon, where the water and sky be blue and the sand be white.

A little bit the blue water sailor ...

Deb and I have long admitted that we are not blue water sailors. Yet Kintala is back in the States, anchored at Fernandina Beach to be exact, after a 300 nm, 3 day / two night mini-passage. Not really blue water sailing and certainly nothing to boast about in the cruising world. But it is our longest passage so far.

On the one hand such a trip seems an easy thing to do. Exit the West End channel, pick up a heading of 335 degrees true, stay on board for fifty hours or so. When land appears the trip is near over. We are often on board for days at a time, and we like sailing. We had already waited a day for the weather to settle down, and would have gladly waited more. (Is anyone ever in a hurry to leave the West End?) But the weather guessers agreed that the winds would be light though workable, the seas benign, and the window good for several days. Cruising means moving. It was time to move.

The main sail went up after we cleared West End but there was barely enough wind for it to hold a shape. That meant keeping the Beast in the traces. Unfortunate that, since Henry, our Cape Horn Wind Vane Steering System, only works when there is a true wind to work the vane. Wind provided by the Beast pushing the boat doesn't count so, when the Beast is at work, someone has to hand steer the boat.

Cruising boats absolutely need an auto-helm that works with both sails and the motor. It is a critical bit of missing equipment that we simply have to rectify during this summer's work. Don't even think of buying a cruising boat unless it has a fully capable auto-helm proven to work. That, or figure on digging up big bucks to add one.

We soldiered on through the day. Just before sunset we crossed paths with a small catamaran heading west. Her crew had changed their destination to Port Canaveral. They simply didn't carry enough fuel to get further north without wind. Kintala carries 80 gallons, which should be good for nearly 500 miles. We could, in theory, motor all the way to the St. Marys Entrance, though the crew would be toast long before then.

Normal precautions for night sailing on Kintala include the mandatory wearing of life vests and the use of tethers. No one goes out on deck unless the other person is up and at the helm, and we always put a reef in the mainsail if it is up at all. Should one reef already be in, we will put in the second. So we set the first reef and hoped for some wind. What we got instead was a large swell. Large, as in the tops were at eye level to the person sitting at the helm. A three foot swell in Forecast speak looks to be near eight feet in Kintala speak. It was enough to set up a throw-things-around-the-boat, gunwale to gunwale thrash that went on for hours. Shelves were emptied and I tried not to think about the load on the Beast, the drive train, and the rudder. This morning secured at anchor, we did a long, careful inspection of the machine spaces. The Beast needed a sip of oil, the steering cables needed a turn or two of tightening, and as a bonus we found the small water leak that has eluded capture for a couple of weeks. Other than that all appears to be ship-shape.

Come morning the seas had eased just a little. Deb worked the hardest through the night and was asleep on the cockpit floor. It is a secure place, like sleeping in a bath tub. Not the most comfortable but one can't fall out. (And you thought cruising was glamorous.) I wanted to let her rest some more, she had certainly earned it. But I was literally falling asleep STANDING at the helm, my toast completely burnt.

Around 1600, back at the helm and a little less burnt, I noticed the true wind had filled in to a constant ten knots on a workable point of sail. I woke Deb. We added the jib to the still reefed main and the sails finally found some purchase. The Beast went to sleep with a sigh. Even better than the silence was Henry taking over the steering duties. Thirty-two hours in and we were finally free to move about the cabin. Having pushed through a bad night it was time to enjoy the magic of passage making. We were feeling pretty good about things, but it was too good to last.

A reefed main and jib are a modest sail combo for less than 20 knots worth of wind, but the swells returned, setting the jib to flogging its little fabric heart to death with each passing trough. We (I) tried to set the pole, but a badly sleep deprived deck monkey and a wildly gyrating deck are a poor match. Abandoning the attempt before anything, or anyone, got broken, we ended up rolling in the jib and setting the main far out to starboard riding a preventer. That is an unusual sail set for Kintala. With the wind well aft of the beam we almost always fly the jib alone. The boat likes it. Henry likes it. And, truth to tell, I like it. All work on the mainsail is done forward standing on the cabin top or hanging onto the boom. It is a big sail, deeply roached and fully battened. Just the thought of it getting out of control is enough to make the skin crawl. But with a gentle breeze filling just part of the sail, a breeze forecast to fade by morning, there should have been nothing exciting creeping up on us.

Remember what I said about putting in a second reef at night if one was already in? Yeah, well, I should have remembered it myself. It was after midnight. Deb was at the helm once again and I was asleep on the cockpit floor. I think Deb and the motion of the boat both woke me up at the same time. The 7 to 11 knots of wind had turned into more than 30 in the space of just a few seconds, clocking to provoke a crash jibe, preventer or no. What happened next was every adventure story teller's dream come true, and every middle aged coastal cruiser's nightmare. Even though I was there, I can't really describe what happened. Included in the melee was a back winded stay sail with a sheet jammed in a block, tangled with a wayward reefing line. In there somewhere the starboard rail was deep under water, Kintala dangerously over powered, with me hanging head down across the cabin top tangled in heap of life vest, tether, and flogging sheets. I was out there trying to free the preventer that was tangled in a rat's nest of its own. Then there is this hazy bit of standing on the dink pulling down a thundering main sail one armful at a time.

Eventually, like coming out of a bad dream, I realized the stay sail was set and pulling, the main was tied in a heap on top of the boom, and the baby stay was secured. Somehow we got it done without broaching, ripping a sail to bits, tossing the deck monkey (that would be me) over board, or breaking any bones. Adrenaline-charged and spray soaked, I crawled back into the cockpit not entirely sure what had just happened. But we were safe and sailing, making a steady five knots toward the St. Marys channel entrance, with an estimated time of arrival some nine hours in the future.

Those nine hours were the only enjoyable part of the 50+ hour sail. I was just too exhausted and beat up to fully appreciate them. Still, even in that fragile state of mind that often comes with a serious thrashing, I was content with the decisions we had made and our ability to deal with the conditions. Every single weather guesser had missed the swell of the first night and the wind gusts of the second night. I was out there and those 30 knot winds blew in from a perfectly clear, moonlit sky. There were no clouds, frontal boundaries, dry lines, or developing lows to portend the burst of energy that washed over the bit of ocean we were in. The barometer was up and stayed up. The air was cool and dry and stayed cool and dry. But something tickled the sky and set it to thrashing. Kintala was just in a bad place when it happened, with the wrong sail set and a very tired crew. (Never again will I fly the main sail, particularly at night, when one of the head sails will get the job done.)

We had hoped that Fernandina would be a nice place to regroup, gather some provisions, get fuel and a pump-out, find time for some sleep, and get back our definition of normal. But it hasn't worked out that way. In the middle of last night we had to up and move the boat. Somehow we were too close to another anchored boat, the competing winds and currents had us stretched out on our rode in one direction, the other boat facing its anchor from a different direction. The cold front forecast to mostly wash out and amount to little has brought with it 30 knot winds and painted the anchorage with white caps. Compared to the Islands this place is dingy, the water murky, and the air smelly and cold. As soon as we get the chance, Kintala will be heading back outside and on the move once again.

So there may be a bit of blue water sailor in us after all.

Rambling

One of the things about being on an extended passage is that your thoughts kind of come and go in bits and pieces without any thread of coherent conclusions. This just-completed two day passage of nearly 300 miles, more than half of it spent manning the helm while motoring in the absence of an autopilot, lent itself to much of this kind of rambling thought, some of its confusion caffeine-induced. In my case, a lot of it is provisioning related since nearly 300 miles at an average speed of about 6 knots gives you a lot of time to think about provisioning and the summer project list. Some of it is weather and navigation related, some of it is unexpected pleasures. Tim will write in more detail about the passage a bit later when he's not so exhausted, but in the mean time I offer this picture post and some rambling.

It depends on the wind of course, but we nearly always get 3/4 to 1 knot of extra speed if we hoist the main while we're motoring. It certainly does wonders in stabilizing the boat in a bad roll, something we experienced nearly all of this trip. Remember my recent posts on weather guessing? Very nearly not one single moment of this trip was as forecast. Not the grib files, not Marine Weather by Accuweather, and not even the venerable Chris Parker had it right.

The 52 knot gust we took in Fox Town completely destroyed our anchor snubber, in spite of good chafe guards in the chocks. It also knocked the chock in the rail loose and we need to fix that now.

Tim used a good bit of the non-rolling portion of our trip to make a new snubber line which involves two long splices and some sewing of chafe guard out of some generously donated fire hose (Thanks Bill and Tricia!)

The water in the open Atlantic has a decidedly different color to it with some marked purple tones. I liked this one, because it looked a bit like a mountain range, you know of the "purple mountain majesties" type.





Later, with the sun setting on the ripples, the geometric shapes were fascinating to watch.

This storm built out to the East of us. Later, after the sun set, we were glad that we weren't near it since it contained a rather spectacular display of lightening.

Sunset the first night. There's always something magical about watching the sun set the first night of a passage. The jet contrail shooting right through the sunset was a unique touch.

In the unexpected pleasures category, this trip's winner was this bird. While I was at the helm in the afternoon, I had my feet extended out on the coaming and this little bird landed right on my toe. Scared the crap out of me because I wasn't looking and when I twitched my toe he flew right up on my knee, not a foot from my face. I laughed and he took off for the winch. He then hopped onto Tim's sleeping form, down his shoulder and over to his hat bill, onto his extended hand and then into the dodger, all while Tim slept unawares. The deck monkey was tired. The bird then proceeded to explore the dodger looking for crumbs that the grandkids might have left in the cracks of the teak grate. He hitchhiked on the boat for over an hour, just hopping around, and then left us for who knows where. The closest land at that point was 18nm away.

 

On the second evening of this trip the moon came up at 7:13 and the sun set at 7:43 so we had the moon looking like this on the Eastern horizon...















And the sun setting on the Western horizon in all its glory.

This morning we were treated to  a pretty amazing sunrise as well.

Food is highly overrated on a passage. I made chicken salad and egg salad sandwiches beforehand which we ate, but probably the best thing we had was a cold Snickers bar from the fridge. Adequate beverages are far more important. I kept finding I was craving potato chips for some reason, probably because we had run out weeks prior and they're just too expensive in the Bahamas to buy.

Our blood is tropic thin at this point and we were huddled in the cockpit in sleeping bags and winter hats like some Arctic explorers.

I don't like being in water I can't see through.

I don't like being back in the land of rules and regulations again.  The Bahamian people are grown-ups that know how to behave and take appropriate risks without always needing to find someone to blame for their failures.

Old Bahama Bay Marina in the West End, Bahamas is my favorite marina, hands down. Great people, excellent docks, the best swimming pool we've ever been to, excellent beach with good snorkeling, free bicycles, good laundry, hot showers....

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (or any combination of the four) and Joe Cocker rule for passage music. The Shower Mate waterproof suction cup bluetooth speaker has proven its worth in recent weeks. We use our iPads for music and can leave them inside and move the bluetooth speaker around to wherever its convenient. I like this because if Tim's on the helm and wants music but I want to sleep, he can have it right next to him and I won't hear it the way I would if we had built-in speakers on the boat. We haven't tested it in a downpour, but it does well in the general moisture-laden atmosphere of the boat.

The Delorme InReach satellite communicator performed way above all expectations for us this time in the Bahamas. We used it to post to Facebook and also to notify friends and family of our progress. While I'm sure the texts are annoying to them, at least someone on the planet knows where we are in case we don't report on time.

A really big ship a mile away looks like you can reach out and touch it.

Sailing at night is sometimes better than sailing in the day. Sometimes it's a good idea not to see how big the waves really are that are right behind you.

I was very happy to have made this trip without the use of the anti-seasickness patch. I guess I'm finally getting acclimated. Tim decided to use one just as a precaution since he does all the foredeck work. It was a good thing he did.

I'm getting better, but I almost always miss securing something down well enough and find something flung across the cabin when I go below.

We tried to talk a lizard into accompanying us on this voyage with the promise of many Ft. Lauderdale ants to eat, but we didn't get any takers.


Flying fish evidently need better radars. This is without any doubt the largest one we've ever had fly onto the boat.

We sailed right through one of the largest fields of Man-of-war jelly fish that I've ever seen. They floated by for hours.














If you need to buy courtesy flags for a trip, spend the money and get good sewn ones. In fairness, this one endured our 52 knot gust but its edges are fraying and it will have to be replaced.

And in the greatest passage pleasure department, the winner goes to Henry the wind vane. There is simply no way to describe the feeling you get when you shut the engine down and you sit back and watch the wind vane power the boat silently as it swishes through the water using not a single bit of dinosaur juice. Thanks Henry.