The Passage Back to Florida - Great Harbor to West Palm Beach

 In my last entry, I wrote about our bad day. We had run aground not just once, but twice. One thing I forgot to mention was that when we got anchored, I took a swim and looked at the bottom of the keel and saw that the only damage we had done was to scratch the paint in a small area. We had not even gotten into the epoxy based barrier coat that we had applied in Virginia last October. That put my mind at ease that we were ready to carry on.

We were now in Great Harbor Cay and it was April 3rd. We had a very good 24 to 48 hours of predicted weather to make the 135 mile sail back to Florida. The plan was to leave mid morning and sail on a direct course to Florida. I was expecting it would take us about 25 hours if we could maintain 5 knots average. 

The main thing I needed to do before we left was to get some fuel. I wanted to make sure that we had plenty of fuel to make the crossing by motor if needed. I emptied my two 5 gallon jerry jugs into the boat and then took the dinghy over to the fuel dock and got 10 more gallons. That filled our tank and gave us about 5 gallons on deck. The fuel cost $6.60 per gallon.

We headed out of the harbor at about 9:30 am. There was very little wind to start the trip, but we got the sails up and motor sailed along. The wind was mostly behind us, so it kept me busy playing with the sails to keep some wind in them. I was expecting some current against us for the first 70 miles until we hit the gulf stream. We plodded along and between 4 and 5 knots over ground. Much slower than I had hoped.  It was a very pretty day, so the ride was pleasant and all was going well. 

For the first few hours we were on the Great Bahama Bank that is fairly shallow and produces this beautiful water color. There is a cruise ship off in the distance.

After about 8 hours of motoring the wind started to fill in and we were able to finally shut the engine off. It was then, that we headed out into the deep water of the Atlantic Ocean. We started to see large ships on our AIS system. There were a number of cruise ships, but also some cargo ships. The water changed to a very deep blue. It was amazing to look at. 

The deep blue of the open ocean

The color of the water can be mesmerizing. 

 We cruised along on fairly flat seas. Kim got a nap, but I was unsuccessful at getting any sleep when I tried. That is pretty much normal for me. At about 8:00 pm things started to change. We were now starting to feel the effects of the Gulf Stream and the other currents were gone. The wind picked up a bit, but so did the swell. Not bad, just noticeable. As the sun went down we were now cruising over 5 knots and making better time.

As the sun set we had beautiful conditions

Sunset at sea brings some apprehension because of the coming darkness, but they are still beautiful.

As we hit the Gulf Stream, the ship traffic picked up a bunch. At one point we counted 11 large ships within 20 miles of us. The good news it they could see us on their AIS and they altered course to stay way clear of us. We stayed on a direct course to West Palm. As we got further into the open Atlantic, the swell picked up and we just did not have enough wind to drive the boat forward through the waves. I decided that we had no choice but to fire the motor up again. This worked well. We ran the engine at about 1500 RPM and our speeds picked up to over 7 knots with the Gulf Stream pushing us along. 

We had a beautiful almost full moon, so we could see the coming waves and it was almost like daylight. We had to make a few course corrections through the night to stay clear of large vessels, but we just wanted to give them plenty of room. I was able to lay down during the night and take a 2 hour nap. 

Not a great picture, but this is a cruise ship off our port side. You might be able to tell we had a nice moonlit night.

Before long, the sun was coming up and we could begin to see the lights of Florida. Both were very welcome sights. We started seeing fishing boats heading out for the day when we were about 20 miles off. We just maintained our course and went straight into the inlet. We dropped our sails in the inlet and then motored over into Lake Worth and found a place to drop the anchor. 

This is not a very good sunrise photo, but it is the only one I took. It was a beautiful morning and felt good to almost be back in Florida.

This is the anchorage at Lake Worth. It was a bit of a culture shock after spending 2 and a half months in the Bahamas. 

Another shot of Lake Worth. 

It felt very good to be back in Florida. We were now in a very protected anchorage and we could relax a bit. I did our check into US Customs on my phone App. That was a pain, but I got it done. It was the first time we had left the US on our boat and it felt good to be back in US waters. We got the boat put to bed and then I hit the bed myself. I slept for about 4 hours and then woke up feeling like I had a bad hangover. These overnight passages are not easy, but it was the best way to get back with the weather window we had. We were glad to have it done. 

This yellow line on this screen shot shows our track on the crossing. 136.8 nm, 25 hours.

In my next entry, I will write about what is next. We have a schedule that we have to hit and we have lots of work to do to get ready. 

Our Worst Day in The Bahamas

 We had arrived at Hoffman's Cay on March 29th. The first day was pretty good weather, but then it turned windy out of the north and we had to hunker down on the boat. During that time, I was looking at the weather, and saw a window to make the trip back across the Gulf Stream to Florida on April 3-4. The problem was that after that, the wind would shift back to the north and would stay that way for as long as the forecast went, which is 14 days. 

It became clear to us, that we should try to make this weather window. We had two pretty good days to get to Great Harbor on the northwest corner of the Berry's. Check that out for a day or so, and then make the sail to Florida. The conventional way to make the trip from Great Harbor to Florida is across the Great Bahama Bank to Bimini. That is a 70 mile trip and is too far for a sailboat in one day. So, in settled weather you can drop anchor out on the very shallow bank. The problem was the weather window was too short for that plan. Then you wait in Bimini to make the final 50 mile crossing to Florida. All of those three legs can be done during daylight. We decided on a more aggressive plan and sail directly to Florida from Great Harbor. That would be an overnight sail, but we would be safely tucked in before the northern came in. You should not cross the Gulf Stream with any kind of north wind.

Our day of departure from Hoffman's was April 1. Yep, we decided to leave on April Fools day. I looked at the charts and it looked fairly straight forward. Although there were some shallow areas, we should be just fine. I forgot to mention and I forgot to take it into account it was also a full moon, which increases the high tides and make it shallower at low tide. We departed about 10 am, which was mid tide. I saw another sailboat on AIS exiting the channel I intended to use. I called him on the radio and asked what depths he saw. He was a very shallow draft vessel and the depths he was seeing would not work for us. I went with plan B, which was a cut that was back south a bit. As I approached it was getting closer to low tide and I decided to try a cut between two very shallow spots that should have had 5.5 feet of water at low tide. We hit ground going about 2 knots. It was about 4 feet deep. I tried to back off, but we were really stuck. I tried everything I could think of and then decided we would have to wait for higher tide to get off. The only problem was that we were looking at a very rocky island that was directly downwind of us and the wind was now about 15 knots. It was a very nerve wracking next three hours as we waited for deeper water. I kept a close watch to make sure we were not getting pushed in the direction of the island called Big Gaulding Cay. 

After what felt like forever, I felt the boat start to rock back and forth in the wind and waves. It was now time, I turned the boat hard right rudder and got the boat to spin and face the direction we had come. I powered up the engine and we very slowly started to move. Then we were free! We then tried to make the cut that I was trying to get to, by a deeper and longer path. We made it further, but Kim was on the bow watching for shallows. At one point she screamed "STOP!" I hit reverse, but it was too late. We hit ground again. The chart showed 6 feet, but the chart was wrong again. I was able to back right off of this one due to Kim's warning. At that point I was DONE! My nerves were a wreck and we needed to regroup. I saw an anchorage a short distance away and we went over behind Little Harbour Cay and Comfort Cay and put the hook down. We had a calm anchorage, but we needed a new plan. 

This is the only picture I took while we were aground. The island to the right is Saddle Back Cay. The island to the left is Big Gaulding Cay.  I did shoot a video that I will include in a later YouTube Video.

I spent that evening going over all of our options to get out of there. I decided on going back the way we came a few days before. This would add about 5 miles to our trip to Great Harbor, but I was done with hitting the bottom. We had good tracks that we could follow and as long as we waited for high tide, we should be fine. There is a deep water inlet at the south end of Little Harbour Cay that would get us to deep water. We left on the morning of April 2nd, with a new plan. The tide was rising and we were about 2 hours before high tide. We got moving and crossed the one very shallow spot on the same track we had used before and all went well. It was not long, and we were in the open water and the captain could finally relax. The only problem was that we had wind right on our nose, so we had to motor the 36.4 nm to Great Harbor Cay. It was an interesting trip. We saw two cruise ship landings that looked like amusement parks. There were three cruise ships moored there.

Kim looking out at the islands as we make our progress north. We had intermittent rain.

We were bashing into some significant swell as we made our progress north

We cruised just inside this one cruise ship that was anchored out away from shore. 

These two cruise ships were on a pier at one of the private islands.

Not our thing, but it did look kind of cool. 

After making the north point of the Great Stirrup Cay, we made a turn south and down to Great Harbor. The water got more shallow but nothing to worry about. We then came in a very narrow rock cut that lead to the very protected Great Harbor. It was not very big, but it was very calm. 

Our nice calm anchorage was a bit tight, but it worked out great.

Another shot of Great Harbor

To our stern in this shot is the entrance to the Great Harbor Marina. I took the dinghy over there to see if I could get some drinking water. I was able to get 10 gallons for $5.

I spent some more time studying the weather and it looked like it was time to go. We would have good weather for the next 36 to 48 hours with wind from the Southeast. I could not get fuel on the Sunday we arrived, so I planned to get some the following morning and then we would head west until we hit Florida. It would be about a 135 nm trip and should take us about 26 hours. In my next entry, I will write all about the crossing.