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.