2/21/2014

Notice of blog format change. 

Readers may have noticed that I've not been - up with the "Photos" tab. Instead, I've been putting a limited number of photos under the Daily Trip Summary tab.  I've decided to just delete the photos tab to eliminate the redundancy.  Also, our new crew member, Dan (a computer expert) encouraged me to post my videos on You tube - which I have figured out how to do.  I've inserted links to the videos in the blog text.  If you are interested, you can scroll down through the text looking for the links.  They should be easy to find.

It's now 7:45am.  It was a long (and chili night).  We left the gulf stream sometime before midnight and the temperature started dropping.  I came on watch at 1am and the wind had picked up to South at around 25.  Captain Phil had just made the decision to reef the main.  It seems almost absurd to be on the foredeck of a 45 foot boat in 6 foot seas in total darkness to do a maneuver like this.  In retrospect, we should have set the reef just before dark when we dropped the mizzen.  Oh well, it had to be done.  Ollie and I were on the foredeck as Phil rounded the boat up into the wind.  Of course, the sail began flogging like thunder, making our adrenaline pump even harder.  It took about 10 minutes and the flaking job looked awful but the reef was in and the boat handled better.  By 3 or 4am, the wind had died to around 15 and the seas began to calm.  At this point, we are about 10 miles east of the outer buoy off Brunswick GA.  We motor sailed all night and are currently under a reefed main and staysail only, doing about 5 knots.  We expect to enter the inlet about 10am and be docked around noon.  I think we are ALL looking forward to the FREE laundry at the marina.

 

It is now 11am and we just sighted land for the first time in 3 days.  Hooray!  The weather stinks. It has been cold and foggy for the last 2 hours.  We just got a cell signal so we're able to use the AIS app on my phone to look for ships.  More later.

2/20/2014

Back in the US of A
It's now 1am Thursday morning.  We have sailed since yesterday morning (having left from Freeport).  We saw the last of the northwestern tip of Grand Bahama (West End) at around 4pm. Since then, it's been the open sea.  We had distant encounters with 2 or 3 cruise ships and 2 or 3 other commercial vessels during the night.  It seemed like we would never hit the gulf stream but we finally did at about 1 or 2am.  Our speed (motor sailing) went from 6.5 knots to the mid 9s.  The wind overnight couldn't have been more favorable for a "crossing" of the gulf stream.  I had read lots of articles about how treacherous it can be but it has been a piece of cake so far.  The winds are currently SE around 15.  It is supposed to shift to the south.  With all this working in our favor, we have decided to "skip" Florida and hope to make landfall in Brunsick GA - entering into St. Simon's Sound.  We have verified there is a customs office there and have made reservations at the marina (right in the town of Brunswick).  Joan and I traveled there 2 years ago ago, on the way to visit my Dad in Florida and loved the place.  Great French Toast for breakfast this morning.

Our newest crew member, Dan is a 26 year old, very fit bicycle racer who works for Martin Marietta as a cyber intelligence analyst. I think that means he spends most of his (working) time looking for foreign countries trying to break into and steel our military design secrets.  Much of their work is for the Department of Defense.  He grew up sailing at the Baltimore Sailing Center off Back River north of Baltimore and crewed on the Pintita during high school.  He lives in downtown Baltimore and  commutes to Gaithersburg Md every day.  Having Dan to help with the watch rotation has been very nice.  Getting 2 good hours of sleep between watches overnight is a real treat.

It's now 4:40pm and we are happily motoring along in the center of the gulf stream doing around 9 knots.  The wind has clocked around to the south so it is directly behind us.  We are motoring because if we weren't, we would have to bear off and we would be heading further out to sea - away from our destination onshore.  We have the main and mizzen out fully and locked in place with lines (jibe preventers) and both jib and staysail hauled in tight so they don't flop around (which is hard on the sails).   We are currently about 80 miles offshore.  In about 2 hours, we plan to jibe over to a port tack and head for Brunswick GA.  After jibing, we will continue to be pushed to the north by the current but in 2 or 3 hours we expect to be out of it and will then be on a direct path for St. Simon's Inlet.  We expect to make the inlet around noon.  From the inlet, it will be another 5 or 6 miles up the rivers to Brunswick.  Needless to say, we are looking forward to being back in the US.