We finally sail over to the Bahamas

Just some thoughts on our passage to the Bahamas, what we did right and what we did wrong.

The city marina in Ft Pierce is difficult to get in and out of except at slack tide. Since the time we wanted to leave Ft Pierce did not correspond with a slack tide we left the marina a day early and anchored out for the night. That also allowed us to get the boat setup for cruising, instead of being set up to be a house. To do that we took the dingy off the davits and lifted onto the forward deck, we stowed anything that could fall off a counter, we got out our life vests and tethers and we installed our jacklines. Jacklines are lines that run the length of the boat to which you can attach a tether that is then connected to your life vest/harness. This helps prevent you from falling overboard in rough seas or if you do manage to get overboard, keeps you attached to the vessel. We also bought ice before we left and filled a cooler with drinks, water and food. We kept that in the cockpit, so we wouldn't have to go down below as much.

We created a float plan before leaving and shared that plan with family. We let them know our planned route with waypoints and our expected arrival time. We set up a Spot device so that we could be tracked the whole way. The Spot turned out to be both good and bad, but I'll explain later. We watched the weather forecasts very closely in the days before we left. We relied on just general weather forecasts from Accuweather, plus NOAA marine forecasts and Passageweather to pick a good time to cross. The Gulf Stream is the largest river in the world and should only be crossed in good weather, ships have been lost by being out there in the wrong conditions and we're no ship.

Our original plan was to sail down to Palm Beach and wait there for a good time to cross. The weather forecast looked good for a Tuesday night crossing. People may wonder why cross at night? You always want to arrive at your destination during daylight hours. Entering a new harbor is tricky and entering a new harbor at night is just plain stupid and while I may be a lot of things, stupid isn't one of them. So, arriving during the day often means sailing at night. Anyway, weather forecasts change and the time for our crossing changed with the forecasts. We ended up with two choices. One was to sail straight through from Ft Pierce to the Bahamas, crossing Sunday night. The other other was to stop in Palm Beach for two days and cross on Tuesday night. Sunday night the wind in the Gulf Stream would be directly on our nose and the waves would be the same direction. That meant all night pounding into the wind and waves. Tuesday night the winds were forecast to be out of the south, so we could at least motor sail during the cross and the waves would be on our beam (perpendicular to our path). Both nights the wind would be light and the waves small. Tuesday would sounded like it would be much more comfortable, but the thing that sealed the deal was the chance of each forecast being correct. We had watched the forecasts change day to day or even morning to evening. At 12 hours away, we had a lot more confidence in Sunday night's forecast than in Tuesday nights. After Tuesday night's window the weather was going to fall apart as far as the extended forecast showed.

Our original plan included a stop at Palm Beach and had us getting there early enough to get anchored before night. When we left to cross we had planned to leave at 10pm. Since we were going straight through we took our time getting going on Sunday morning and didn't rush sailing down the coast. The winds were light so we motor sailed south along the coast. Our speed varied from 4 knots to 6 knots. There was no point is going any faster as we didn't want to get to the Bahamas too early. We reached the Palm Beach inlet around 7:30pm, so we were still ahead of schedule and in no hurry. About that time our speed began to drop. At first I didn't pay much attention to it since the speed had varied all day. Then it dropped some more. I check the motor rpms, still the same, I checked the wind speed and direction, still the same. I checked the sails, they were set right. Everything looked good, but we had certainly slowed down. Still I wasn't concerned, we were ahead of schedule.

The plan was from Palm Beach to start to angle out towards the edge of the Gulf Stream. When we made the float plan the western edge of the Gulf Stream was 11 miles from the Lake Worth Inlet (Palm Beach), but it had changed by the time we actually got there. Now it was only 5 miles from the Lake Worth Inlet. That meant that angling out to our waypoint we would be going into the Gulf Stream and directly against the current. I still wanted to get farther south before crossing, so we changed our heading slightly. Instead of going south east we went due south. That turned out to be the wrong thing to do. The coast moves slightly west from Palm Beach south and the Gulf Stream stayed about 5 miles off the coast, so even though we went moving out the Gulf Stream was moving in. Our speed continued to drop as we moved south until at one point we were doing 2 knots. While we were not as far south as we wanted to be we were committed, so we turned east.

Looking at our track on Spot it is easy to see that the Gulf Stream was strongest close to the Florida coast. We were moving north almost as fast as we were moving east. For a while I was worried that we would end up going north of the Bahamas. Slowly as we crossed the current slacked off and we were able to move more easterly. Wendy had been worried about the Gulf Stream, but when I told here we had been in it for the last couple of hours before we made the turn she stopped worrying about that.

The waves and wind were light as we started across and even though they we right on our nose, it was a comfortable sail. We still had some things to be concerned about later that night. There is a lot of traffic in the Gulf Stream, tankers and cruise ships move along at about 20 knots and wouldn't even know if they ran over a little sailboat. They really can't turn to avoid you, so you need to avoid them. We installed an AIS (Automatic Identification System) last winter. All commercial vessels must have one aboard and recreational vessels have the option to have one aboard. An AIS transmits a signal over VHF frequencies that includes the ships name, position, heading and speed. Our chart plotter plots all of that and determines based on both boats current speed, position and heading if the two will meet. It will also tell you the closest the two boats will come to each other. This was AWESOME at night when we would see ships. We could check immediately to see how close we would get and if we needed to change direction. That was a huge weight off our minds. You can see below what it looked like out there at 2am. We're that little black boat shaped icon in the middle of the picture.

After playing real life Frogger most of the night the wind picked up and the waves grew. We've been in much worse and there was nothing that was really scary, but it did become uncomfortable. The waves were steep and we were going straight into them. That caused a lot of slamming as the front of the boat came off of one wave and ran right into the side of the next. Water never came over the bow, but it did spray the whole boat from bow to stern. That lasted about fours hours starting around 4am when both of us were getting very tired and made it impossible for either of us to get any sleep.

Upon reaching the Bahamas we turned south and the islands protected us from the waves. We had plenty of winds and flat seas. Our speed went from 4 knots to over 7 knots. The next few hours were the best part of the trip. The skies were clear, the temperature ideal, the water was bright blue, we sailed along a seemingly endless beach in nice flat seas. If sailing was like that all the time, everyone would live on a sailboat!

We had very few problems along the way. Our engine ran flawlessly, even when the boat was pounding we did not have any fuel issues. If you have dirt in the bottom of the tank the waves will stir it up and clog the fuel filter. Water in the tank will do the same thing, but no sludge or water showed up in the filter. We only used about 24 gallons of diesel running the engine for 27 hours. No problems with sails, no problems with charts, navigation or electronics. The only problem we had was that occasionally the autopilot would give up and stop working. Most of the time it was because the wind would shift too much for the autopilot to compensate. The boat would get too far off course the the autopilot would just quit.

The other thing was the Spot device. Like I said before, it was good and bad. Part of that was my fault. It was great for people tracking us to be able to see exactly where we were and that we were moving forward. The problem occurred when the Spot came unplugged. At some point I saw that it was unplugged and plugged it back in. It has batteries, so it stayed on the whole time, I checked when I plugged it back in. What I didn't check was that it was still tracking. It turns out that it stopped when it came unplugged and I didn't find out until I talked to someone who had been tracking us. That's the big gap as we sailed down along Grand Bahama. Knowing that it does that, I'll check in the future to make sure it is still transmitting. The sudden disappearance could cause some concern. You can see the gap in the tracking just before we reach the Bahamas.

All and all, a good trip. No real problems and we made it safely, if very tired, to the Bahamas. Life is pretty good sitting in the cockpit typing on my laptop and enjoying the light breeze and clear water.