We finally made it to Green Turtle Cay and through some rather fancy maneuvering on Boyd’s part got both into White Sound, onto a mooring and then eventually into a slip, quite a story in itself but not one for now. Since you aren’t here looking at the charts I should probably clarify.

Initially the other Vagabond we came across with, Driven, recommended anchoring outside of Green Turtle Cay as the depth in either Black or White Sound (the two available protected areas of the island are quite shallow in their entrance. His draft, the same as ours, he said was too deep to get inside either of the sounds but he assured us that you could anchor at the entrance area and dingy in to New Plymouth to clear in.

Unfortunately when we arrived the wind, which had been beautiful for sailing down from Great Sale Cay made it impossible to anchor in the area he’d recommended. Driven’s captain couldn’t even get his anchor to hold and if we could have I don’t think we would have wanted to. It would have been a very uncomfortable place to try to sleep.

So we changed the plan and headed for Manjack just a couple of miles back up the way we had just come. It wasn’t a perfect anchorage as the wind was still high and the wave action a bit more active than desirable but in the bight of Manjack island it was more protected than the open water in front of Green Turtle Cay and we were able to get the anchor to hold. Unfortunately there’s no place to clear in on Manjack. In fact there are only a couple of houses on Manjack, no town or any other civilization to be seen. Someone did come to invite us to a beach dinner that night but since we were still technically under quarantine we were not able to go ashore.

Back to Green Turtle Cay, once we made it to the dock we still had to get back to New Plymouth to clear in and so we put the dinghy in and took off for New Plymouth back out through the anchorage area we’d just been through.

Let me tell you that was as rough a dinghy ride as I ever want to be in. First our dinghy “Puddles” as we affectionately refer to her, has been acting up. Well, the outboard has been giving us a bit of grief, so all the way across the 3/4 mile someone had to squeeze the fuel priming bulb on the fuel tank to make sure the engine didn’t cut out. That someone was me. Then, because it was so windy and the wave were rough there was no way to make it across without getting quite wet. We all wore raincoats so we wouldn’t look like complete drowned rats when we got to the customs office but we were still pretty soggy by the time we tied up.

Fortunately clearing in went extremely well. The customs agent, Bridget, was helpful, pleasant and fair. She recommended a nearby beach and stamped our passports giving us 180 days to visit the Bahama’s. What a nice place! After having made it across the bay and through customs we celebrated with a little local homemade ice cream from the store across the street and a long walk on the beach.

The kids and I all found coconuts that had fallen or in their case the whole tree had fallen and we each toted one back to the boat. In Florida they had talked me into buying a coconut (whole) in the store and after the Gulf Crossing we cracked it open and ate the entire thing, so this was the next logical step, find and open a coconut in the husk.

The way back to Green Turtle Cay was equally wet and bumpy but all four of us were happy anyway, after all we’d cleared in, had ice cream and scored free coconuts.

For nearly 1700 nautical miles we have heard this kind sentiment from almost everyone we know and many people we only barely know. Today we lived it. On the trip from Great Sale Cay to Green Turtle Cay we really had Fair winds, which for our boat is somewhere between 15 and 25 knots. Once we rounded the top of the island to shoot towards Green Turtle Cay the seas became following.

With the wind and the seas from the same direction Boyd couldn’t wait to put up the jib. Even though we were still traveling with the other Vagabond 47′ and they were motoring Boyd put up the jib and nearly instantly cut the engine. Our new speed, 7.5 knots with just the jib. We managed to pace the other boat (a boat which, for all intents and purposes identical in hull speed to ours) all day without the engine. It wasn’t until our track changed and the wind got fluky that Boyd would even consider taking down the sails and starting the engine again.

It was an amazing time cruising along with the gorgeous water sliding by and the palm dotted coasts to either side of us. No engine, no noise other than the sound of the wind and the kids laughing. Enough water under the keel not to worry about the track, no bridges to worry about. It was really the best day of sailing, an eleven on a scale of 1 to 10. Boyd even remarked, “I think this is the best sailing day we have had in a long time”. The kids and I proceeded to make the case for it:

75 degree weather
Consistent wind from the right direction
Aquamarine water (temp around 70 degrees)
Sails up, no engine
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS

In fact the only real downer since we got here is that we weren’t able to clear in today so we can’t go ashore yet. Tomorrow we’ll get to Green Turtle Cay, hopefully, it was too rough to go in today and the tide was wrong when we got there.

Clearing in hasn’t stopped the kids from having fun, they went swimming already yesterday at Great Sale Cay and tried out the new snorkel gear. Nicole, our fish, had to eventually be told to stop jumping off the boat. With her wet suit on she was so buoyant and warm that she must have jumped off the boat dozens of times. Paul, after an initial swim decided to work on his tan and observe the other boats.

When another boat came into the anchorage with two boys on it there was a bit of excitement.. the kids are always happy to see a “kids boat”. We didn’t have our dingy down but the kids dropped theirs into the water nearly before the anchor held and came directly over. We invited them and their grandparents over for an after dinner get-together and spent a very pleasant evening sharing a movie with the kids and drinks with the adults.

So far The Bahamas are a 2 thumbs up event, and we haven’t even gone ashore.

For the fourth or fifth time I find myself telling Nicole, there is no ICW to the Bahamas, honey. We have made it to Vero Beach and the next real stop is Lake Worth where we plan to jump across to The Bahamas. Nicole is beginning to express regular concern about “going outside” as anything off the coast is called. You can’t blame her; we have had some snotty weather in the past 1700 miles and she (like her mother, does get sea sick). Boyd seems completely immune to bad weather and Paul has seemed to “get over it” and have fewer issues with the roughness so it’s mostly just Nicole and I that “toss the cookies”.

As we have continued down the ICW on our way to Florida Nicole has said the words the rest of us are just thinking, what about “the crossing”. I’m pretty sure everyone is at least a little nervous about it, we sometimes mention “the crossing” but not that we are nervous about it. The Gulf Stream is notoriously rough and is prone to big, angry type waves. None of us, not even Boyd are looking forward to that, but no one else says it.

We do know that if the winds are from the North the waves are worse so we plan to avoid leaving with North winds if at all possible. We do know that the further South we go the more likely we are to be able to use the current rather than fight it. Sometimes the Gulf Stream current is as much as 4-5 knots and when the boat you are in does 6-7 knots it’s a bad idea to try to fight that much current.

Many cruisers go as far a Miami attempting to ride the current over to the Bahamas rather than cross it at a perpendicular angle. At the moment our plan is to go as far south as Lake Worth and angle across coming in around West End. We need to clear in through customs and West End would work as a spot to come into and also as a spot to clear in through as well. It is rather pricy to stay there and I have heard that if the weather is bad there isn’t much protection; I guess we’ll see. Until we do the rest of will have to just think about it while Nicole is the only one saying it out loud.

Along with the cooking and cleaning and other boat chores a new and increasingly important task has presented itself. Mending, now mending has historically been a task done as a practical way to continue utilizing clothes and other fabric items which would otherwise be rendered useless due to wear. As a child my mother showed me how to sew and let me use her needles and thread to create Barbie clothes and blankets and such. As I got older I learned how to sew buttons and use a sewing machine. Finally in high school I took the obligatory home economics class and made myself a half way decent skirt.

Today, in addition to other boat chores I find myself needing to recall the lessons of my youth because today I’ll be mending. Currently Nicole has two pairs of pants that have developed holes in them, a sweatshirt with a failed zipper and a rain jacket that has a small rip on the front pocket. Paul has a rain jacket I’m replacing a zipper in and a sweatshirt that also has a faulty zipper to contend with. Boyd wears everything with rips so I’m getting off easy on that front but for me there is a sweatshirt with a ripped open pocket and some minor sundries.

I also have to create a cover for the grill and one for the anchor windlass. When all of that is done there are covers for the hatches and a project I am working on to create custom screens which needs to be completed before we get into a “buggy” spot.

I guess all of that play sewing when I was younger was good practice because now I’m better able to mend clothes and create custom curtains, pillows, covers and such for the boat as needed. It does make me think about the days of old when this was a part of everyday chores for the women folk, as with them then my days seem consumed with practical useful but time consuming chores. Better stop typing and go get out the sewing machine

After the shuttle went off we headed again down the ICW to hang with our friends boat S/V Ishmael. They were behind us when we went outside but passed us when we waited for the shuttle launch. We caught up with them at Vero Beach, Florida. As we came into the Vero Beach Municipal Marina to grab a mooring and catch up with our friends, much to our surprise and delight we found that the majority of the Jekyll Island Harbor kids boat population had migrated. In addition to S/V Ishmael we found that S/V Gromit and S/V Shiver had also arrived.

Our kids had soundly lamented leaving all of these friends at Jekyll Island and were absolutely ecstatic to see so many of these familiar boats in one anchorage. Commence the land games, boat movies and shared dinners. The parents, I must admit were equally happy to see each other and to share time, meals and even boat repairs.

In addition to these friends we made a few new ones including meeting another boater with a Vagabond nearly identical (okay it’s in better shape than ours) to ours. We also reconnected with S/V Melodeon who we met the first time in Oriental NC and S/V Lighten Up from Maine who we met the first time in the Hamilton Marine store in Portland Maine while we were both shopping for new life jackets, small world I guess. In addition there were 4 other boats hailing from Maine and one from Alaska. It was tons of fun.

For a municipal marina this is a great place to go. Nice facilities and a public bus, free no less, that picks up right in front of the marina. We planned to only stay a day or two but ended up doing due to some last minute shopping, added to the day or two of rainy weather plus the kids begging 1-2 turned into 5 days in the end. Can’t say I regret it for a moment. We had to be someplace and when I paid the bill of $75 Nicole pointed out that we have spent that for one night before at the dock, so it was quite the deal.

We decided to go outside again. In addition to the bridge I wrote about in the post “10 Miles Without an Accident” there were six more bridges the next day. With all the wind and a tide range of between 6 and 8 feet there were many complex issues to deal with at each one. Bridge height, horizontal clearance, water depth, and extreme current all combined throughout day to make it quite challenging. As a final test the marina that we chose to stay at for the night was just at the last bridge of the day and when we called for rates and to make sure they had space the friendly lady that answered the phone was kind enough to inform us that the entrance of the marina sometimes had a “bit of current” but after we’d passed the first marker “it would drop off”.

In the end the marina entrance turned out to be the most difficult spot of the day due to an unfortunate combination of factors. First, there was an obscene amount of current rather then a “bit”. Second there were 3 Border Control powerboats who decided that they could “sneak” into the channel before us if they just used enough horsepower and butt into line. Lastly the entrance was narrow and with tide at a full flow out shallow as well. With the need to slow in order to avoid running over the Border Patrol boats we were impacted even more by the current.

One of the important things that I’m learning on this trip is that in order to have control of the boat you must have water moving across the rudder, so slowing isn’t always desirable as it might seem as it makes boat control more difficult. Once we made it in and negotiated a 180 turn in the marina so we could tie up starboard side to as the marina requested I could see that Boyd was pale.

This is the guy that I’d vote for to ride out a gale (and technically we already have). He asked, “Did you feel that hump of water?”. Apparently there was so much current in the entrance to the channel and it was at an angle because it was running out and then under the bridge (in a spot that the bridge was only about 10-20 ft high off the water) that it created the same effect you see in river rapids with a huge hump in the center of the entrance. The boat had actually shimmied sideways – all 44 thousand pounds of her- as though to be dragged back out of the channel and under the bridge. Had we lost engines at that moment that’s exactly what would have happened. It would have been unrecoverable. Only Boyd’s steady hand and refusal to panic kept us from becoming victim of these factors.

When checking into the marina the other cruisers, who unbeknownst to us had been watching us coming in the channel acknowledged the difficulty of the entry (due to the timing with tide and current and other boats entering) and noted their collective approval. Impressing all of them was definitely not an easy feat considering their combined experience level. Actually considering the conditions I’m surprised they didn’t stand up and hold up cards with 10’s on them.

After two days of fighting the current, tide, timing, bridge heights and such it’s no surprise we decided to go outside. Boyd didn’t want to mess with another hundred miles of ICW to make it to Cape Canaveral so we jumped from St. Augustine directly to Cape Canaveral.

It was a rather uneventful transit with the only real complications being that Nicole and I were seasick. Nothing too surprising there, we have gotten better but when the waves come across the boat from either side we find it’s hard to keep lunch down.

Twenty hours from St Augustine to Cape Canaveral and not a single bridge. Nothing could please Boyd more… wait, we sailed.. it was the perfect trip for him!

Have you ever been to an industrial site and seen the signs that say “103 days no accidents. Safety first.”? I feel like we should make a sign for the boat that says “10 miles no accidents”.

We transited from Jekyll Island to an anchorage just beyond Jekyll Island where we anchored for the night. It was really too dark to get anywhere further the first day off the dock. The next day, day before yesterday, we went a total of about 25 miles down to Fernandina Beach and grabbed a mooring. We were in by lunchtime. Yesterday we stayed put just because it was windy as heck and well, we wanted to. Today we started out to do a whopping 40 miles but got stopped at the first bridge.

We had noted that the guidebook we use stated that “unofficially” this set of bridges was considered among the “lowest” of the fixed 65′ bridges. Since it’s currently a full moon and a “spring tide” we are having high highs and low lows (for instance the regular low tide-called mean low tide- is nearly two feet higher than the current low tide). What this means is that if you normally have 65′ of clearance at a bridge when you have a “spring” high tide it’s only going to be around 63′ of clearance, since we require a minimum of 63’6″ this would be bad. Consequences to taking a boat with a 63’6″ mast under a 63′ bridge could include substantial damage to the mast and perhaps even dismasting not to mention damage to the bridge. Not good! So we timed our passage to go under the bridge during a lower portion of the tide. Unfortunately it was harder getting started than we anticipated due to the continued extreme wind so when we actually arrived at the bridge the tide was already higher than we’d aimed for.

We edged up to the bridge to consult the “tide board” a board, often (but not always) installed so that boaters coming up to the bridge can tell the actual height of the bridge above the water at that exact time. This set of bridges, of course, had no visible tide board so we edged a little closer. Through the bascule train bridge and into the miniscule void between it and the flue area that is the channel the boat must pass through to get under the bridge. Half way up the flue in the area just before you would actually pass under the bridge and plastered to the right hand side was the wayward tide board.

Of course this flue is only about 65 ft wide and the tide board is only visible (okay only readable) once you are beside it. So in we go, with a knot of current pushing us toward the bridge of unknown height at 6 knots and into the flue, which is acting like a sluice with the tide. Finally we can read the tide board and it says, you guessed it, 63 ½. Boyd made the decision on the spot that he didn’t want to risk it and decided to turn the boat around. In the 65 ft wide sluice, with a knot of current, and the wind behind us.

A few tense moments ensued while the entire crew of Passages took up posts at the bow and stern of the boat as Boyd turned in the center of the channel and without touching a single side board, either mast, or the bottom took us back out. It was truly an amazing feat to get a 47′ boat going 6 knots to turn 180 degrees in a 65 ft wide channel with a knot of current and substantial wind. If I had a video guys, I’d post it – you would be so impressed, I know I was!

Out we went back past the Bascule bridge and anchored for about 3 hours until the tide dropped to a lower level which made the height to the bottom of the bridge a more acceptable number. As we hurried toward the bridge eager to make up for lost time Paul (our current lookout) called back that there was a boat flashing a light at us from the other side of the bridge.

Wouldn’t you know it now that we’d waited the 3 hours for the tide the DOT was doing a repair to the light on the bridge and had a bucket truck perched up on top of the bridge with the bucket hung over the edge and suspended down into the air space we’d just waited not so patiently for.

Now you are beginning to get the picture. Today we made a total of about 8 nm. So in the last 3 days since left Jekyll Island I think we may have averaged 10 miles a day… BUT WITH NO ACCIDENTS.

Now that we have left Jekyll Island and are underway again there are some marked changes in the crews activity. No longer can the kids jump off the boat onto the dock and find someone to play with. No longer do they have the option to withdraw from family life and select someone closer to their own age or likings. Now they are forced… to participate in family life.

So today I decided that they could do dishes and make desert, more specifically cake. Paul read the directions and Nicole procured the ingredients. In the mixing process they fell quickly into the familiar roll of little sister “pest” and big brother “antagonist” with Nicole trying to find any way to lick the batter off the spoon, counter and even the bowl. Paul on the other hand was trying to preserve the integrity of the cake or perhaps just thwart Nicole’s efforts to eat batter. In the end they were laughing so hard I had to grab the camera and share.

As you can see in the photo in an attempt to keep Nicole occupied Paul has “painted” her elbow with batter. Knowing that she would do anything for at taste of cake batter and also being a firm believer that no one can efficiently lick their elbow he dabbed some batter on her elbow and she effectively “chased her tail” for then next 10 or so minutes. It was quite the event.

New water out the portholes, finally. Well our month at Jekyll Island Georgia is over. Never, would we have thought that we would be at the same marina for that long. Especially Jekyll Island, it’s really not that big of an island! We originally stopped for only one day but then when the weather was excessively cold we stayed a second day and then a third.

By the time the weather let up it was close to 2 weeks and once we’d paid for that we were able to stay the rest of the month for free. During the month we worked on projects on the boat inside at first when it was cold and then outside when it got warm enough. Finally we were facing committing to paying more money to spend longer and we made the break.

With the time we spent there we were able to prepare the boat better for our time in the Bahamas, visit with friends make new friends as well as order things like spare parts to carry with us for the rest of our trip.

With regret we said goodbye to all our friends at Jekyll Island and promised to try to meet up with them again some other time and place. Then we motored off into the ICW. Yesterday after a relatively short trip down the ICW we moored at Fernandina Beach Florida. I’m pleased to announce if folks, the water we now see is Floridian water. The gift shops all have Florida t-shirts in them and yesterday we ate ice cream out in front of a shop, because… wait for it, it was warm enough to want ice cream AND warm enough to eat it outside.

Today it’s another day all together, but I’m busy reveling in yesterday so please don’t bother me with the fact that today the temperature is about 45, a full 20 degrees colder (durn cold fronts!!).