We woke up bright and early on May 23 anxious to set sail for the Berries and enjoy our last night (or two) before heading for Grand Bahama where we would re-provision, refuel and wait for our weather window. On a hunch, Jill suggested to Zack that we reach out to Dan Valoppi to get an updated forecast just in case it looked like it was changing in a way that might impact what we did for the next few days — either accelerating our arrival at Old Bahama Bay marina or, hopefully, confirming that we had one more day to linger in the Berries before heading to our departure point. Unfortunately, once again, the weather trumped our desires.
If we kept with our planned departure of May 27 or 28, a low pressure system forming in in the North Atlantic would create gale force high winds (gusts to 50 mph) and rough seas around the notorious Cape Hatteras that would coincide with our sail through that area — not ideal conditions for a passage — and the system would not abate until at least May 31, delaying our departure to a point that would put our needed arrival date in Connecticut at risk. But, if we could accelerate our departure to May 24, there was a very good chance we could stay ahead of the front and, worse case scenario, it would hit when we were close enough to the coast to duck into North Carolina or the Chesapeake Bay to wait out the winds in good shelter.
Though we were already underway to the Berries when Dan responded to our text message and some back and forth ensued, we decided to abort the Berries and head straight to Old Bahama Bay, doing an overnight sail, and then leaving from there, as soon as possible after we fueled and cleared customs — even skipping a trip to the grocery store if necessary. While fresh fruits and veggies is always really nice to have for a passage (and the ones we bought during our last re-provision were just about depleted – save for two very shriveled sad looking mandarin oranges and some romaine lettuce), they are not necessary. (Wants vs. needs!) And, we knew we were not going to go hungry. Jill, true to her usual planning and “be prepared motto,” had already cooked ahead and there were five pre-prepared home cooked meals in our freezer. (I’m sure those who know her are shocked! 😉) Decision made!
We arrived at Old Bahama Bay around 8 AM on May 24 — conveniently just as the fuel dock was opening for business. We were able to refuel and clear out of customs quickly — and, importantly, verify that nothing had changed in the weather to alter our new plan — so by 9:30 AM we were on our way for our first 5+ day passage, just the two of us. The day was largely uneventful with light to very light winds though the favorable wind direction allowed us fly by Che Figata’s standards — often reaching a speed of 9+ knots even before we had help from the Gulf Stream current push. While the light winds didn’t seem to adversely impact our speed they did make for relatively calm seas allowing Jill to prepare even more food (a white bean hummus — which, incidentally, has become a “house” specialty — and an avocado salad) so we would have plenty of food at the ready for when we encountered the inevitable big rollers. Of course, we have a great galley kitchen that allows us to brace ourselves securely when preparing food. Despite our best efforts, however, we haven’t trained our food to brace itself so things tend to slide about when in heavy seas creating a logistical challenge — you grab one thing and two other things slide across the counter — unless you are an octopus.
One thing different about this trip — at least for the first day of our voyage — is that we were not alone. Usually when we do a passage we see few other boats — mostly the occasional freighter or cargo ship. We saw lots of commercial boat traffic during our passage to Old Bahama Bay and when we left there after refueling and clearing customs we had an entourage. There were 8 – 10 other sailboats — mostly catamarans — that left Grand Bahama just when we did. Clearly we are not the only ones trying to take advantage of this weather window and beat the high winds. It was kind of nice watching these other boats on AIS as we all sailed at roughly the same speed in the same direction. It looked like a caravan. Besides, it gave us something else to do as we passed the time during our overnight watches. You see, every time there is another sailboat within sight it is a race — regardless of whether the other boat knows that they are being challenged. (All true sailors are well aware of this unwritten rule.) All night we monitored these boats (with names like Now and Zen, Scout, Epique, Simple Life and Planet Wave) and their distance from us to see if they were gaining on us or vice verse. We declared ourselves the winner.
All in all, May 24 was a perfect sailing day! Then May 25 happened. The wind died to less than 5 knots which meant we needed to motor without sails — you need at least some modicum of wind to motor sail — ugh. To make matters worse, the current push also died for most of the day, slowing our speed to the 7 knot range between about Noon and 6 PM. Fortunately, the current push returned in the evening so we made great time even though the wind remained very light. Why did we care so much about our wind speed and current push? Because we were in a race against the weather. The forecast update we received on May 25 showed winds building to gale force (25 – 30 knots with gusts to 50) and waves 8 – 10 feet off the coast of New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia. We really needed to beat this system and arrive in the Chesapeake by Friday, May 28 so we could duck in and avoid the weather. Based on our sail plan and estimated boat speed we were not overly anxious. Our accelerated departure was specifically designed to get us at least to the Chesapeake before the weather took a turn for the worse. But this gets us back to “wants and needs.” Unlike those cold Honey Crisp apples Jill is pining for since we didn’t have a chance to re-provision before we departed for our passage — a definite want — for our safety we NEEDED to arrive in the Chesapeake by Friday (5/28) afternoon. We would be protected there from these winds and high seas and could decide if we wanted to continue our trip to Connecticut by going through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to Delaware Bay and up the coast of New Jersey — basically retracing the path we took when we left Connecticut in mid October to head for Annapolis — or wait out the storm and then go back out into the Atlantic, head North and make a left when we get to the LI Sound.
Important post script to May 25: Though it was a bust from a sailing perspective, it wasn’t a total loss. After dinner we were treated to a glorious sunset of vibrant blue and orange (see our featured image which doesn’t do the real thing justice) and, as if an artist was painting a canvas to depict a magical evening that then came to life before our eyes, a lively pod of dolphins joined us and danced in the wake of our bow just as the sun disappeared over the horizon. All of the sudden it felt like a perfect day.
Winds remained light on May 26 so, once again, we had to motor. If we weren’t in a race to beat the weather we could have altered course to give Che Figata a better wind angle for the light breeze. Unfortunately, the zig zagging we would have to do to position Che Figata at a favorable angle would cause us to lose precious time so motor on we did! Not our favorite way to get from point A to point B but the wind gods made recompense by sending more dolphins our way — this time of the large Bottlenose variety. As always, we ran up to the bow to watch them deftly swim from starboard to port and back again, just ahead of us as if escorting Che Figata safely to her destination.
The biggest excitement on May 26 though was when we got hailed by another sailboat. With AIS we can see other boats on the chart well before we can see them with our eyes. We can learn the type of vessel (cargo, freighter, pleasure motor yacht, sailboat, etc.), length, beam, speed, closest point of passage and when that will be. All critical information that we monitor closely to avoid collision, particularly at night. At any rate, we saw a small 23’ sailboat on AIS on our same course, just slightly ahead of us. At our size we can sail faster (in this case motor faster) so we were going to pass them. Just as they were off our starboard beam, they hailed us on the radio. Seeing that we were on the same course, they were curious where we were headed and what we were seeing in the weather forecast. Though our radio contact we learned that this small sailboat was being skippered by a mother/son duo from Maine. They sailed their boat down to Florida for the Winter and kept her in Miami. Given the size of their boat they have no inboard engine with large fuel tanks — just a small outboard. We were able to confirm that we were seeing the same weather forecast. While we planned to duck in at Chesapeake Bay, they couldn’t make it that far before the winds were expected to kick up and planned to stop in Beaufort, NC. We commended them for their grit! In addition to having no inboard engine, a boat that size has limited water storage capacity, no watermaker and just generally a lot less room to store anything – food, clothing, spare parts, safety equipment, etc. It’s like the difference between camping in a Winnebago and out of a small VW van. Plus, imagine the difference of sailing through big winds and storms in a small, light, sail craft vs. our 30 ton beast of a boat. Now they are true sailors and we were in total awe. We exchanged contact info and hope to meet them in person this summer. We are sure they have some great stories to tell!
May 27 was a repeat of May 25 and 26 so rather than bore you with a description of our stale air, you can simply re-read the paragraphs about light wind and our need to motor on to get to our destination as directly and quickly as possible. We did get some great news though. The weather was moving in a little more slowly than the original forecast with the really high winds not getting to the coast of New Jersey and Delaware until later Friday night, giving us a little more time to play with. Plus, we were making slightly better time than we had predicted. Taken together, that meant that we could go past the Chesapeake and get to Ocean City Maryland before we needed to find a place to hide. This would position us really well as the weather system moved on. We could easily get back out into the Atlantic and have a manageable sail of 260 nm (or about 37 hours) up the coast of New Jersey and around the tip of Montauk Long Island to our destination in Westbrook CT. Unless the weather system lingered and we couldn’t get out of Ocean City by Tuesday, June 1 we figured that should get us to Connecticut by Thursday, June 3 the latest! Yay!
And, finally, something happened according to plan! We arrived safe and sound at the Sunset Marina (land of the fishing boats, cabin cruisers and mega yachts — we feel like the cool kids in our beautiful and classic black sailboat) in Ocean City Maryland at about 11 AM on May 28. We are tired after a 5 day passage but in good spirits and proud of this major milestone for us! Tonight we celebrate with a dinner out at “The Shark” (Jill is very excited about the vegan options!) and then tomorrow, back to reality as we wait out the wind: laundry, provisioning and cleaning Che Figata inside and out!
Our next blog post will be Part IX of our leisurely sail back up to New England and, if all goes accordingly to plan (what are the chances of that happening???), it will be our final post of this passage and of our Caribbean adventures series. On to “New England, Summer 2021!”
