2015 0116 The End of Eluthera

01/17/15 It’s been a long time since I’ve written my blog and lots to cover.  I’m writing this just prior to midnight on 01/27/15 on the night watch.  It’s the first time it’s been smooth enough to write.  Hopefully I can remember enough to keep this interesting.  I’ve made several mental notes so let’s go through the Post-Its of my mind.

After having passed through the cut, there was nothing stressful on the agenda this day.  A good sailing day again and clear weather.  The winds were out of the east and made close to a beam reach.  It was a comfortable sail and we only ran the motor to go through the channel after passing Rock Sound Harbor.  The channel was at least a mile wide and nothing like the cut.  We could have left the motor off but turned it on for safety.

Choosing anchorages in advance is something of an art.  Sometimes it’s very easy where the chart depicts the anchorage where you want it, the electronic charts match up, and then we find reviews of the spot from sites like ActiveCaptain.com.  We try to plan to sail for almost all of the hours of daylight with the last hour set aside for anchoring.  The well-known anchorages would have left us about 13 miles short of the end of Eluthera Island.  That doesn’t sound like much if you don’t sail, but to a sailor that’s about two hours of travel time which is considerable when you only have 11 hours of daylight to work with.  We did find and anchorage depicted on the charts near the end of the island, but couldn’t find any corroborating sources.  The anchor symbol was a little offshore but they often put the anchorage symbol a little off the mark for clarity.

We arrived at what we thought was our anchorage which seemed to be a tiny bay at a resort.  You never can tell how big a harbor is from the chart, and as we approached the bay it looked tiny.  We made our well-marked approach cautiously.  We went into this spot which had a couple boats tied with the hopes of tying up ourselves.  There was no room or people.  The place seemed abandoned.  This bay was not much bigger than Lady Valkyrie which made Ouida nervous.  I was comforted by the knowledge that we were capable of stopping our boat and backing out if necessary.  Even more comforting is the ability of a catamaran with its twin engines to spin on a dime.  This is what we did and exited without incident.  Ouida was remarkably calm and confident throughout despite the tight quarters.

With the bay not what we expected, we were on our own to find an anchorage.  Everything we own is on Lady Valkyrie and we do our best not to take unnecessary risks.  Anchoring without prior knowledge of how well the anchor would hold through the night is something we try to avoid.  Let CPT Kirk go where no man has gone before.  We’re happy on the beaten path.   If we’re not confident of the holding, we would have to take turns being up all night on anchor watch.    We found a spot and dropped anchor in what we hoped would be deep sand.  The anchor held and I dove on it to confirm its viability.  There were small patches of sand but they were only a couple inches deep covering slab rock.  We did manage to drop our anchor in one of those patches, but it slid and was wedged beautifully under the slab and was holding great in that direction.  I wouldn’t risk it in another direction, but the winds were consistent at 18 knots out of the east.  If the anchor were to drag, there was nothing to hit for 40 miles.  No people or internet, but we would be fine for the night.

Channel Cut Complete/ Anchored at Hatchet Bay

We started the day with a good hard downpour at about 9 AM for 15 minutes which we haven't for as long as I can remember.  We were at the post office at 11 AM.  The mail had come in but our part didn't arrive.  The next mail shipment wouldn't be until Tuesday.  We couldn't wait that long and forwarding it down the line did not look reliable so the mail clerk agreed to return to sender.  I have to say the people of Spanish Wells are remarkably friendly.  Everyone waves hello with a small town atmosphere.  Chopper always draws lots of attention and seems to bring out people's kindness.

We don't like the idea of traveling with a wounded engine, but that's life.  Besides, we're a sailboat and sail we must!  Despite all forecasts we were treated to 15 to 20 knot winds out of the North Northeast on departure.  No complaints about boat speed today.  We were downwind to the Channel cut with top speeds of 8.5 knots.  We were even doing  close 8 knots on a brief stretch headed to windward.

We read several sources before doing anything significant.  All of which serve to scare the crap out of Ouida.  She takes every morsel as gospel and panics if I offer any bit of blasphemy.  The Channel Cut passage was no different.  The books say to go with the current and at slack tide because there can be a 6 knot current otherwise.  We were at least two or maybe even three house shy of high slack water.  The tides are subject to great interpretation here.  Despite this and Ouida's initial panic, we went anyways.  We had the winds mostly off our back and we were going with the current.  We were only lacking high slack water by a couple hours.  We made it through fine.  It was relatively easy much like crossing the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.   Some of these obstacles may not be mole hills but they are not all Mount Everest either.  We also contacted a small power boat on VHF that we watched go through the cut in the WRONG direction.  He assured us we wouldn't have any issues. That was one of my arguments to Ouida is that you don't know what vessel these writers are considering when they make their advise.  Are they on a monohull instead of a catamaran?  Are they even on a sailboat at all.  Clearly the Cut wasn't an issue for any normally overpowered power boat.  Unfortunately, we were both too preoccupied to provide pictures.  I don't know that they would have been all that interesting anyways.

Lest anyone think I'm picking on Ouida, I'm not.  She's doing great.  Not many women will sail the high seas with you at all not to mention be your Daryl Hannah mermaid.  In truth she usually only panics over things that should give us legitimate concern, except for docking.  I know this boat is relatively big, but your not going to find an easier boat to dock.  Her apprehension surprises me now that we've successfully docked many times.

On the other side of the Cut we put the sails back up with one reef in the mainsail after the wind reengaged us at 20-25 knots.  We were ahead of schedule and now on the rhumb line for Gregory  Town.  Yes, they named the town after me.  In spite of this, we headed further downwind to Hatchett Harbor.  That put us on a beam reach sailing at 7.7 knots with 4 foot ways crashing against our broadside.  In other words, a sailors dream.

We reached the opening to Hatchet Bay at 5 PM.  There's a man-made cut into the 40 foot stone hills that the gospel says is 90 feet wide despite it's appearance.  This was written by man who's wife has been lying to him about linear dimensions for years, because it was no where's near 90.  We're 24 foot wide and our twin could not pass us going in the opposite direction.  It's a neat looking entrance that we do have pictures of.  It's a nice well protected anchorage that actually has free mooring balls.

I drive when Ouida puts down the anchor and she drives while I pull it up.  With mooring balls, she drives both ways.  I don't want her to become entangled in the lines when tying up to the mooring ball which is why I do it.  She drives just fine for a beginner.  Mooring and anchoring are normally a source of hostility for sailing couples, but, they have been surprisingly amicable for Ouida and I with our known penchant for confrontation.  I guess the key is to be patient and take our time.  I found good internet here and Ouida enjoys cooking on the boat.  Life is good.  We're headed to Rock Sound Harbor tomorrow.

Hatchet Bay Entrance

Headed through the Current Cut with parts or not

For the record, I like mermaids and hope to see one. Ouida says I did when a manatee came right up to me. That was great but the Daryl Hannah version would be better.

After 9 nights at anchor in Spanish Wells, IT'S TIME TO GO.  We will check for our part at the post office at 11 AM.  We're leaving whether it's there or not.  We can't wait any longer.  We'll have to have them forward it to us down the line if it's not there.  Where, I have to figure out.  If by any luck our raw water pump is there, we'll install it after we stop tonight.

We'll top off with fuel before going to the post office.  We're power hogs and run the generator too much.  We're only down a little over 1/4 tank after 9 days but it' worth topping off our 100 gallon tank.

We should have time to get to and through Current Cut south of us by the end of today.  We should go through the Cut around 3:30 PM when we should be nearing high tide and slack water.  Tomorrow we head to Rock Sound Harbor.  We are going to be moving quickly from here on out.  We need to get to St. Croix by mid February to receive our son and daughter-in-law.  It's going to be close. Weather looks good, but we're most likely going to be burning some diesel fuel.  Ouida is anxious to get there as well.

Good news and bad on the boat repairs.  I did everything I could to get the chartplotter to receive the GPS with no luck.  I tried hooking the GPS up to the chartplotter on all 3 NMEA 0183 ports with no luck.  I tried SeaTalk again and that was still a no go.   Lest anyone worry about that, Navionics on our 10 inch tablet works GREAT!.  We also have Navionics on FOUR phones with the maps all updated.  I also have my marine Garmin GPS with the charts on it.  We also receive our position on our handheld VHF radio and even our digital camera.  The chartplotter still displays the charts, just not our position on the chart.  I have the government charts on three computers and even the Navionics web site when we have internet.  For you old timers, we have several books of paper charts and cruising guides.  Yes, we even read them.

The good news is I tried connecting the GPS directly to the VHF and IT WORKS.  That won't help us with the chartplotter, but at least rescuers will be able to read our position in the event we need to scream for help on the VHF.  Now, I also know the GPS isn't the problem.  As a bonus, when I hooked up the GPS to the VHF it also started receiving voice audio above the squelch!  That's a big improvement.  I'm not sure why it happened.  The GPS should have nothing to do with the audio.  My guess is the VHF made a better ground contact, but who knows.  For some reason, the SSB (marine HAM radio) didn't pick up the GPS.  The SSB receives it's signal split off from the same wire going to the VHF.  I don't think it's a bad connection, but eventually I'll have to cut that connection and resplice it.

Cheers for now.

2015 0111

We are at Spanish Wells waiting on a part.  Hopefully, it comes in Tuesday.  It's the sea water cooling pump for the port engine.  The one in it now is leaking, but working enough that I run it for docking only.  I ordered the pump back in Lucaya with a 6 day delivery expectation.  They only get mail here twice a week though.  That puts us at Tuesday or Friday.  Not a big deal.  We were planning on doing a few days of maintenance and beach time.  We're going to pick up the pace significantly after this.

We're up at 0530 every day now.  We're on the schedule to be up before the sun so we can depart at first daylight.  I should say that I'm up at 0530.  The princess (aka Senior Captain) is still sleeping at 0745.

We are in the harbor and the wind has been howling.  We're not as protected against the current and the waves as we had been but it's not bad.  I dive on the anchor each time to verify it's set, but this time it didn't completely disappear into the sand as it had the previous times.  It did look set well enough and has been holding great.  We've had anchor alarms set on our phone which we made very sensitive.  They only went off twice last night which my princess will say way she hasn't slept well after she gets up after 12 hours in bed.  We had a day in the sun as well yesterday to tire her out. 

We're both still recovering from sailing all night as well.  Ouida did much better than I expected pulling her weight with the watches.  She was too nervous to be useful on night watch when sailed our trimaran in the past.  She woke me more than a few times but not too bad and that's what she's supposed to do when she gets nervous about something.  It was usually just ships on radar that were still 4 miles away.  Four miles between big freighters at night is attention worthy.  She learned to relax and not wake me.  I think the freighters tried to avoid us by at least 1.5 miles and we felt the same. 

Actually, boat life is tiring as well as being in the sun.  We're always doing something even when we're doing nothing.  Just to go to the beach we have to lower and raise the dinghy (dink for short).  Even though the dinghy only draws 4 inches at the stern we still managed to beach it.  We went to the beach at high tide.  The water ebbed away about 20 feet at the beach which was not big deal, but then on the way back we ran into water that was only 2 inches deep.  We ended up pulling and pushing the dink for about 400 yards through the sand.  It was a workout which we wanted anyways.  A lazy man would have just waited for the tide to come back in an hour or two.

It's windy here with short bouts of rain this morning.  The boats mild rocking messes with my mouse control, but I don't think that would hurt my poor video game skills any way.

2015 0107 Night Watch to Spanish Wells

I'm updating this email on the night watch at 0500 on Wednesday morning.  We started motoring for Spanish Wells at 1000 from our anchorage 10 miles east of Port Lucaya.  We're 85 miles from Spanish Wells right now.  I expect to get there around 3PM.  We're at least 30 miles from any land.  The winds are none to light with 1 foot waves at the start, but almost calm now.  The winds were suppose to pick up and clock around to the north, but we haven't seen it.  The winds are out of the northeast such as they are.

We didn't really want to do much traveling at night, but it worked out to be our safest plan.  I've got Ouida starting to adjust to constantly changing conditions.  She said today that she hasn't said "You keep changing your mind!" in a while.  She's realized you need a primary plan, a backup plan, and a backup to your backup plan.  When you've come up with those, you throw them away and come up with a new plan.  The big key is being flexible.  That's where having a catamaran is so much better than a monohull.  There's much more redundancy built in.  We would still be in Hilton Head if we were on a monohull.

The crossing from West Palm Beach Florida to Port Lucaya, Bahamas was easy, but slow.  We counted on 6 knots and thought we could make Bimini by 4 PM with the wind that we had.  We quickly saw we were only making 3.9 knots headway so we cut the engines and sailed the whole way.  Since we knew we weren't going to make it to our destination in daylight, we just adjusted our plan to sail all night.  There were ships everywhere on radar.  That helps keep you awake on night watch.

The best advise we received about the crossing was "Don't make it bigger than what it is."  It's only 45 miles across which we used to do regularly on Lake Ontario.  Granted the current makes it a little more interesting.

We arrived right at first daylight at our alternate destination of Port Lucaya.  It worked out great.  The Lucaya Marina is filled with shops and restaurants and made a perfect place to celebrate New Years Eve.  They had a live band in the square and Ouida kidnapped a local woman to dance with.  I supplied the drinks from the boat and watched the spectacle.  I'm not speaking of the light show or the concert.  The real spectacle is Ouida having fun on the dance floor.  She gathers the women.  She even ended up on stage.  It's my entertainment since I find dancing myself to be as pointless as a chicken running with its head cut off.  Even with that, I had enough drinks in me to push past the hoarding men and dance with the princess just prior to and after midnight.  I remember having fun at the time but dancing still makes no sense to me sober.

There have been a ton of repairs and services we've had to do on Lady Valkyrie.  Just about everything on the boat has broken at least once.  I'm starting to think I can even fix a broken heart with enough cash for parts. The boat has broken parts everywhere, but everything we need to progress is working.  The sea water pump on the port engine is leaking behind the cam shaft which explains the steam.  I'm ordered a new one Monday from Depco Pumps for $225 plus $50 shipping which seems under par.  We're real cruisers now.  Anything under $300 sounds cheap to us.

We had the pump shipped to the Spanish Wells.  They said 6-10 days for shipping.  That will be fine.  We plan on being in Spanish Wells for a few days, but we're going to pick up the pace after that.

The GPS for the chartplotter isn't working despite replacing it twice.  I'm going to try going old school with NMEA 0183.  I tried it before, but I'm not sure I did it right.  I'm guessing my GPS is broken as well as the chartplotter seatalk2 port.  I returned the two new GPS units I bought.  Thank you Amazon.com.  We're doing fine with Navionics on our tablet, phones, and our marine hand held
GPS.  I'll have to send the chartplotter back to Raymarine when we reach St. Croix.  I can't afford to be without out it for three weeks right now.

We replaced the voltage regulator on our generator for $600 before we left.  That hurt, but we're making all of the repairs ourselves so we're learning.  It's back to working great.

I've always understood that marine batteries to be used between 70 and 85% and charged to 100% monthly, but they have this system set to keep the battery bank full.  We have a dozen batteries on this boat.  Seems to be working out fine.

Our red and green nav lights didn't come on tonight.  They were working.  I'm not standing on the bow to fix them at night in the middle of the ocean.  We're running under the white steaming light in the front and the white stern nav light.  That and a big flashlight on the sails if Ouida finds a ship within 4 miles of us on radar.  To be fair to her, I keep the ships at least a mile distance at night.  That's close enough considering the wake these freighters and cruise ships put out.  If you think
you're alone on the seas, just expand your radar.  There has been at least one or two ships within 15 miles constantly.  Although, I'm about to lose my only ship on radar now.

It's 0600 AM now and it will start to get daylight very soon.  It's the first night after a full moon so the visibility has been awesome.  6 AM also means Chris Parker will be starting his weather broadcast on the SSB (Marine HAM Radio).  He's alright for free, but I wouldn't pay for him.  He's kind of a safety net for newbies.  I've been reading weather for 30 years as a pilot so I have my bias.  If I listened to him, we wouldn't have left the anchorage yesterday.  It hasn't been sailing weather, but it's been a very peaceful motoring in calm conditions.  You can't pass that up when you're trying to move southeast against the trade winds.

I'm still not happy with our boat speed, but it's tough to tell with the speedometer not working.  I'm basing our speeds off the GPS which is what's ultimately important, but it doesn't give our over water speed.

The previous owners had replaced the propeller on the starboard engine not long before selling our Lady to us.  They received conflicting information on prop size from Admiral and Yanmar.  They went with the smaller size recommended by the engine manufacturer.  Thus the
starboard side doesn't seem to have the umph that it should, but it works!  That's something and it's not leaking sea water.

I might just have unrealistic expectations when it comes to speed.  Sailing 30 knots on our Hobie Tiger or 17 knots on our Corsair F-27 trimaran really spoils you.  I would love to have the 8 knots to windward that I use to complain about on the F-27.

I'm now planning on a moving average of 4 knots with one engine and it seems to be working out.  I was expecting for the wind to fill in hours ago, but PredictWind.com was wrong about that.  There's still 40 miles to go and time to get some sailing in yet.

The water maker is working fine.  It's still saying about 500 ppm at the limit, but that's fine.  Ouida wants to try it in the open water and see if it's better.

The dinghy engine has been great except for the one night which I'm attributing to operator error.  I'm guessing I forgot to vent the cap or something simple.  It's the easiest starting engine, I've worked with.  Start with the first half pulp from even my left hand.

The alternator light is still on with the starboard engine, but it's still charging the batteries fine.  The VHF issue is still there.  I haven't tried fixing it yet, but it's not urgent.  We listen on our hand held VHF and then turn down the squelch on the main VHF if necessary.  I'll try swapping the VHF out with the spare one we have.

Ouida and I took some time to relax and actually enjoy ourselves with swimming and snorkeling on the anchor just west of Port Lucaya.  Chopper is now freely jumping off the stern and swimming with us.  He swims to shore with us to go to the bathroom and just swims around.  He actually jumped off  a 5 foot embankment back into the water to follow us back to the boat the first day at anchorage.  I
couldn't get him to repeat the jump in the following days so he got a friendly push.  He will still climb on my head if he gets the chance rather than swim.  I've had him ride on my back while I swim with fins on like a surfboard.  He swims great and I think he's starting to like it some.  He can climb up the swim ladder back on to the boat on his own as well.  This is all good stuff.

Things We've Fixed and had fixed

Replaced the slider on the zipper to the mainsail cover - I never knew that was so much to know about zippers

We had the clear glass in the dodger replaced on the port side.  The jib also had some touch up work.  We had the sailmaker also add material to the canvas door  because it was too short.

We changed the oil in each of the diesel engines including port, starboard, and the generator or genset  for short.

We changed the intern fuel filters and the external fuel filters on all three engines.  We changed the raw water pump impellers on all three engines.  We also did a drain and flush of the coolant on all three and went to Pink antifreeze.  We changed the air filter on on both main engines.  The genset air filter was fine.

We replaced the voltage regulator on the genset.