Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 3

At dawn, I raised our anchor and we began drifting out of the mouth with the slight wind that was present. I quickly got the sails up and set to get us as far from land as fast as possible, but there was no wind!

We simply bobbed around as we drifted along with the waves out to sea.

The Monitor windvane did all the work for me. I knew that the winds were going to start out from the East and shift to be coming from the North, so I set the monitor and the sails for a broad reach. As the wind shifted, so did our path and we effortlessly and slowly made our way from land.

We sailed out beyond the entrances to the shipping channels that enter the Chesapeake Bay, so commercial traffic was not an issue as we were always outside of the channel.

While the sail was slow, the spectacles were far from it. We saw a massive school of jellyfish that were just below the surface, drifting along on the ocean currents. While this was interesting, it paled in comparison to the pod of dolphins that we encountered.

We were 7 miles out at sea at this point, and these dolphins were playing around in the waves like children playing in the surf on a beach. It reminded us that we are in their home, and they live here. We are merely visitors.

The winds were light, so we decided to make the most of them and sail through the night since the Monitor had been doing such a good job and we hadn't touched a thing all day. This was a sound plan, but the winds did not agree. As the sun set, the winds disappeared. Our plans to sail through the night quickly vanished and we were forced to heave to through the night.

Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 2

Before dawn, I had the anchor up and we were once again motor sailing along in the light breeze. The winds were a little more prominent today, and we were able to make the last bit of the journey to the bridge by 5pm. At that time, the tide was rushing out, and the current was rather strong as we came up on the bridge.

The current listed on the chart plotter was 2 knots at that moment, and we were indeed moving along at 2 knots with no wind in our sails.

Then we came across a fast moving river filled with trash, muck, and debris. When we entered that river, it felt like we were riding down white water rapids! Wisdom quickly sped up to 5 knots and we were blown out of the bay with fury! Instead of trying to steer us out, I used all the power we had in the motor to push us side to side and avoid the bridge abutments.

That was honestly the most stressful moment of this trip, watching a bridge piling approach your beam at 5 knots while you frantically full throttle yourself sideways and you see the shore in front of your bow slipping sideways past your view. It felt like we had no control and it planted a very deep respect for narrow waterways with high currents. I used to always try to time our journeys with peak tidal flow, but these have always been in wide open rivers with currents around 1 knot. After encountering that little bonus river in the water, I will be sure to investigate any new passages before attempting them with a strong current. I feel it would even be best to attempt these narrow passages at slack tide when the water is still and you can move through it unaffected.

As soon as we exited the bridge, we were greeted by a very large pod of dolphins who appeared to be feeding on little fish that had been sucked out of the bay with the powerful current. They saw us sailing along and soon followed us, jumping out of the water ever closer as they came by to investigate what we were doing and where we were going.

The sun began to set and we were still in the mouth of the bay. The winds were blowing us into the bay and we had spent the entire afternoon tacking against the winds in the narrow areas that are not channels.

As the sun became low, the temperature also began to drop and we decided that it would be best if we just anchored again, in the ocean!

We found a shoal between the channels that was not a restricted area and dropped the hook on a shallow portion of it. 13 feet of water at low tide, so I let out 200 feet of chain to make certain that we would not drag in the night.

We set the proximity alarm on our AIS to 0.5nm, trying to keep false alarms from waking us as we tried to sleep, but to no avail. It seemed that every ship entering or exiting the bay was on course for us before they turned to go through the channel. The alarm would sound multiple times an hour, and each time I would check  it, just in case it was actually a collision in the making.

To add to the misery, the swell and wakes from the traffic made the anchorage unbearable as the boat was constantly rolling around. If you find yourself in a situation where it is not safe to continue at your current rate, anchoring is an option, but it really should be your last option.

Cruising to the Bahamas: Day 1

As we sat in the marina waiting for a weather window to head to Bermuda, we quickly realized that the season had closed and we weren't going to make it to Bermuda in a safe manner. Gale forc storms seemed to become a weekly occurnace and constantly pushed our departure date back again and again. Then we decided that it was getting too cold to wait here and we should just sail south to wait out better weather. That led to the idea of heading to the Bahamas for the winter and going to Bermuda in the spring!

This was an easy decision for us, the weird weather had reversed the prevailing winds making the winds up the east coast actually blow south! The weather has been very odd this year.

We decided to trade our freezing winter crossing for a much more tropical approach to cruising, and what better place than the Bahamas! These islands will be challenging for us though, as we draw 6.5 feet, so we probably won't be able to visit all of them as these waters are notoriously shallow.

Anyways, now that we knew where we wanted to go, it was just a matter of deciding when. Our first thought was "Tomorrow!" While this was a good thought, the weather was less than inviting. The weather that day was blowing around 30 knots (in the right direction though) but the wind was also a chilly 55F. To add to the misery, it was also raining very hard that entire day. So, as people who have newly discovered the concept of comfortable living on a cruise, we decided to go "the next day!"

When we left Deltaville, the winds were very light, but we were on a run. I wanted us to get to the mouth of the bay by 8pm because I thought that was around sunset. I figured out our minimum speed and motor sailed us at that rate as I struggled to get us to the bridge before dark. Around 6pm, the sun looked a little too low on the horizon and that is when it struck me, winter is coming and the sun sets earlier now. At 6:20pm, the sun was down, and so was our anchor.

We had only made 16 of the 40 nautical miles we needed to cover to get out of the bay. I was very disappointed in myself for not actually looking at what time the sun really sets! I based all of my calculations off of what I thought was true instead of investigating what really is true.

Cruising in Your Boat

If you dream of cruising, there is no need to go out and buy a new boat for the task. Boats are expensive and they take time and money to prepare them the way you like them. If you want to go cruising, in general, and not a specific type or place, then take the boat you have now and get going! 

I cursed myself with the dream of sailing across the Atlantic. To me, cruising meant saying goodbye to shore as I sailed out into the horizon, only to come upon land after weeks at sea without ever wandering from my straight line course. I didn't want to head out, turn, and come back; I wanted to leave and arrive in a totally new land! 

This meant that I needed to find a blue water cruiser that I could afford, which translates into an old boat that needs a lot of work!  

I found my blue water to-be cruiser, and the price was very low. I bought a 1968 Morgan 45 for $19,500, and then spent the next five years in a marina working on it while I dreamed of distant horizons. I slowly installed the needed systems as I could afford them, gradually turning this old race boat into a capable cruising boat. 

Over all these years, I saw many people in the marina arrive and then leave. One such person really stuck out to me though. He got his boat for free off of Craigslist. It was an old and small Hunter Sailboat with a working diesel motor. This guy wanted to go cruising, so he sold all his stuff and picked up this free boat! Now he had a lot of money in his pocket and no bills to pay. 

He was in the marina for a while, and then he untied his lines and left. A few months later, he sent me an email because he had made it down to Florida. He motored his way down the ICW (Intra Coastal Waterway). He never learned how to sail, so he simply ran the motor to get everywhere. All the money he had in his pocket allowed him to pay for fuel, and going slowly he was able to burn less fuel for the same distance traveled.

This guy emails me from warm and sunny Florida, while he is relaxing on a beach in January while I was stuck in Baltimore, MD, in a cold spell where the temperature never got above freezing for a week!  

The point I'm trying to make is cruising is cruising. The act of untying the lines and going is what cruising is all about! If your boat is small, or not sea-worthy, who cares? Don't go out in the ocean and simply coastal hop as you make your way around! 

Cruising doesn't have to be expensive, and it doesn't have to be a distant dream. If you have a boat, you can go now and if you don't have a boat, you can always pick one up for cheap (or free) and get out on the water now. 

Mindset for Ocean Passages

They say the most dangerous thing to have on a boat is a calendar. These devices will cause the crew to fret about the date, and act irrationally as they attempt to make landfall by a specific day.  

What I find more dangerous than a calendar is a plan!  

When you have plans, you probably have dates attached to these plans. That means that you will be in a rush to get somewhere in time. Worse yet, if the weather will not allow it, but you have a plan to stick to, you might ignore the more sensible option and instead power through the storm to keep to your plan. 

When we set sail, be it in a bay or in the ocean, we have a loose construct of what we want to achieve. We set sail towards a specific place, but if the seas do not wish it, we do not argue. There have been many a time when we have made new plans when we are confronted by massive waves and powerful winds. We simply sail a course that feels safer and head to a destination that is in that path. This has led us to have much less stress as we explore the world by sail. 

When we leave the Chesapeake Bay, we plan to go to Bermuda, but the winds are not going to allow that for at least another week. Instead, we will simply get out into the ocean and sail where the winds want us to go for a while. When we feel like we want to make landfall, we will head towards the nearest "easy entered by sail" port that we can see.  

This approach has brought us to wonderful and fascinating places that we never knew existed until we anchored in their waters. We have met the nicest people in these small towns who have been a huge help to us as we make our journey. We plan to use this same approach when we leave the bay and enter the Atlantic Ocean.  

Following the winds and currents, we will end up some place new that we have never been before, we will get to meet new people and restock with the local flavors of that new place. This will make getting to Bermuda very difficult, as we will make a million stops along the way, but for us, it is about the journey and not the destination.