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.

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. 

Cruiser Plans

Most people we encounter ask us where we are going next, and that is a very difficult question to answer! While we do have a "next destination" which is Bermuda, we do not really know were we might end up next!

When we leave Deltaville, VA, we will exit the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and then head south to escape the cooler weather that seems to have enveloped this latitude. As we head south, riding the descending cold fronts, we will be pushed down the coast as we wait for another weather window, this time to cross the Gulf Stream. So, as we head south, we will have Bermuda on our left, and the eastern seaboard on our right! If we start to run low on provisions, we can always make a right turn and pull into any port along the coast to stock up or ride out a severe storm that might crop up on the area. If we feel we are prepared to make the 700 mile leap with the supplies we have onboard, then we can easily turn left and shoot over to Bermuda!  

But what if the winds never turn in favor of crossing the Gulf Stream, eventually we will run out of eastern seaboard to sail past, but this problem is actually a huge gift. If we sail south far enough, we will find ourselves in the warm state of Florida, the natural desitination for snow bird cruisers who migrate south to avoid the chilling winter. Here we would be able to play around in the Keys and enjoy the island life in the tropics for a bit while winter rages on up north.  

From this point, if the winds look favorable, we could always scoot over to the Bahamas and enjoy (what we have been told) to be some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world. 

This season has had some interesting weather, and the passage to Bermuda has frequently be fraught with horrible storms that seem to sit around the island, making landfall a treacherous feat. So, if the weather does not wish to cooperate, and we find ourselves stuck somewhere as we wait for Bermuda to become approachable, we might as well be some place warm! 

The People You Meet

They say that low tide is when you can find the really odd things in the mud flats, but I think that the really interesting ones live just above the high tide line!

When we are anchored out, we come across cruisers who are also on the hook. These people are fun to talk with as we all have a common interest at heart and have managed to get our yacht to this body of water ourselves.  

When we are near marinas though, that's where the real gems can be found. It seems that marinas attract all sorts. There are the sailors who flush money at their yacht to keep it in pristine condition, and then there are those who you wonder how they can manage to keep that derelict afloat. Sadly, these people seem to represent the mental image of a "Liveaboard", with a tarp over the boom to keep the rain off the window air conditions that is hacked into the companionway. The boats don't appear too functional and the people in them can be a bit, odd... 

While most marinas will have one or two "liveaboards" the marinas that have a yard attached to them have the real pearls! We came across one such person whose only dream was to go cruising. He bought a Hunter sailboat for $1,000 and wants to sail it around the world. This becomes clear because every time you see this person, you will hear them telling everyone they meet about their boat and how they want to sail around the world. 

While this person has good intentions to go cruising, they keep placing obstacles in their way. Every cruiser that they declare their proclamation to asks them the same question: "When do you leave?" This then brings up the fact that the boat is on the hard, and that they have no idea how to sail. When the cruiser tells them to take some sailing lessons, or better yet, launch the boat and then learn, the hard dweller begins to list all the reasons that they can't leave yet.  

The most frustrating part of this encounter was that all the advice given to them (ironically, it was all the same advice coming from many different people who do not know each other) was discarded as the list of obstacles was reinforced.  

If you want to go cruising, go now. If you have to work to pay off your car, ask yourself how you are going to use the car while you are cruising. After you answer this, sell the vehicle and go cruising now! If you hate the job you are working and can't wait to sail off into the distance, then quit your job and go cruising! 

All of the obstacles listed by this person could be easily remedied by stopping everything and simply going cruising now. 

I find it frustrating to see someone who really wants to go but holds themselves back from the dream they desire the most. Life is short, and you better enjoy it while you have it!