Thursday, May 11, 2017

Passage Log, Day 1

Day 1 - Monday, May 8th

I am up at my usual time, 6:25am, to listen to Chris Parker. I submitted our itinerary to him via email and asked him to keep us updated on weather every day since our HF transmitter is still on the fritz (it receives just fine). The forecast has not changed substantially and it still looks like a good window all the way to South Carolina as long as we get in before Friday afternoon – though Chris does warn that we will be motoring into light northerlies for at least 24 hours and possibly 36. After that the wind is forecast to fill in from the south, west, and southwest, making for a pleasant downwind approach to the Carolinas.

While I take Piper to shore one last time Dawn prepares the boat, and we are essentially ready to go once I return and we stow the dinghy on our foredeck. I use the last few minutes to take care of some emails and details before we lose contact for several days. We're anchor up right at 9am, exactly as planned, and I'm glad I finished working on the fuel system last night instead of continuing to tinker with it this morning. It's a quick smooth ride out of Ft. Pierce inlet, and the ocean is practically lakelike as we hoist the mainsail and turn to a 042° course for the first 15 miles. There's  quite a lot of traffic, most of it sportfishing boats plus a few ships here and there. Nearly every ship we’ve run across in US waters has AIS, which makes dealing with them considerably easier.


The wind is initially NNW at 5 knots, and it backs a little further as we turn northward into the Gulf Stream just after noon. We start out with 2 knots of tail current, which increases to nearly 4 knots as we ease our way into the stream. I've had both fishing lines out ever since the inlet (both rod and handline) and at 2pm we hear the snap of the clothespin signaling that the handline has been hit. At long last - a Mahi! At first glance he doesn't seem that big but once we get him onto the boat he turns out to be big enough to keep – in fact we get some decent meat off of him. And then just before sunset, another Mahi hits the handline, and shortly thereafter we hook a fat Bonito on the rod and reel. A three fish day – the drought is over! I think my previous mistake was trawling the lures too close to the boat. This time I'm letting them out much further, and it seems to make the difference.


By 4pm the wind has shifted NNE and we begin to tack back and forth across our course. I want to stay in the Gulf Stream but intend to ride its western edge in case it gets too rough and we have to duck out. North wind under 10 knots is usually ok, but anything over that and the stream starts to get rough. The waves actually start kicking up before sundown – I later learn that there had been 25 knot north winds well to the north of us, and this is the messy leftover swell. We are at slightly reduced power due to an overtemp alarm on our engine this afternoon…it hasn’t done that since last year. It is putting a normal amount of water out of the exhaust, but I do know the heat exchanger is due for a going-through. It's fine at 2200 rpm. At that power setting in the chop we are averaging little over 4 knots speed through water, but 7-8 knots speed over ground.

Dawn naps a bit in the afternoon and I take an hour-long snooze after dinner (which is delayed for me to clean the two fish we catch just before sunset). I'm back on watch at 10pm and pass my 3-hour watch by reading a Kindle book. Just after midnight the wind starts to pick up above 10 knots and it gets markedly rougher, and I tack back inshore. When Dawn comes on watch at 1am I leave her with instructions to continue on a NNW heading until 5 nm west of course (W80°05’) and keep going if the ride hadn’t improved. When I come back at up 4am she is nearly back to our original course on a port tack; she reports that at W80°05’ the water temp was down a full degree and the current down to 2 knots. Back at W80° the wind is down a bit but it's still rough so I tack back inshore again, though not quite as aggressively, and as the wind shifts more NE I am able to parallel our course about 2nm west with a reasonable ride. As the sun rises the wind begins to die and the seas start to calm, and our speed over ground rises above 8 knots. Under such conditions, the Gulf Stream becomes like a magic carpet ride northward....

To be continued - Day 2.

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