Cruising on a Sailboat: The Fantasy, The Reality

Somewhere in the back of the mind floats a fantasy of the romance and adventure of sailing off to foreign lands on your boat. The sun is always shining. Skies and water are always blue. The wind blows gently at 10-15 knots where ever you want to go. Each night you anchor in a beautiful sheltered cove, usually with palm trees ashore, and celebrate sunset with a glass of wine before eating your gourmet dinner. Depending on your mood, you see no one as you look at an isolated island paradise, or you see charming villages with cute restaurants and well supplied stores. The boat performs perfectly whatever you ask of it, be it a thrilling ride, heeled over, exalting in the speed, or coasting gently with a colorful spinnaker afloat. That is the picture. That is the dream.

Reality has some elements of the dream. There really are sun sparkled days and star spangled nights. There are times when the boat sings through the water, wind and craft in harmony. But be advised, these are not the common moments. In the real world, the wind blows too weakly to move the boat fast enough to reach your destination, or it blows too strongly and sails must be reefed, or maybe, the wind is perfect, but blowing in exactly the wrong direction, slowing progress and turning your beautiful sailboat into a motor boat.

The beautiful tropical isles have mosquitoes and "no see ums"; the charming villages are shabby and poor. They are still replete with happy people and unique history, but joblessness abounds and paint peels. The cute restaurants have linoleum floors and plastic chairs.Things break on boats and you must be an electrician, plumber, and mechanic. Sometimes you laugh as you balance in your 2 and 1/2 by 2 and 1/2 foot cold water shower stall, pitching from side to side as the boat rolls and bucks over the waves.

Storms can catch you unaware. The boat heaves and groans and you struggle against beating sails and stubborn, taut lines to regain control. You can sail for hours on the edge of fear while wind whines. lightning flashes, and waves tower around you. But make no mistake, this too is part of the adventure. When you succeed in dominating the elements, conquering obstacles, making all the repairs, you are no longer 68, you are 28 again, strong, brave, and full of life, because, by God, you can still do it. And the joy of meeting every challenge, of being master of your fate makes up for all the small moments when things go wrong.

Beaufort to Charleston: A Beloved Repeat

Beaufort feels like home to us, we have visited so many times and have good friends there as well. After our lack of sleep on the trip, we treated ourselves to the marina, enjoying the town, the restaurants, the laundry, showers, and our friends there. Beauforts Riverwalk was in full bloom , with its deeply shaded pathways and sunny lawns.


We invited Gail and Kia Malott to join us for dinner on the boat...discovering as we changed out our propane tank to the stove, that we now had a leaking pigtail line. Oh yes, and our shaft seal had begun to leak again. Let's see, no anchor windlass motor, energy management system on the fritz, leaking shaft seal, and no stove.

Revived after a few nights sleep, we motored, again, to Charleston, via a night anchored deep in the marsh at Steamboat Creek, vivid marsh grasses,distant tree lines, winding waters and spectacular sunsets.

We came to Charleston to have rub rails installed at St. Barts  Benetau dealership. They looked at our shaft too, and told us it was misaligned, apparently as a result of the repair to flex plate in Key West. They realigned the shaft, and told us  that the misalignment may have worn the seal badly enough that the boot would need replacing, but we should test it before replacing the boot, because it was probably fine. We celebrated a quiet 46th anniversary at Salty Mikes, at the marina, and had Charlie and Jennifer Black join us for cocktails on the boat before going out to another restaurant the following night.

Our last journey was a return to the Beaufort area, at Dawtaw Marina, on the Morgan River where we planned to haul out for the summer. The end of the cruising season was rather ignominious as Cookie ran the boat aground at low tide in the Stono River outside Charleston. With 8 feet of water on the starboard side, and 5' 10 inches under the rudder, it seemed like plenty of water, but then again, there was only 5 feet under the port side and 4 feet under the bow. The rising tide, reverse gear, and our bow thruster managed to get us off within a few minutes. We arrived at the marina after hours with no help around, 10 knots of wind,  and 2 knots of current in the Morgan River.While leaning down to lasso the cleat, Cookie's headphones, which we use to communicate while anchoring and docking, fell off into the water and floated away. We were able to get lines over on the bow and stern, but had to go ashore to pull the boat closer to the dock by hand.

After securing the boat, we took stock of this years cruising expenses: burned out windlass motor (ordered and received), leaking gas line (ordered and received), lost headphone, energy management system (partially functional), new rub rails, repaired shaft alignment, oh yes, and the leaking continued, so a new boot has been ordered. Looks like a lot of projects when we return in the fall. Not to mention that our air conditioner cooling water pump has difficulty maintaining the flow needed for the increased capacity of our new slightly larger air conditioner and would operate better with a new pump.

We spent the next several days preparing Wind Dancer for life on the hard during the summer, and the nights socializing with Gail and Kia and Jim and Pam Minton. So nice to have good friends who provided us with food, lodging, entertainment, and a ride to the airport.



Luke and Jan and Sand Castle live on Dawatw Island and will keep an eye on the boat for us. So we say farewell to our waterfront home, Wind Dancer, with its ever changing view and beautiful sunsets until October when we return to cruise again.





Fort Pierce to Beaufort or How We Became a Sailboat Again

After motoring for hundreds of miles to the Bahamas and half way home again, the sailing gods smiled on us. For 39 straight hours and 43 of the 50 hours of our trip, we had perfect winds, 13 to 18 knots, from the perfect direction, east. Oh, yes, this is why we bought a sailboat! Skimming north on watery wings, all the way to the Georgia coast, Wind Dancer was at her best.

 

Even when the winds shifted and died at last, luck was with us. We reached the Port Royal inlet during flood tide and rode the kind currents up the Beaufort River to arrive at the City Marina just at slack tide, exactly the time you want to arrive at a place with 8 foot tides and 2 knot currents. This was a wonderful trip even though Rick and Cookie arrived in the same clothes we'd worn for 48 hours and with about 8 hours of sleep between us. Sleeping heeled over in bumpy waters just doesn't seem to get any easier.

Storms at Sea

Our overnight dash from the Berries to the US had us once again changing plans en route. We left thinking to catch the Gulf Stream and make Cape Canaveral in a day and a half or Fernandina Beach in two days. Not to be. A front that had lingered over Florida for several weeks finally made its move. In the middle of the night, two intensive lightening storms left the Florida coast and aimed directly for us in a pincher type movement. Sails were lowered and foul weather gear put on deck, we already had life jackets and lifelines employed.

We watched the storms rumble toward us in a virtual state with greens, reds, and yellows zig zagged with lightening strikes on our weather monitor and we watched visually as stars disappeared behind clouds leaving black holes in the sky. Brilliant flashes of deadly lightning forked  into the water. We had been watching several Bahama bound cruise liners about 8 miles away. One by one, the disappeared into the chaotic clutter of the storm on radar. You are never as alone on the ocean as when you are sailing blind into  ship filled waters in a storm.  We changed course to the SW, going against the Gulf Stream in order to cross behind the weakening southern storm and avoid the more aggressive storm racing at us from the northwest. The edge of the southern storm caught us with winds shrieking suddenly to 28, rattling the empty mast and blowing sudden spray across the cockpit as waves leaped to life.

The good news was that our maneuvering kept us from being engulfed by storms or cruise liners. The bad news was that several hours of going the wrong direction meant we only made it to Fort Pierce, Florida.

Last Stop: Great Harbor in the Berries

We completed a long day from Royal Island to Great Harbor with a mix of sail and motor, circling around Stirrup Cay arriving there just as two Holland America cruise liners completed uploading their passengers from their island playground. We reached Bullock Harbor just before sunset for a nice easy anchorage. Early the next day we entered the harbor itself and tied up to the marina there, very pretty, but once even better.  Friendly staff, sheltered docks with 40 foot finger piers, and what once was a stunning poolside bar, still with beautiful gardens and good food, but a broken fountain and many chipped and missing mosaic tiles.

Return to Eluethera

Eluethera is an oddly shaped island, something like a sling-shot with an enormous reversed C sprouting from the right prong.  The center of the C is filled with shallow water, coral heads, and shifting sands. We stopped for a night at the tip of the left prong, Powell's point. There is nothing at Powell's Point but a sheltered marina. Fishermen like it here, a protected cove with nice deep water slips, electricity for their air conditioners and TVs, restaurants which specialize in cooking your catch, fuel, wifi, laundry, a few items in the convenience store, and a cheerful staff. The mega yacht, Gallant Lady was tied up here. And, we discovered to our delight, so was the sport-fisherman, Robert, who also hails from Key West. We met Robert last year at Staniel Key where he shared some fresh fish with us. This year, he gave us some of the dolphin fish that the restaurant had cooked for him and later fillets of fresh caught tuna and some Popsicles to refresh on a hot day.

We stayed two  nights. We had hoped to restart out energy management system, which was managing still, but would no longer tell us the State of charge of the battery or the amps in amps out.  Cookie had inadvertently pushed the button that told the system to reset for an 80% charge. Supposedly, a good day on AC power would reset the system, but it didn't happen. So now we are without windless motor and energy management.

Never mind, we head out for Governors Harbor, hugging the deep inner side of the C shape, and reach our goal by late afternoon. The town was discovered by the Spanish, but settled by English seeking religious freedom. The harbor is protected from the NNW through the SSW, but open to anything westerly. The anchorage was reported as poor, partially because the bottom rises from 30 foot depths to depths of only a foot or two within a short space. As we sat eating dinner, we kept our eyes on a huge cloud approaching from the west. It didn't look good for our anchorage, But before the cloud bank reached us, another storm blew in behind in from the Atlantic. We swung wildly at anchor in a full circle, in gusts to 30, and the rain poured down. Jagged cloud to water lightening sizzled from the skies just outside the harbor. When all stopped, we appeared to be intact, but set our GPS for anchor watch, just in case.

The morning rose sweetly sunny and we happily set ashore, tying our dinghy to a railing on the steps up the seawall. Both a reported new marina opening and a dingy dock proving to be in the mind of some developer only. Governors Harbor is a village of contrasts. Fabulous homes with beautiful views dot the hillside above. Abandoned buildings and shabby homes circle the water. Lovely Bahamian churches are here and a restored 18th century jailhouse. We saw basketball camps and sailing classes taking place, but heard the sad tale of stolen equipment. Even in paradise little evils creep in.



Interior of a church



  



Exterior of another church






 

Old Jailhouse







Restaurant Patio



another Church

After a great patio lunch, we decided to check our anchor while we were in the dinghy. Disaster! It seems that we weren't actually anchored there. Instead, our anchor was laying uselessly on its side while the chain had wrapped itself around a small coral head on the bottom!



Wind Dancer at anchor in Governors Harbor

SSince Rick had to raise all 95 feet of chain and  to maneuver the boat around the coral head, we decided to go on to another anchorage. Twenty miles north, we stopped at a site called The Glass Window. Nearby is a beautiful anchorage in front of a beach, protected from all but the western winds. Lots of rocks, thin sand and grass, but we had no trouble anchoring. The Glass Window was once a natural bridge, which connected two parts of the island. When the natural bridge collapsed in a storm, a highway bridge took its place. Here the waves wash over the bottom at high tide, from the Atlantic into the interior banks of the island.  Even at low tide, we could see water splash up as the waves pounded on the rocks of the far side.

This was one of those nights you dream of as a sailor, reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry, Starry Night, complete with a moonrise of beauty, gentle breezes, and a million stars.

The following day, east winds ballooned to the 20s forcing us to add 14 miles to our travels by going around to the wider, easier Fleeming Cut, rather than attempt Current Cut with the winds opposing the tides.  We dashed out into the ocean and back across to the banks on the other side to reach our goal of Royal Island. We had worried that plans to restart a development there might have closes the anchorage, but no problem, no development.

We stayed the next day too in order to avoid travel in the Northwest Passage on wind whipped waves caused by the 20 knot plus breezes.