Our original plans were to leave this morning at 9:30. After checking the tides and currents at Fort Pierce, we all agreed that 11:00 am is better. This way we'll get there at 7:00 am on Tuesday morning. We are all itching to go but it's better to stay here than to have to wait on the ocean for a safe entry to this inlet. So.....we are waiting!!
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| Whisper |
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| Happy Hours II |
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| Rising Sun |
We left the West End of the Great Bahama Island with light
winds at our back and less than 2 foot waves.
Perfect! We were waiting and
hoping for this kind of weather!! We
were motor sailing along and enjoying the day, not believing our good luck, when we all realized our ETA was 4:30 am…..2.5
hours early. This isn’t going to
work. So, we either waste 
time on our
trip over by slowing our speed or do circles outside of the Fort Pierce Inlet
until dawn. We all shut our engines off
and sailed with just our head sails. We
still were all having a difficult time backing down on our speed…who would have
thought? Oh well, we still have a long
19-20 hour trip and who knows what’s in store later in the day or night!
There wasn’t much activity along our way. We did have a cruise ship in sight and Keith’s
AIS told him that it would pass within 2 miles of our stern…that’s good. Then we saw something big appear on the
horizon off our port bow. With Keith’s
AIS, he was able to know the name of the container ship and it’s speed. He knew by its name that the ship was bound
for Marsh Harbour. He called the captain
on the VHF to make him aware that there were 3 sailboats off his port and
wanted to know if he was keeping that same course. Yes he was and that was good for us because
he would pass within a few miles from
us. We were also entertained with
sightings of mylar balloons as well as hundreds of Portuguese Man of Wars
sailing along the surface of the water and heading for the Bahamas. They actually looked like blown up zip-lock
baggies floating on the ocean. Finally
at dusk, we could see a dark shape on the horizon but couldn’t quite make it
out. Somehow, Keith heard that it was a
tug towing some type of barge. The tug
and the barge weren’t close together so the captain was warning everybody about
the long cable stretched between the two!
Around 10 pm, we had a wind shift. It now is blowing out of the SW at 15-20
kts. Where did this come from? It wasn’t in any of the 3 forecasts that we looked
at! Of course the winds created 5-6 foot
waves and with the direction we needed to travel, they were hitting us on our
port side beam. Yikes! This makes a very uncomfortable ride…our
boats would roll port toe-rail in the water, then starboard toe-rail in the
water….back and forth for hours and hours.
This weather pattern stayed with us until we got out of the Gulf Stream
and close to the Florida coast. Luckily, none of our 5 sailors got sick! By now, we are all tired and cold and ready
to go to sleep…but not yet…we still have 3-4 hours to go. I was
so cold, my teeth were chattering! t dawned on me one of the reasons we were so cold, is because we were still in shorts and barefeet! It’s
going to be difficult to acclimate to the colder temps. During the night, Rita and I relieved our guys at the helm so
they could warm up and get some sleep, but Keith has no one..remember, he’s a solo sailor!
Motoring through the Fort Pierce Inlet was easy this morning. This is because we planned the passage during the slack tide when there is no current. It took approximately 1 hour from the time we entered the outer channel and traveled to our anchorage. I will mention that this is a very busy inlet. Fishermen are zooming in and out. We even passed an outgoing freighter.
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