High Winds, Whirlwinds, and Following Winds

Tuesday, November 1 to Sunday, November 6, 2016

We have had a whirlwind week! We have attended many informative seminars, worked frantically to get our boat ready for the ocean passage, met many new people, attended lots of socials, and shared lots of ideas and strategies with the other ARC sailors. You've heard about the book called 'Eat, Pray, Love'? Well, this week it was more like 'Learn, Work, Play' for us.

On Tuesday, we had seminars in the morning--weather forecasting and route planning, the Gulf Stream, and diesel maintenance. Lots of interesting information. For instance, common knowledge says that you should never cross the Gulf Stream in a north wind, because it makes the ride too lumpy. However, that's not true along most of the US east coast(excluding Florida). For most of the States, the Gulf Stream runs from the southwest to the northeast (see screenshot below) Therefore, we want a NW or N wind. (Crossing from Florida to the Bahamas is different. The Gulf Stream runs to the north there, so we don't want a north wind when crossing there. Otherwise, it's too rough and choppy.). Also, we didn't know that there are a bunch of other strong currents that we'll be going through, and we can use these to our advantage if we know where they are. You can go to the Ocean Prediction Center to see chart of the currents. The scale on the right shows how fast the current is--
up to 3 knots in some places! We definitely want to be running with these currents, not against them.

When we got back to the boat, we continued checking off items on our to do list, including ordering more spare engine parts. It's endless!

On Wednesday, we finally had a day all to ourselves, so we started tackling some of the jobs on our list. Carey secured the anchor on the bow and the new dinghy in the vee berth. I made some food for the trip: Jeanie's Busy Day Soup, Mom's Date Loaf and Mom's Raisin Loaf. I may not feel like cooking anything for the first couple days, so I'm trying to be prepared for light pre-made meals.

In the evening, we all went to the Commodore Theatre to see the movie with Ben Affleck, called 'The Accountant'. It's a cool theatre that serves food and drinks. We sat a small table for two for dinner and the movie. The movie was good, too!


The seminars on Thursday's schedule are Offshore Yacht Rigging Tips & Tricks, Hands-On Sail Repair, Cooking & Galley Tips for Ocean Sailing, and Cruising the Bahamas. These were all good seminars, but they would have been more helpful earlier in the week when we could have put some of their advice into effect. We just don't have time to add more to our list!

Unfortunately, we were too busy to go to the Rally Quiz Night. Late in the afternoon we finally got our insurance fixed up. Thank goodness! In the evening, we changed the V belt and the fuel filter, and bled the fuel/water separator. We finished around 8:00 and had dinner. We had to eat in the cockpit in the dark because it smelled like diesel down below. We aired it out and it was fine by bedtime.

During the Friday morning seminars we were told that we are leaving the next day--Saturday. Yikes! We're not ready yet!

THE HEAT IS ON!

Of course, everyone else was scrambling like crazy, too, so we didn't feel alone in our stress. There were some seminars and demonstrations that we really wanted to see, so we got as much done between those as possible. We changed the oil and oil filter, filled the water tanks and the potable water jugs, bought more spare parts for our Diesel engine, paid the marina bill, and best of all--WE SOLD OUR DINGHY! Yippee! An old guy, Robert, from a neighbouring boat in the Marina was interested, but he wanted us to blow it up so he could see what kind of shape it was in. Aaarrrgghhh! We just didn't have the time to do that, but we said we would try. He came back later and said that a young man from the marina would help him inflate it if we would give him the pump. Perfect! We gathered up the stuff, handed it over, and didn't think anything more of it. Apparently, Robert had gone into the office, unrolled the dinghy, taken a quick look and realized it was like new, and sa
id he would take it. We brought the oars and he paid us US dollars. Woohoo! Good deal for everyone. We were going to have to pay $100-$200 dollars to send it home, plus all of the hassle, so we were happy.

After a demonstration about deploying life rafts, flares, EPIRBs, and US Coast Guard support, we went to the Skippers' Briefing and the Bon Voyage Party. No drinks for us, since we were leaving the next day and still had to finish straightening up the boat and putting everything in a secure place.


It's Saturday, November 5, 2016! Departure Day!

"We cannot reach new horizons if we fear to leave the shore."

Well, we're leaving the shore! Today's the day. We got up around 7:00 and had breakfast, then got ready to go after saying goodbye to Barry and Kath on Yarona. They've been great. Hugs and handshakes all around. (No, Carey didn't hug anyone. LOL)

And we're off! We left at 8:35 and are the seventh boat to leave the dock. Nice calm winds to leave the dock, so that was a nice start. Once we got out of the River and into the open, we had much stronger winds and lumpy seas. Good sailing weather! However, when we turned south the wind was directly astern and getting lighter. Unfortunately, we had to turn on the engine.

Overnight, it's really hard to see the other boats. Ships could be coming right toward us, but without AIS we wouldn't have any idea what direction they were heading. Thank goodness we have AIS! It was really cold on the night watch. I watch the horizon, write, check the AIS on the chartplotter, listen to my audiobook, check the horizon, and so it continues.

Carey was on watch when we crossed into the Gulf Stream. We reached our entry waypoint at about 4:45, but he said the water didn't start to warm up for about another hour after that. By 7:30 the water was 84 degrees. (It had been 71 degrees.) Definitely warmer! The water depth is over 10,000 feet here. Wow!

I woke up to dolphins jumping around our bow! So cool!

These are definitely ocean swells. Wide and high, but gentle rolling. Constant rolling. It's like a crazy carnival ride--up, down, side to side, roll to the left, roll to the right, and do it all again.

All is well on RC Wings.