Ships Blog
Date:Sat, 31 May 2025 10:27:00 GMT
Arrival in Marathon
Back in the USA!
Day 4 5 and 6. We have 1-4 foot waves and 8-15 Knot winds.
We were much relieved and the journey became hot and lazy.
We were visited twice by pods of dolphins. They seem drawn to the
motor sounds... Both times they came it was soon after we started the
engines. Also a Bird came to rest and stayed on the lifeline till morning.
He was some kind of land bird and we were at least 15 miles from Cuba.
A note about the channel: It does get shallow quick on the north east
side. On one occation we drifted about 3 miles north and sure enough by he
times I noticed the change in color we were in less than 20 feet of water
with our centerboard down! When you're sailing into the sunset you can't
see the change in color till it's too late.
There was a lot of traffic. Cargo ships going both directions but I
did hail them on 16 to make sure they knew we were there but it took them a
long time to answer so I'm sure that they were not actually watching for a
little sailboat like us. A big ship like this would crush us and not even
know they hit anything I bet. Because of this Sam and I kept a pretty close
watch on the horizon and the AIS.
Sam took first shift from 8-midnight and I took midnight to sunrise.
But in reality it was a bit fluid. Basically I went to sleep early and Sam
stayed on till he was tired and then I took it till breakfast. So sometimes
our shifts were 6 hours, sometimes 4, but it worked out great. Hannah filled
in sometimes too when both Sam and I were wasted.
Sunrises and sunsets were absolutely amazing ! I have no words to
explain it you just have to see the vastness of the ocean with the shades of
the evening sun going all around the horizon from pink to orange to blue and
even the reflection on the sea turns it a kind of wine color. The blue is
such a pure deep royal color and the water was crystal clear.
Poor Lila was miserable and wouldn't eat for the first 2 days and was
drooling and throwing up. But around day 3 she started eating and 4 and 5
were pretty normal. She lost a lot of weight before she mellowed out. She
mostly sat in a box below the dinette for 3 days. Hannah had to pick her up
and set her in the cat box because she wouldn't move. When she did it
herself for the first time we knew she was getting better.
The generator was a constant problem it would quit at random intervals
and we had to use the bicycle pump to blow the line out multiple times.
There seemed to be no problem with the main engine. I wish I knew what was
floating around in there. We ran the generator about 1 hour for every 4
hours of autopilot. We were pretty lazy on this trip and used the autopilot
a lot. We also kept the centerboard down the entire trip. When we lowered
it to stop the rolling of course it bangs about every 10 seconds, but you
get used to it. But when we tried to pull it up it didn't work so sam and I
had to diagnose the stuck switch. For the moment the limit switches are
disabled so we can use the motor to pull it up and down. This means someone
has to watch with the floorboards pulled up to make sure we don't run it off
the end of the worm gear. I also found that our backstay is not in the best
shape. I'm a little worried about it till we get it inspected and changed
if necessary.
We ate nuts, beef jerkey, eggs, sandwidches with home made bread,
Coffee and cookies and soup. The soup and eggs were only on smooth days. Still a
,a warm meal is nice especially in the cool of the morning or evening.
When we arrived outise Marathon we tried to slow down so that we
arrived at sunrise. However I reefed the Genny too late and so we got up to the reef at
4am. To avoid a harbor at night I did a zig zag and a circle to buy time till about 6am when the
first light came. Then we entered the reef dropped the sails and motored in
to anchor. We set the anchor at about 8am. However on the first attempt
the anchor windless would not release. We had checked the motor before we
left but hadn't checked the spinfree function. So Sam was up there with a
wedge and a hammer hitting the spindle to break it free after a year of non
use. The anchor set easily after the second attempt and we listened to the
morning net as Hannah made breakfast for our first morning back in Marathon.
One of the first things we did after registering with the office was
to take long long showers!!!! this was quite literally our first shower in
over a year. I mean, we had the hose with a shower head on the deck but it
is not the same as a full real shower and it was absolutely amazing. You
get used to boat life and you almost don't remember what it was like with
all the normal amenitites. Then we went for icecream and came back for the
Happy Hour at the Tiki by the Marina office.
We were so happy to see old friends we hadn't seen in over a year and
also meet new ones. We stayed late and didn't return to the boat till after
10pm. After being up for nearly 48 hours I crashed and just got up about an
hour ago to work on this blog, diagnose the broken dorade box on the
foredeck, put up sail covers, empty the bilge, check the water level, Sam
got fuel, and listen to the morning net! AND it's now nearly noon and I
still don't have coffee because Hannah is making lime curd, french toast
with home made bread, eggs and maple syrup. It's going to be a great day
and we're glad to be back in the US.
Date:Tue, 27 May 2025 00:17:00 GMT
One Third of the way to Florida
Just Past Great Inagua
Day 1 was pretty spicy. We have 6-10 foot waves and 25 Knot winds.
We were all pretty miserable. We left Luperon around 13:00 and it took us
amost an our to get out of the harbor and past the reefs.
The winds were not quite what we would have liked them to be so we made
our way north for quite a bit before turning NW. When we did, on a broad
reach we were having trouble keeping the Genoa filled as it was blanketed
by the Main. In that process we got the lazy sheet wrapped around the
forward Dorades and it tore them off the deck. I'm pretty upset about this
but it's fixable once we're in the yard.
Day 2 the waves mellowed to 4-6 feet and the wind settled down to
15g20 from about 130. We moved to Gig and gigger and we're making about 5-=
7 knots. We're eating granola for breakfast and bean salad for dinner.
We're still eating Hannah's oatmeal, cranberry, white chocolate cookies
and fresh beef Jerky from Daryl and Tracy on Sparrow.
Day 3 the generator clogged again and I tried charging with the
engine but that seems to have died so we used Sam's bicycle pump to blow
out the clog. However I spilt diesel in the process from the lines on the
batteries and on my hands. After cleaning it up I went to go topside, and
a wave hit. I feel off the stairs with my diesel slippery hands and hit
my head hard on the cabin, landed on the refrigerator and then down to the
cabin sole. I've got a pretty good headache and my ears are ringing.
Hannah is telling me not to go to sleep.
We are still on track for Thursday or Friday in Marathon... OH... we
put the centerboard down and now it won't come back up so we will have to
do it manually. For Now we have an 11 foot draft.
Date:Sat, 24 May 2025 11:55:00 GMT
Getting Underway
Leaving the DR for the Old Bahama Channel
Well folks this is the test of our email system to blog.
We were supposed to leave yesterday but the Windlass broke (bad
connections and broken relay)
so it took most of the afternoon to fix that. So we're leaving in a few
hours this morning!
Date:Fri, 23 May 2025 00:33:00 GMT
Update and heading out
Heading north
Well, the time has come and we're making final preps for leaving
Luperon for the US. Our destination is North Carolina. We are planning on
taking the Old Bahama Channel. Our first stop is Marathon Fl. I know it's
been a while since we posted but honestly we were just enjoying Luperon.
We've been getting ready for about 2 months but all kinds of maint items
were getting in the way not the least of which were a new exhaust elbow...
AGAIN!, and a clogged fuel line for the generator which took nearly a month
to diagnose. We finally blew the line out with a tire pump/compressor. it
took about 40 psi or so (don't know exactly) to push out the clog. We have
found a miriad of small other problems that pop up just for sitting in the
harbor for over a year. But we finally have them mostly fixed, and we are
actively organizing and stocking the boat for the journey. We are excited
to get underway again and to meet old friends along the East Coast. We are
sad to leave Luperon DR and all our friends here but it is time to take care
of some things in the US.