4/19 - We (myself and crew of Tristan Hayman and Daniel Rich) leave Shelter Bay Marina at 10:30 a.m. with light winds and a partially cloudy sky. We exit the breakwater without delay as a large ship had just entered in front of us and none was approaching after it. Outside the breakwater we’re traveling at 2200 rpm at approx. 6.5 knts. at first with modest swells and no waves. It’s rocky without the sails up but there isn’t enough wind to use them. After a while making about 6 knts. average, so not bad. Ran all day and through the night with engine only. Lots of commercial traffic, I guess going to and coming from the Canal. We missed a number of squalls just by sheer luck and by the second part of the night the sky was clear and the stars shining.
4/20 - Winds and swells are freshening in the morning and we raise the sails at around 9:00 a.m. Strangely we are not making enough speed with just the sails even though winds are sufficiently brisk. Anemometer is not registering correct wind direction either. It shows broad reach but we’re hard on the wind so we sail and power at 1800 rpm and average well over 6 knts. Winds are between 16 knts. and 22 knots but seas are moderate. Made 140 nm in the first 24 hrs. Later in the day wind freshens further and seas build and we turn off engine and sail at good speeds for most of the day. I’d say we were averaging 7 plus knots and frequently reached 8 knts. 8.4 our max. Crazy tanker approaches from our stern (we have right of way) and passes within .484 nm. with no restrictions on its ability to maneuver at all. Just not right. We reef main and jib at sundown as a precaution, but jib won’t fill reefed so we take it in. It’s a good thing we reefed. Winds freshen further at night and seas build significantly. We also resume motoring at 1,800 rpm to keep our course since we’re so hard on the wind.
4/21 - Seas 6-8 and winds up to 26.7 mph. Good thing we’re reefed. We run all day with engine at 1,800 and reefed main. Have a small pod of juvenile dolphin visit for a while in the morning. Later in the day Dan sees that the furling line is badly abraded, but seems like only cover, not inner core, so with a tape wrap maybe we’ll be OK. After that the aft first reef line parts and Tristan has to rig something to hold aft portion of reef in place. Hey, it’s a boat! Rest of the day and evening are uneventful except that I break the tab that allows me to engage and disengage the gimbaling of the stove. Can be fixed temporarily with twine, but it’s too rough to cook anyway.
4/22 - Seas are still significant but lowering and winds are still in the high teens and low 20's when it gets light. As the morning progresses seas drop and wind drops slightly. Visited by another pod of dolphins. We (mostly Tristan) make some repairs. We bind the badly abraded jib furling line and repair “guest” commode which suffered broken anchor bolts. By mid-day conditions are moderate as to wind and waves and we get to “choke point” between a reef and a shallow area at 2:30 where we alter our heading from N/NE to N/W to proceed directly to the Yucatan Channel (“YC”). We turn engine off for the first time except for the afternoon of the 21st and we’re sailing beautifully with full genoa and reefed main making almost 8 knots a lot of the time and one time up to 8.4 knts. Finally no engine drone and a much more kindly motion. First time in three nights that I can make a “proper” dinner. With all of that motoring we’re still showing a little less than 3/4 of a tank of fuel which is cool.
4/23 - By sunrise wind and waves are really down and we’re having trouble keeping speed above 4 knots on our course for the YC. As the morning progresses wind drops to below 10 knts. and is “shifty”, but we’re still doing mid to upper 4 knts. with genoa and reefed main which perplexes me until I realize that we picked up the prevailing NW flowing current which is probably giving us a boost of up to 1.5 knts. We keep the main reefed because I think that it will blanket the jib if we unfurl it completely. We continue this way all day and make decent very “comfortable” although not speedy progress.
4/24 - Around 2:00 a.m. wind lessens further and gets behind us if we stay on course. Don’t want to try to shake out reef in main, install preventer, and try to sail wing on wing at night in light winds unless necessary, and batteries are starting to move towards needing recharging, so choose to furl jib, bring main in tight and put engine (“iron genny”) on. At 1,800 rpm engine burns about .75 gal. fuel per hour and when running the generator burns about .5 gal. fuel per hour, so using the engine makes sense to assist our propulsion and charge our batteries at the same time. We continue this way doing between 4.2 and 4.9 knts. through the rest of the night and the early morning. It’s quite warm for the first time because it’s sunny and we’re running with the wind, which is light, so no apparent wind. At about 1:00 pm we turn off engine, let out reefed main and jib and run wing on wing directly down wind, which we can do right on our course line. We’re probably averaging 3.6 knts., which is no bargain, but we’re traveling exactly on the course we wish to travel. We’ll take in the jib and sheet in the reefed main before dark and use the engine throughout the night unless the wind picks up or changes direction appreciably. While sailing we see a small pod of pilot whales about 75 yards off out port side. The day has been predominately sunny and warm with the following wind. Around 5:30 pm we take in the genny and sheet in the main and turn on the engine. BOOM!, power to the Anemometer and autopilot is lost as is our GPS and AIS. Ugh. We do what little we can to troubleshoot as darkness approaches but are not successful and have to hand steer without GPS and use radar since we have no AIS. It’s worrisome that AIS is out, but nothing to be done about it except track ships on radar and avoid them. A number of days later we learn that we are not seeing AIS targets on the plotter but that we are transmitting our position of AIS as we are hailed by a passing ship on the VHF by name to confirm our course intentions. Hand steering in these downwind conditions with reefed main sheeted in is very, very difficult, particularly for 3 hours at a time. Notwithstanding the loss of our plotter GPS we are confident that we can navigate using our Garmin Inreach devices that have GPS and rudimentary plotter functions in conjunction with our paper charts. None of us is sextant proficient although we have a sextant aboard. A day or so later it turns out that Tristan in fiddling around with out plotter and is able to select the plotter’s internal GPS which is still functioning over the separate dedicated redundant GPS which the plotter usually uses and we have GPS and overall plotter function again, which is a big help. Still no AIS or autopilot.
4/25 - Sunny, warm, light winds. Motor sail for a while but not enough wind from the right direction for sails to help and take them in/down and motor, making reasonable progress but eating up fuel. Larger pod of dolphins accompany us for an hour or so. These are much smaller dolphins than the ones that I am used to seeing in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. We no longer have enough fuel to motor from the exit point of the Yucatan Channel to PGI, so it will soon be decision time as we exit the YC to decide whether to divert to Key West to refuel or to push on for PGI hoping for favorable winds (not expected) and not too much adverse current (friends in PGI say that unless we divert way West and then go North before we head to PGI we will have adverse current). We’re investigating. Sure we could just go North and West and tack until we get the conditions we want but it is important to me to keep the schedule as much as possible because I’ve put aside a business deal for a client to make this trip and can’t neglect it for much longer than I initially told the client I would be gone.
4/26 - Winds and seas are too light to sail and coming from behind us so we begin by motoring but then the winds pick up a little and shift and we are able to sail at a rate of between 4 and 5 knots directly towards our waypoints to pass through the Yucatan Channel. We decide to head for Key West after we get through the Channel so we turn off the engine to conserve fuel and we sail on jib alone under blue skies and over blue seas with just enough breeze to keep us a little cool. Tristan catches a smaller but “keepable” Dorado on his hand line so we’ll have some fresh fish tonight. Looks like we’ve got other 12 volt devices that are no longer working so our “workarounds” are getting more numerous. Time to put the engine back on if we are going to get through the “Canal de Yucatan” (the commercial shipping lanes just at the Westernmost tip of Cuba) before nightfall, which is important since we have no AIS working as far as we know and we have no idea about the volume of commercial traffic we will encounter. We’re using more fuel than I feel comfortable with for getting to Key West in the prevailing conditions, but the engine has to come on to help us through this passage due to light winds from a less than favorable direction. We get through the Channel having seen only a very few commercial vessels and we turn for a rhumb line to Key West in light winds and calm seas. Remarkably, even though we were more or less no more than 12 nm from Cuba when approaching the Channel and after when we were paralleling it we couldn’t see it even though the skies were clear and sunny and we couldn’t see it on our radar. Very strange. I have seen lots of land masses on my radar over the years (but maybe only at really close range). Dorado is very good for dinner but as it gets dark seas build, the wind came up to the middle teens and we encounter the Gulf Stream right on our nose. Certainly didn’t figure on that, but never looked at that course to Key West when I had access to Gulf Stream current directions. Anyway, in the middle of the night we have to change tactics and head North to move out of the current. We put up the jib and the boat makes good headway away from Cuba and the adverse Gulf Stream, but not on a course that will take us directly anywhere we want to go.
4/27 - The next morning we have a good breeze and we are out of the current, but it’s clear that we cannot sail (wind on our nose) or motor (questionable fuel) to Key West, so we change our plan again and head directly for Punta Gorda as we originally intended to do. We have good wind from a more or less favorable direction and we make good time sailing more or less in the right direction. Since we’re experiencing moderate conditions and moving in the direction that we wish to go, we make a cardinal mistake. Contrary to my safety oriented plan to insist that we reef the jib and main before nightfall, we decide not to reef the jib and main as night falls and in the middle of the night we suffer the “consequences”. Breeze comes up big time (can’t say how much for sure since anemometer is not working) and seas build and we have a real “Nantucket sleigh ride” for most of the night.
4/28 - Aside from one middle of the night jibe which makes a racket but does no damage we “weather” the conditions, reef in the morning and enjoy a vigorous sail for most of the day on a course more or less a rhumb line for Punta Gorda. In the evening we reef the main and take in the jib as the winds are too much on our “nose” to sail. Later the winds and seas settle down and we have a tranquil night sail on course to Punta Gorda. A little before midnight I decide that we’re not making enough speed under sail to give us any chance to reach Punta Gorda tomorrow in time to make a high tide entrance into the PGI canal system to wind up at Duet’s dock and I turn the engine on and we motor sail under double reefed main at 1,800 rpm for the rest of the night.
4/29 - In the early morning, making nice but modest motoring headway I still make the same assessment, but the wind picks up around 7:00 a.m. and we take out part of the jib. That gives us appreciably more speed and once more we are on target to get to the entrance to Charlotte Harbor to make the high tide passage through the connection estuary between Charlotte Harbor and the PGI canals. We get to the Charlotte Harbor sea buoy around 12:30 p.m. and are right on target to get to the entrance to the canal system at an hour or so before high tide. Ideal. Chris and Diane Port are on their boat on their way to the Keys for a couple of weeks and they hook up with us on their way out of the harbor. Then, when we get to Ponce Park, Dave and Betsy Jones are there to greet us on our way in. Unfortunately my depth sounder is acting up a bit showing me much less water than expected so I “white knuckle” it through the entrance channel with the depth sounder saying I should be aground and am concentrating so hard when we get to Ponce Park that I don’t even look over to see Dave and Betsy. The rest of the passage through the mangroves and the PGI canals is uneventful as is our “tie up” to the dock. Duet is back home at about 5:00 p.m. after being away for 29 months.
Overall, for the entire 1,150 nm passage we encountered only moderate seas and moderate winds, and we encountered no rain, no squalls, and no lightening although Tristan reported passing between two squalls our first night out.
Although we worried about having enough fuel to power to PGI if we had to we ended with a little over a quarter of a tank of fuel.
In addition to losing the function of our autopilot and a number of our other electronics we had to replace a shredded impeller in the generator. This is the third shredded impeller that I have had to replace in the last 24 months with the generator having had very little use during that period, so the impellers that I am using are suspect. Again at Tristan’s suggestion I check on the manufacture of these replacement impellers and find that they are not genuine Oberdorfer, but well-regarded replacements by “StayCoolPumps”. I will be sourcing genuine Oberdorfer replacements instead for future use. I don’t trust these StayCool substitutes no matter how well regarded they are.
Epilogue - When I checked the weather in the Eastern Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, two days after we arrived in PGI there was no wind anywhere and the seas were flat.
Engine hours at start: 1,255.
Engine Hours at end: 1,414
Traveled: 1,150 nm
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