Punta Gorda to St. Thomas Winter 2018/19
11/29 - Crew is all here. Lloyd (Lloyd Crocker) flew in on the 26th and Greg flew in last night. We leave at daybreak. Winds are mild out of the Northeast. I can’t back away from the dock so have to spin the boat in forward to get out of the canal for the first time. It’s tight. Just catch one of the davits on a piling a bit, but no damage done and we’re off. Motor until out of the Boca Grande inlet and put up the sails and head for Key West. Wind is brisk out of the NE and we move along nicely. Put a reef in the main and take in the jib 1/3 as evening approaches. Wind builds to 15-20 knts. apparent at night and we move along nicely, frequently at over 8 knts. and once in a while up to 10 knts. Must be a good night for fishing because we encounter two separate fleets of commercial fishing boats on our way to Key West after midnight and have to do a bunch of zigging and zagging to stay out of their way. It’s a little tense at times but we manage.
11/30 - We made such good time that we get to the entrance to Northwest Channel Key West a little too early (it’s still dark) and have to scramble to get the sails down at daybreak in fog with seas rolling us on our beam. Mission accomplished with a bit of mild confusion and we begin to motor into Key West. I have the helm. I took us off autopilot to take the sails down (we had been on autopilot since we left Boca Grande) and find that the helm is very, very stiff. We go in at Conch Harbor Marina to top off fuel and water and I decide that stiff helm is a significant problem and that we’d better stop to assess the problem. We can’t rent a slip for a few hours or stay at the fuel dock, so we take a slip for a day and spend some time looking for an obvious solution to the problem. I quickly conclude that we need professional help and I call a mobile marine service company that had previously assisted me with a boat problem in Key West (Matt at Mobile Marine Key West). He’s very good at getting somebody over to us that day and by day’s end we know that the problem is with the rudder itself, and not with the quadrant or the steering cables and that we need to get the boat hauled to assess the problem further.
12/1-12/2 - The next day, Saturday, Greg leaves for business as it’s clear that we’re going to be stuck in Key West for a while, and Lloyd and I hang out Saturday and Sunday. We’re supposed to be hauled on Tuesday.
12/3 - Lloyd and I motor out to the mooring field by Fleming Island on Monday in warm light breezes. There’s no point in spending any more money on a slip and being at a mooring will give us a quicker start to go to the haulout site on Tuesday . After a number of unsuccessful attempts to pick up one of the moorings there (I mistake the private and rather derelict mooring field closer to Conch Harbor for the City Marina mooring field further away) we drop the anchor. We were supposed to have been hauled at 10:30 a.m. the next day but I receive a call saying there was a double booking and that I have to defer to the launch of a shrimper and that we won’t be hauled until 3:30, meaning we won’t be looked at by Matt’s people until the next day. More disappointment. Oh well, we spend a quiet night on the hook to leave the next morning for haulout. I’m a bit nervous because the haulout site is on Stock Island, just North of Key West proper. It’s on the Atlantic side about eight miles up the coast and I’m concerned about whether the steering will hold out.
12/4 - We motor to Robbie’s Marina on Stock Island in sunshine and light winds and we’re hauled around 2:30 p.m. We spend the rest of the day attending to tidying up the boat, and getting the lay of the land of the marina. It’s much like Safe Cove in Charlotte Harbor, a place for boats to be worked on “on the hard” with no slips. We’re situated in a part of the marina used exclusively by Matt’s company.
12/5 - After a lot of effort (it’s quite stuck) the rudder is removed from Duet and two things are clear. The bearing has somehow expanded and been pulled up the stock somewhat as the rudder was removed and the surface of the shaft in which the stock “lives” has suffered deterioration. Matt’s not sure whether the stock is bent or “out of round” but neither makes much sense. There was never any impact to the rudder and there’s no damage whatsoever to the rudder, almost certainly ruling out it being bent, and it hasn’t been subjected to any of the kinds of extreme temperatures or anything else which might cause it to go out of round, so I think he’s just covering his “six” when he says that we have to rule those things out. We also find that there’s a significant ding in the leading edge of the keel at the very bottom, which is explained by the fact that we did hit something submerged in otherwise plenty deep water on our way out of Safe Cove, and also by the fact that there’s evidence of a not perfect patch there from some prior damage. I arrange for that to be fixed and for a new Y valve to be installed in our sewage discharge system as now that the boat is out of the water we can see that the old Y value is not making a good seal any longer.
There’s nothing more that Lloyd and I can do, so we decide to spend the night on the boat and to rent a car to return home the next day.
12/6 - Lloyd and I take everything on decks and from the lazarette (and I do mean everything) and put it below in the boat where we can lock it up for safe keeping; we load the cooler that I bought for cleaning fish with the food from the freezer and the refrigerator (not an insignificant job in itself) in the rental car; and we drive back to Punta Gorda.
12/8 - Lloyd flies back to Canada and I start my restive forced interlude worrying about how and when the rudder is going to be fixed and whether and when I can put a crew back together to continue the Duet’s journey.
1/7 - Rudder is fixed and have new crew from Punta Gorda, Patrick Rousseau and Ed Larmie. We drive with rented car to Key West, start to put boat equipment back where it belongs when we get there while boat is still “on the hard” and sleep over in a hotel.
1/8 - Boat is launched at 7:30 a.m. and by 8:30 we are out of Hawk’s Channel and on our way to Spanish Wells. Wind is moderate but on our nose and sea conditions are relatively calm. We put the main up as much for stabilization as anything else and we’re making good time (over 6 knts.) under power. Conditions remain more or less the same all day and night.
1/9 - We’re offshore angling for Great Isaac Light a bit South of Miami at daybreak and as the day goes on we are able to put the jib out and motor sail. Winds are still moderate but building a bit and the seas are moving aft of us. All is well and our speed has increased to over 7 knts. and we make the turn around Great Isaac Light and a little Southerly again in New Providence Channel proceeding towards Spanish wells. Lots of big ship traffic and we’re constantly monitoring large cargo ships and cruise liners and frequently having to alter course to give them a berth wide enough to satisfy our caution. We have a problem with the jib reefing line jumping out of its “reel” and wrapping around the furler, but conditions allow Patrick to go forward and we clear the untoward wrap. We’re working hard as the evening progresses to assure that we arrive at the outer entrance to Spanish Wells in daylight. Conditions are rocky with following seas but the autopilot is doing well and the rudder seems fine.
1/10 - Our timing is exquisite. We approach the Big Egg/Little Egg Island channel to the entrance to Spanish Wells just as it gets light; we pass through comfortably; and take a berth at Spanish Wells Yacht Haven Marina where Kryss and I were when we were last in Spanish Wells with Duet. It was under construction when we were there last with only the docks in place, but now it is a very nice little resort with 6 cabins, a pool and a restaurant. We can’t top off our fuel when we arrive because it is a national holiday (“Majority Rule Day”. We are still having problems with the furler (now there are too few wraps on the drum when the sail is furled)so I add a few wraps and we vow to test its operation when and if we can to try to avoid those kinds of problems. Weather is clear and windy. We record engine hours at 828 upon arrival at Spanish Wells after having traveled approx. 330 nautical miles. Traveled approximately 50 hours from Key West, burned 39 gal. of diesel running at between 1,800 and 2,200 rpm with some sail assist. .75 gal/hr. and 8.65 mpg.
1/11 - We check with WRI, our weather routing service, and we find that conditions are not ideal for us to leave for a couple of days so Patrick and Ed explore the Island and do chores around the boat.
1/12 - We could get fuel today to be ready to leave the next day (Sunday when there’s no fuel service) but conditions are too strong for me to feel comfortable leaving the dock and coming back to the dock in the narrow harbor estuary and the weather reports and WRI’s forecast is that it would be preferable to leave on Monday, so we continue to “hang out” and plan to leave on Monday. Pat and Ed. tighten engine belts and check oil, coolant and transmission fluid and I check generator zinc and let the air out of the water pump accumulator tank. Turns out generator zinc separated from the plug to which is was attached and is lodged in the aperture where it’s inserted and our consensus is that it is not urgent to address the problem and that it’s better left to a professional. I finally learn to use the SSB pactor modem to send and receive e-mails and data and am ecstatic about that. Really easy once you get the hang of it as long as you can find a station to connect to. Often takes a number of tries.
1/13 - Patriots win their game big so Pat’s a happy camper and not too much going on. WRI confirms Monday is a good day to leave and very peculiarly, the ideal course is pretty much a straight shot from Spanish Wells to St. Thomas, saving 170 miles over the usually “best” route of proceeding 600 or so miles due East from Spanish Wells before turning South at the 65th parallel to St. Thomas.
1/14 - We get up at 6:00 a.m. to prepare to get under way. Winds are almost calm and sun is shining after 7:00. We have enlisted the assistance of a pilot to lead us through the Ridely Head cut out into the ocean. It will save us almost 20 miles. His name is Mr. Curtin [(242) 422-9064], and he was recommended to us by James Dunnam, who took Kryss and me diving and snorkeling when we were last on the island. We are showing 828 hours on the engine when we fuel up and we take 38.1 gallons. We estimate that we ran the engine for about 50 hours from Key West to Spanish Wells and I estimate that I ran it for another 5-6 hours after fueling at Conch Harbor Marina on November 30, so our fuel consumption rate is terrific. The marina bills us for 165 gal. of water, which is the water consumed by Lloyd and me between the time we left Conch Harbor on December 3 and left the boat on the hard at Robbie’s (1.5 days more or less) and the 6 days that Patrick Ed and I spent on the boat from the time that we left Robbie’s to the time we left the Yacht Haven Marina dock today, including washing the decks, my taking two showers and our cooking and washing dishes on the boat each night (without regard to water conservation practices).
The trip following the pilot through the Devil’s Backbone past Ridley Head is uneventful and we start on the course to St. Thomas with light breezes, plenty of sunshine and minimal seas with gentle swells. We are able to motor sail at over 6 knots initially and get up to almost 8 knots for a while by midday.
Ed throws a hand line out that he brought with him and Patrick deploys my 30 lb. ocean rod, and we’re fishing. Winds are light but we try to sail without the engine without success. We deploy the gennaker to see how it would do but the point of sail (ideally 120 degrees or so) is not doable so back into the bag it goes. We’re back to motoring at 2200 rpm with the main up and now we’re doing well over 7 knots, which is nice, except for the noise of the engine and the fact that a sailboat under power has more of the motion of a power boat than a sailboat. Conditions remain mainly calm with light winds that are backing from the SE so we can’t sail very much as that is pretty much “on our nose”. After a while the wind backs to where it’s almost behind us, but because it’s so light we can’t really sail so we haul the main in tight (jib is already in from launching the gennaker) and we motor along. Around 4:00 p.m. Pat notices that the lower-most batten has found a way out of the batten car and is half-way out of the sail forward. We retrieve it for redeploying the next day when conditions permit. We continue to average 7 knts. under power at 2200 rpm through the night and are making good time. I am playing with the Garmin Inreach at night in the dark and by mistake send out a message that we’re in St. Thomas. Boy am I embarrassed. Can’t change the preset messages without an internet connection, so at Pat’s suggestion send out the other two preset messages again. One says leaving Spanish Wells for St. Thomas and the other says something to the effect of under way all’s well. Hopefully that will resolve any confusion as would looking at our position on Mapshare.
1/15 - We’re abreast of San Salvador Island at daybreak. It’s light winds, bright sun and negligible seas. We replace the batten without incident, ratcheted up the engine rpms to 24/2500 and continue on our way with sails up but not helping appreciably. We hook a juvenile Marlin on my ocean rod, reel it in and then allow it to shake the hook. It’s absolutely beautiful. The colors are just outrageous. Wind is almost non-existent all day so we continue to motor with next to no help from our sails. Seas are calm and sun is out, so “not all bad, but we’re getting behind on making a daylight landfall in St. Thomas which is not good. Looks like it might rain as night approaches so we put the aft cockpit Iseglas curtains up and I realize that the guys who painted the hull re-installed the snaps that they removed to paint in the wrong order so that the curtains could not be fully secured properly. Just another dumb lack of attention on their part. It will be an easy fix when we get to the marina. Wind and seas stay relatively calm all night so we’re motor sailing and not making the time we would like. I have the 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. watch. We’re following a large tanker about 20 miles ahead moving at about the same speed as we are. I think I can see his lights (probably not) but then at one point it looks like there’s a large sailboat directly in our path and close. It is making no AIS signature and it doesn’t appear on radar. I begin to change course pretty dramatically but it continues to seem to be on our course. I’m a little panicked and ask one of the guys to come up to assess the situation with me. Ed comes up, takes one look, and says “don’t worry it’s a satellite”. Later Pat says it’s been appearing every 3 a.m. watch during this part of the trip. Wow, I could have sworn I was seeing the white masthead light of a sailboat with perhaps a second white stern light (which it shouldn’t have, but in the middle of the ocean at night to have to act based upon what you think you see. The lower white light I learned was a reflection on the sea of the satellite white light. Anyway, that was enough adventure for me for the night.
1/16 - It’s already starting to get light at 6 a.m. when I transfer the watch to Patrick and seas and winds remain generally calm although the swells seem to be increasing in height as predicted (long period between them and following or on the aft beam so no issue for us. Now it’s the middle of the afternoon and the wind is up a bit and more abeam and the swells are down and we’re moving along much better. Sun’s still shining. Night is “a trip”. Wind freshens at some point to 22 knts. and then dies at other times to almost nothing. It’s on our nose and then it’s not. Jib goes out and in two or three times and at least one time we try to sail without the engine, to no avail. The good news is that the engine and main to the extent that it’s “pulling” are moving us along at 6.5 to 7.5 knts. generally and we are making pretty good time. I learn that it’s almost impossible to sleep in the aft cabin with the engine off and the autopilot on. The whining of the autopilot server is enough to send you over the edge. Oh well, I guess nothing’s ever perfect. When I didn’t have a functioning autopilot we had to hand steer all of the time. Now we have autopilot, but I may well have to sleep in the v-berth or salon when only under sail at night because of its whining. Oh yes, it also rained for the first time for a good part of the night, but the canvas offered excellent protection.
1/17 - Dawn arrives with the end of the rain and more of the same relatively mild breezes not enough off our nose to allow sailing without the engine, but again, we’re making good time, so have to look on the bright side. Wind has moved to the SE, which was not predicted and is really on our nose but seas and winds are moderate and the engine is pushing us along nicely. Saw a small pod of whales off to the side this afternoon. Have also seen a number of dolphin on the trip. They’re significantly larger than the bay dolphins that I am used to seeing. To me they look more like pilot whales than dolphins, but the guys assure me they’re ocean dolphins.
1/18 - More of the same pretty much although wind pipes up to 20 knts. a few times and there’s a bit of intermittent rain. We’re starting to become concerned about having enough fuel and there’s a debate among us as to how many rpms to run the engine at - fuel consumption rate vs. mileage per gallon at different speeds. At one point on a watch shift in the early morning when still dark from me to Patrick the autopilot ceases to work and so it’s one hour shifts of hand-steering from here on out until cause can be found and it can be fixed. Patrick leads us through an extensive series of electronics “exercises” to try to isolate cause, all to no avail. When it’s light and a bit more calm he looks at the steering mechanism and discovers that an original casting connecting the rudder post to the autopilot actuator arm has fractured, so there’s no immediate fix. Very little boat traffic until we begin to approach Charlotte Amalie.
1/19 - As we approach Charlotte Amalie boat traffic increases dramatically, including a number of cruise ships. We talk to one that’s rapidly overtaking us as we enter the entrance channel to Chalotte Amalie (almost light out now). She alters course to pass us. Now it’s light and we’re making our final approach, again having to talk to a cruise liner that is on a reciprocal course with us and ultimately turns to cross right in front of us to enter port as we reduce speed to idle to avoid collision. We get to the marina with about an 1/8th of a tank of fuel showing on the gauge and we take 145 gallons, which suggests that the gauge is probably quite accurate. We record engine hours at 943 upon arrival at St. Thomas after having traveled approx. 800 nautical miles Traveled approximately 100 hours and burned 144 gal. of diesel running at between 2,200 and 2,600 rpm with some sail assist. 1.2 gal/hr. and 5.5 mpg. Because we arrive early they put us in a temporary slip first because our assigned slip is still occupied. On our way to our assigned slip we refuel and finally we’re tied up in our assigned slip. I go to restart the engine to log the engine hours (you can only see the numbers on the gauge when the engine is running) and the engine won’t start. A little troubleshooting and it’s pretty clear that the starter is not working. After a lot of scrambling I get someone recommended by the marina (Herman-a Dutch charterboat captain and mechanic to come over to look at the broken rudder/autopilot interface and the starter. I can live without autopilot for a while but the boat isn’t going anywhere without a working engine starter motor. Herman takes the broken interface and starter with him. He’s going to try to get the interface welded and the starter fixed. In the meantime I try to source a new starter. Even if he can get the old one fixed I would like to have a spare. Tomorrow is Sunday and Monday is Martin Luther King Day, so nothing is going to happen until Tuesday.
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