Here are some passage notes.
Getting ready for an extended off-shore passage is a massive amount of work. I relished every moment of it. We were still putting the final touches on repairs the night before departure but everything came together.
Depart Key West FL Thursday May 27th 2010 at 1015.
Arrive Beaufort NC Monday May 31st 2010 at 0430
For this first leg Eric Sr. Vladimir and Gary were on board. Eric and Gary were sick for the first day. Gary did not really eat anything the entire trip. Vlad acted as cook for the most part and is an excellent one at that, making scrumptious meals out of our provisions.
Right outside Oceanside Marina in Key West we had dolphins. Although I am not superstitious it was a pleasant site. We initially had calm conditions with no wind so we took the time to “swing the boat” to adjust the computerized compass and auto-helm.
Interestingly, with the auto-helm we rarely manually steer the boat with the wheel. It is just too tedious to do for long periods of time, plus the auto-helm can do it far better than any human can. So for the most part the crew can sit back and enjoy the scenery and keep a watch out.
Speaking of watches, we stood standard 4 hour watches starting at 0800. Eric took the first watch, Vlad the second and Gary the third. This schedule meant that each crew always had the same watch. As Gary was a novice sailor Eric shadowed his watches or slept lightly in the cockpit which made for a slightly tiring total leg.
Gary practiced knots… Cooking the first meal Eric dumped and entire pan of onion and peppers behind the stove and had to clean it up… Motor sailing (smotering) for the most part as winds are light or slightly on the nose. However, what wind there is helps the motor to operate at very low RPM’s so we sip fuel yet still make good time.
Devante’s Dream holds 36 gallons of diesel in her single fuel tank. At full power she can motor for around 30 hours so 36 gallons is not enough for extended off-shore passages. I added six 5 gallon yellow plastic diesel jugs to the rails to extend the range. When she’s smotering we can burn as little as 1/3 gallon an hour and go a really long way. We ended up with plenty of fuel to spare at the end of the first leg.
You settle in to a routine pretty quickly on an off-shore passage. Once I got my sea legs under me I was good to go. After 36 hours I could comfortably eat and my performance improved. I think next time I’ll do some more day sailing before a long passage to cut down the acclimation time. Sitting here writing it is blustery and we’re rocking quite a bit at the mooring but it does not bother me at all now that I have been on board for 10 days.
The end of the first leg entails entering Beaufort Inlet. It’s wide and well marked however we were arriving at the peak of the ebb (outgoing) tide. This meant that we would be bucking a significant current. It was almost more than I bargain for.
Entering straight into the main channel it was around 0200 in the morning, the sky was clear with good visibility. We could easily spot the series of buoys leading to the inlet. I had the engine RPM slightly reduced and was using the auto-helm by the time we reached the 2nd buoy from the entrance.
The current in the location began to twist, spin and drag Devante’s Dream towards one of the marks. The auto-helm could not compensate. Plus, just at that time, a power boat was overtaking us from the rear, reducing my maneuvering room. I had to take manual control of the helm and increase engine RPM’s to avoid hitting the mark and the power boat that was also being spun and dragged. Yikes!
We continued on and the tidal rip subsided as we entered the main channel. The marina I selected to stay at was on a broad deep channel for easy access as night. However, fate is always out there waiting for you. Maneuvering near the marina I put the engine at idle speed and it promptly died. I restarted it and looked up. Just then Vlad noted that there was a channel marker to our right. Too late we bumped into the bar at very slow speed.
The rudder was free and I tried to wiggle off with no success. I left the engine in reverse while we discussed our options. It was 0300 so too early to hail Boat U.S. who would come out and help us. We needed to self-rescue.
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| How many doctors does it take to wash a boat? |
Eventually we inflated the dinghy on deck, dropped it in the water and planned to skeg an anchor off the port quarter stern. Vlad was in the dingy and I was getting the anchor line untangled when Vlad called out something that something was wrong. We were drifting in the middle of the channel! Evidently the dinghy and Vlad weighed enough to lift the boat off the bar.
We motored over to the dock and tied up and promptly went to bed. We completed the Key West to Beaufort passage in 90 hours and 15 minutes, right at the best possible time that I had predicted prior to departing.
Arrive Edgartown Martha’s Vineyard MA Saturday June 5th 2010 at 11:45
For this leg crew consisted on Eric Sr., Vlad and new crew member Bob. Bob’s from Alabama, more on that later. Prior to departing we used Bob’s car to check out downtown Beaufort NC. We were docked in Morehead City just over the bridge.
It’s a quaint town with small cape cod style homes with picket fences and a great waterfront area with a lot of docks. It’s a popular stop over for sailing cruisers due to it’s entrance to the intra coastal waterway and ocean access for going around Cape Hatteras.
Vlad and I got out of the car to check out the waterfront area and left Bob and Gary in the car. After walking down the length of the dock for a while I spotted a couple washing their sailboat. I figured they would know what the transient dockage situation was. I couldn’t see any signs for a dock office or even the marina’s name.
I called over to the husband asking questions and he immediately stopped what he was doing to talk with me. He explained the dockage and where the office was. I inquired about his passage. He said that there engine had become disabled and that they had to be towed into the slip they where in. His wife came over and we talked some more.
My stomach was growling so I was thinking lunch. Since we were enjoying our conversation on the dock I invited them to have lunch with us. “Sure”, they said, “We’ll clean up and meet you in a few minutes.
Vlad and I checked out the dock office and got the brochure. We’ll stop there next time through. We also went back to the car and got Bob and Gary.
Our lunch and conversation was great. If you didn’t already guess by Vlad’s name he is from Russia, having immigrated to the States 20 years ago. He’s also a professional musician, playing the viola, as well as a music teacher. In our conversation with Linda and Dan music came up.
One discussion thread led to another and eventually they realized that they had hosted a family emigrating from Russia that played in an orchestra that Vlad had sponsored to come into the country. Wow. It really is a small world. We exchanged contact info and went on our way.
Vlad, Bob and I made the obligatory stop at the West Marine and the provisioning (super market) store. We planned for a 0500 departure to make the best of the ebbing tide in the morning of Wednesday the 2nd of June.
Bob had a tough day the first day out. He said he wasn’t feeling well even before he got on the boat and he, like Gary, did not really eat anything the entire trip. He was a trooper though.
Leaving Beaufort NC going north means a choice between going inside via the Intracoastal Waterway or outside at sea around Cape Hatteras. Since we wanted to actually get north in a reasonable amount of time we choose outside. Let me tell you it takes a long time to get around Cape Hatteras! Like all day, but we did make it.by smotering most of the way around.
Later that night we got our only bad weather of the trip. It didn’t last too long but it was on the nose and kinda wet. The next day the sun shown and the wind was on our tail, time to put up the kite (spinnaker).
I can count on one hand the number of times we had preciously used the spinnaker. It’s a bit of a bear due to it’s size. Vladimir and I worked on getting it setup. It has a long bag that it lives with a snuffing mechanism at the bottom. We raise the entire bag to the top of the mast and then pull the bag up to deploy the sail.
That’s the easy part, taking it down is another thing altogether.
We got the sail up and needed to make some rigging adjustments to the tack so we took it right back down again. Once those changes were made the sail was hoisted and off we flew, able to make the rhumb line towards Edgartown Martha’s Vineyard.
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| Downwind cooking (and eating) is easier |
Later that evening the wind slacked off a little and we didn’t want to fly the chute at night so we took it down. Despite the snuffer it’s still quite a job. I need to rig up a snap shackle so that we can blow the tack, which is the guy on an asymmetrical spinnaker, which would make it easier to take down.
Without this aid we had to rely on easing the spin sheet so that the snuffer could come down. This works, with light air, be we had 20 knots so we had to muscle the snuffer down.
Easing the sheet puts it in the water once the sail is down. After easing the sheet I went forward to help Vlad put the sail away. When I was done with that I went to look for the sheet. It was under the boat.
Bummer.
Bob felt a tug on the engine and put it in neutral. I pulled on the sheet. It wouldn’t budge, double bummer. Vlad and I both pulled. Same result. We could see that it went forward around the keel which made sense since the sheet was on the starboard side. We pulled it back around to the starboard side and back towards the stern.
We shut the engine off. We couldn’t motor with the sheet wrapped up in the prop. We still had 18 to 20 knots of wind so I couldn’t dive on the prop for fear of hitting my head on the bottom of the boat.
We settled in for a long night going downwind with just the main. It was painfully slow at 4.5 to 5.5 knots and very lumpy. I slept very little.
In the morning I could feel the seas easing a little as the wind died down. I got out of bed and came on deck. Over the next hour or so the wind died completely and the seas went flat, time to get in the water.
I had all of my dive gear on board for just such and event. I suited up and used my pony bottle instead of a full size dive tank. Vlad took videos as I went in the water to but the line away. It was a brisk entry in the cold water but not too bad.
I could unwrap some of the line by hand but about two wraps were melted to the drive shaft. I cut those three and came aboard with the fragments of rope. There were only about 10 inches of line on the shaft.
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| Bob keeps watch on the downwind run |
On our third day out of Beaufort NC we had heavy fog and light wind so we motored. I could see no vessels that posed a threat on the AIS (ship ID system) but not all ships are transmitting as we noted when we went by parked fishing vessel and several large buoys marking underwater fishing nets. We still needed to keep a sharp eye out.
I looked at the sky at around 0830 and told Bob that the fog would burn off at 11:30. By 11:45 we had clear visibility and within a few hours we had more breeze, again from the southwest, so we put the chute up again. We ran the chute until sunset.
Unfortunately our landfall timing was less than perfect. We were going to be entering the channel off Wasque Point during a full ebb tide. At one point, while in the narrowest part of the channel, we were doing 2.9 knots over the ground. It seemed like it took forever to get past that channel marker!
As we continued on the current slackened and we eventually had a favorable current taking us into Edgartown harbor. We arrived at 11:45 PM and promptly went to bed.
Edgartown Martha’s Vineyard
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| A lonely Devante's Dream in Edgartown Harbor |
Bob, as I mentioned before, is from Alabama. He looks like an Alabamian should look. But he doesn’t fit the mold. For one he owns a sailboat and an airplane. Well actually that is two but that’s beside the point.
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| Downtown Edgartown |
Our waitress came over to take our order. I ordered first, then Bob. Bob asked a question. The waitress just stared at him with her mouth open. Vladimir and I burst out laughing. She couldn’t comprehend his southern accent. Now Vladimir has a thick Russian but we joked that Vlad was going to need to translate for Bob.
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| Brightly colored Gay Head |
The next day Vlad and I took a bus tour of the island, stopping at Gay Head, which is so named because of the colorful cliffs. I had the absolute best lobster roll I have ever had there. At the end of the tour we got a chance to walk around Oak Bluffs, with its colorful cottages and buy t-shirts.
Marblehead
Later that afternoon we set off for Marblehead, catching a favorable current to the Monomoy Point channel. This last leg took just 16 hours. We arrived in Marblehead on Tuesday June 8th at 0830. No orchestra was there to greet us at Tuckers Wharf but we had high fives all around.
We walked up to Foodies restaurant on Washington Street and met the coffee cup gang that meets there regularly, including Margot, Tom, Jim and Paul. Bob and Vlad were able to regale them with stories of the sea.
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| Vlad setting up Goldeneye's rigging |
The next night was a Wednesday night race so Peter invited Vlad and Bob to come along. They were a little hesitant but Chris Caldwell was to be onboard to check on a new main sail that Peter had ordered so they relented.
Before the race we went to Marblehead Lobster Company and purchased some beautiful local scallops and veggies which Vladimir expertly prepared at Peter and Diane’s home in Old Town. Then Vladimir serenaded us with music on Peter’s Steinway piano in the living room. What an afternoon.
The race was enjoyable and we got to hang out at Boston Yacht Club afterwards. Vladimir purchased t-shirts.
The next day I took Vladimir and Bob to the airport. Our trip was over.
