Ñandú

Cape Lookout National Seashore offers a fully protected and beautiful anchorage surrounded by sandy beaches that we could watch but not touch, because we hadn’t formally checked into the States. Not that we had much energy to deal with the dinghy anyway, after four days at sea, so in a way having such restriction was a blessing, since we could fully focus on resting. Which we did for 24 hours. And we did it so well that—I’m now realizing—I have not a single picture of that place.

We called Customs and Border Protection the next day. After getting chastised for not immediately reporting our arrival, we were instructed to bring the boat to either Morehead City or Beaufort and call again. We chose the cozier Beaufort where an immigration agent and a customs official, both very friendly, boarded Ñandú. The immigration guy stamped our passports, and the customs guy focused mostly on food, including Oliver’s. His verdict was that an apple and a dozen eggs were not allowed into the country. However, he wasn’t very keen on carrying those items to his office for incineration, so on his suggestion we ate the apple and boiled the eggs, which made everyone happy.

After Beaufort, it was back to something I didn’t miss at all: the Intracoastal Waterway and all its bridges.

After four months cruising the most amazing turquoise waters and meeting the friendliest of all people, it’s time to leave. Hurricane season is already here and the farther north, the safer we will be, so we’ve chosen the Chesapeake Bay for Ñandú to spend the summer.

We had a promising weather window right ahead, so Kathy had only one night to recover from her overnight flight across three time zones. The very next day we sailed to Allans-Pensacola Cay, stopped for the night, and retrieved the anchor at the first sign of dawn to take the Moraine Channel towards the vast Atlantic Ocean for our longest passage so far.

We estimated it was going to take us three or four days to reach the US, depending on the conditions and the landing spot. Ideally, we wanted to go all the way to Cape Lookout in North Carolina, but the forecast for the fourth day was now predicting 30 knots in that area, which we’d rather avoid. Charleston, in South Carolina and about a day closer, started to look more reasonable. So, once out of the Moraine Channel, which way do we point our bows? We didn’t fret much about it. The gentle wind was blowing more or less straight towards Charleston… so we pointed to Cape Lookout. As most boats, Ñandú sails slower going dead downwind than on a broad reach (with the wind coming at an angle from behind). Even if we wanted to go to Charleston, it would be faster to start going towards Cape Lookout anyway. Broad reach on a starboard tack it was.

By mid-afternoon the wind started to turn clockwise, pushing our broad reach heading farther and farther from the US coast. Time to jibe. We made the only tack change of the entire passage.

The new port tack had us pointing more towards Georgia than the Carolinas, but that was fine too, since that meant we could reach the Gulf Stream sooner and use the current to our favor. In short, it didn’t really matter which direction to go, as long as it was between west and north (actually, it probably did matter, but if you don’t know, it’s all the same).

As the wind continued clocking for the next two days, our heading gradually shifted north, since we maintained the same angle to the wind. The chartplotter shows our track as a big, almost perfect semicircle.

The second night we reached the Gulf Stream and got a nice boost in speed, but before next day’s noon we had to exit the ocean highway, since we reached the point where the stream takes a sharp turn east. By then the wind had picked up to more than 20 knots, and we had reduced sail correspondingly (not without a little mishap… read on).

At night we always sail more conservatively, and with the wind at 28 knots at dusk on the third day, we decided to drop the main sail entirely. Still, the knotmeter frequently marked nine knots of speed with headsail alone. At that point the forecast had changed again to milder conditions for our fourth day, so we definitely settled for Cape Lookout to make landfall.

At sunset the next day we were only 20 miles from our destination. The entrance to the Cape Lookout anchorage is well marked with lighted buoys, but I didn’t want to anchor in an unfamiliar place in total darkness (it was two nights after new moon). We spent the first two hours that night running like a headless chicken trying to dodge some huge thunderstorms that seemed to follow us no matter where we turned. That was the first time in the entire passage that we turned the engines on. Then we still had seven hours of darkness to cover less than 20 miles, so we sailed leisurely the rest of the way.

All in all, we had a fairly good passage of roughly 500 miles, with the wind always behind except for the last 10 miles. It was exhausting and shaky at times, but nothing broke and we didn’t make too many mistakes. And the ones we made, I won’t tell you. Ok, ok, I’ll tell you about that little mishap.

For months I had been chasing a humming sound that annoyed us (mainly me) when at anchor on a windy day. It seemed to come from the boom, but the culprit turned out to be the topping lift, with the wind playing it like a guitar string. I started wrapping the main halyard around the topping lift when anchored, to create enough disturbance in the air flow to stop the noise. I’ll better find another solution, because…

When I unwrapped the halyard from the topping lift to get ready for sailing that first morning, I didn’t realize I left half a turn. When we raised the mainsail the halyard was on the wrong side of the topping lift. Instead of each going smoothly to their respective blocks on the top of mast, they pressed on each other when the sail was fully hoisted. We didn’t notice until the second night (yes, bad things usually happen at night) when we wanted to reduce sail. When we released the halyard, the main sail didn’t come down one bit. We looked at each other with round, bewildered eyes. Even though we were not in any danger, I think I had a PTSD flash back.

Allow me to explain. A few years back we owned Stella, a wooden 25 ft Folkboat that we kept at Coyote Point Marina in San Francisco Bay. Mostly for bragging rights, we liked to dock her under sail. To do that, we had to keep the main sail up on a close-hauled approach, then turn down wind into our fairway, drop the main sail, and continue on jib only. With just the small jib the speed was easy to control for the last turn, upwind into our slip. Except that, one windy day, when it was time to drop the main sail because we had already turned downwind and were gathering unwanted speed… we couldn’t drop it, because we couldn’t find the halyard. Yes, that boat was special in many ways, and one of them was that she could hide your halyard if you weren’t pay attention. So, there we were, on a dead-ended fairway with boats on both sides, full sails on, and no brakes. In the end we managed to bring the sail down, but that’s the closest I’ve been to applying the “aim to the cheapest boat” advice.

From Powell Cay we backtracked about 15 nautical miles to Green Turtle Cay, a popular destination among boaters with its lovely beaches, protected natural harbors, several marinas and boatyards, good anchorages and mooring fields, and a historic town. A lot to offer in a small three-mile long package with less than 500 inhabitants. We chose a mooring buoy in Black Sound, because it was close to New Plymouth, the historic town.

We had an additional reason to stop at Green Turtle Cay: Kathy was democratically elected as the parental representative to our daughter’s graduation in California, so she had to make a flash trip to an ocean far away. Green Turtle Cay is a very convenient place to drop off or pick up crew. After a 10-minute ferry ride, a 5-minute taxi ride and 60-minute flight in a propeller plane, you are in Florida. And the ferry will detour from its route to pick you up right at the boat. I stayed taking care of the boat, feeding the cat, and provisioning for our upcoming passage back to the US.

One late morning I was brushing my teeth, not expecting Kathy until the early afternoon ferry. I heard a faint voice shouting “Juan!” and there she was, way too early, calling me to help with her suitcase as she approached Ñandú aboard a skiff. It turns out that a woman she shared the flight and the taxi with was coming to a nearby boat; her friends picked her up and brought Kathy as well. The downside was that instead of the glamorous reception to a clean and tidy boat I had intended, I received her with a pile of dirty dishes and a toothpaste-drooling, perplexed face.

Kathy came back with a hair cut, a load of nuts, and as many chocolate bars as we had provisioned for our entire stay in the Bahamas, even though we expected to be back in the US in a week. You don’t find good quality chocolate in the Bahamas, and the original provision was long gone.

Coopers Town and Powell Cay are praised in cruising guides as a nice pair. You have the unspoiled wilderness of Powell Cay with the convenience of restaurants and provisions in Coopers Town, less than three miles apart across the Sea of Abaco. The problem was that because of bad weather we spent four days on the convenient side and only one in the fun and beautiful side.

Coopers Town

Coopers Town is the northernmost town of Great Abaco Island. It’s a nondescript village of less than 1000 inhabitants. The ones we met were amazingly friendly, but that’s no longer a surprise in these lands. The shoreline runs straight on that part of the island, so there’s no harbor. And no beaches. Not much to do, really, other than buying groceries in one of the two convenience stores, and taking refuge from west winds.

Powell Cay

Powell Cay is a small, uninhabited barrier island with a good anchorage (as long as the wind doesn’t blow from the west), beautiful beaches, and the most spectacular trail we hiked in all of Abaco.