Ñandú

Once we got the watermaker running again we focused on the next most important elements, after water: fuel for the engines and fuel for the captain. We filled up the diesel tanks and crammed beer in every crevice of the boat that wasn’t already occupied with cat food or cat litter. Not that you cannot find beer in The Bahamas; it’s just that everything is expensive!

Then it was just a matter of waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream, hopefully soon enough to have some beer still left, and before any other major thing stopped working. The Gulf Stream is a strong current that will push you North for the entire crossing from Florida to Bahamas, at up to five knots in the center. Intuitively you’d want a North wind to counteract the current, but actually the wind blowing against the current produces the most horrendous seas. The usual easterlies would be on the nose, so that’s not ideal either. We needed the more rare South or West winds. The wait could have been long, but we got lucky and soon had our one-day window with westerlies.

We departed at dawn and encountered a peaceful and almost windless Gulf Stream. When the wind picked up about half-way into the Stream we raised the sails but kept one engine running,  because we really didn’t want to spend more time in the Stream than necessary. At that point we had to aim more than 30 degrees off our target to compensate for the northward drift.

Flying fish welcomed us to Grand Bahama Island before sunset, but our plan was to take advantage of the conditions and continue Southeast across the Northwest Providence Channel to the Berry Islands. Once out of the Gulf Stream we shut the engines and enjoyed very steady winds. Except for a couple of tacks to avoid cargo and cruiser ships in the Freeport area, we kept our course with no sail adjustment needed for the entire night. It was new moon and, apart from the occasional ship, we could only see the stars above and a stream of bio-luminescent life behind.

We performed the flag dance and checked into the country at Great Harbor Cay, where every one was amazingly friendly. The clearance protocol requires you to fly the yellow quarantine flag when you enter territorial waters, then the captain reports to customs and immigration with the passports of the crew, boat papers, and in our case, the cat’s various certificates and import permit. You pay a cruising fee, they stamp your passports, you take down the quarantine flag and fly the Bahamas courtesy flag, and you’re done. Buying delicious coconut or cassava bread is optional.

After leaving the St. Augustine inlet behind we raised the sails and turned right to let fair winds on our aft quarter push us South. It was eerie not to see any other vessel of any kind until well past midnight. We reached Cape Canaveral, our first possible destination, at 3am, so we continued to the next one, Fort Pierce, and went inside to retake the ICW.

To recover from our longest leg so far we spent two lazy days anchored at Fort Pierce, and two more at beautiful Peck Lake, before reaching Palm Beach (yeah, the place that has gained notoriety in the news lately).

At 55ft of fixed height, the Julia Tuttle bridge in Miami is the only bridge in the entire Intracoastal Waterway that we cannot pass underneath. From Palm Beach to that bridge there’s only 63 nautical miles and a whopping 29 drawbridges, most of which open every 30 minutes. Getting on time for the opening of the next bridge always requires an impossibly fast speed, or a tedious drift. Get there too soon and you have to backup or turn around in a small space. Get there too late and you may miss the opening. Luckily we are not going any further on the ICW. We did seven draw bridges in the last 12 miles, and we had enough of bridges so close together.

I think I will remember Florida as mostly boats, buildings and bridges. Bombastic boats, blocky buildings, bascule bridges. Wherever there aren’t many of those, it’s beautiful though.

While in Palm Beach we’ll continue our preparation to cross the Gulf Stream. That includes buying 35 kilos of cat food. And replacing the hot water tank’s thermostat—which didn’t fix the problem, so now we need an electrician. And calling Garmin to ask them why is it that I cannot update the chart plotter with the latest charts. And figuring out what’s wrong with the watermaker; we’ve been taking good care of it for six months, and now that we really want it working, it quit in a rather spectacular way, with massive amounts of water gushing out of places it clearly shoudn’t. It never ends. On the plus side, have you noticed I haven’t mentioned the alternators in the past several posts?

We did have a good view from our slip in Jacksonville, but the marina’s surroundings were not particularly inviting. We were eager to leave that place, but there was one more technician to wait for. A guy from the window manufacturing company flew all the way from Connecticut to reseal three leaky windows, fortunately all covered by the warranty.

We got the boat ready and bugged out the day after he finished. We followed the Intracoastal Waterway, and five bridges later, we were picking up a mooring buoy in St. Augustine.

The last of those bridges, the Bridge of Lions, is a bascule bridge with the usual hard-to-decipher schedule: The draw shall open on signal; except that, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. the draw need open only on the hour and half-hour; however, the draw need not open at 8 a.m., 12 noon, and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday except Federal holidays. Quiz: it’s 7:45am. Is the next opening on-demand, at 8am or 8:30am?

St. Augustine, “The Nation’s Oldest City”, has an alluring Spanish colonial architecture with narrow streets and art galleries in every block.

After three nights it was decision time again. The weather was perfect for going out to the ocean and make much faster progress—while burning less fuel—than if we stayed on the ICW. The only problem was that between us and the ocean was the infamous St. Augustine inlet, which is described with discouraging words such us “dangerous and shifting shoals”, “powerful currents”  and “breaking water”. Storms and currents shift the channel so frequently that it’s not shown in the charts. You have to navigate only by following the buoys that mark the channel, “which are difficult to see”, and may show the position where the channel used to be, and not necessarily where it is now.

With trepidation we went for the challenge, after getting local advice and reassurance that the buoys were correctly positioned. To avoid the clash of an outgoing tide with the oncoming ocean swell we didn’t depart at dawn, but two hours later. Even with that precaution, it was a wild roller-coaster ride with eight-foot steep waves tossing Ñandú around as if she was a bathtub toy. Waves were breaking left and right, with only a small gap where the deeper water of the channel was.  We managed not to miss any turn and made it out shaken but unscathed. And slightly proud.

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[The answer to the quiz is: it depends.]

From Cumberland Island we backtracked our route to the Ocean through St. Marys River and had a pleasant sail down to St. Johns River. The part that wasn’t pleasant was going full-throttle against the 5-knot “rapids” in the narrow channel under the Atlantic Beach Bridge. Even more scary than Hell Gate in Manhattan.

Our daughters flew back to California from the Jacksonville, Florida airport and we decided to stay put for a while to tackle a long list of stuff to check, fix, tie, plug, glue, seal or lubricate, buy and install, research, organize, redesign or improve, move, dump or clean, including a ton of laundry and some overdue maintenance to parts of our aging bodies.

Dentist

Jacksonville with its world-famous Mayo Clinic is a health hub. We had no excuse not to visit at least a long-time-no-see dentist. Except for the response I got when I started calling: “the next available time is in April”. I have no idea where I’ll be in April. The only thing I know with certainty is that it won’t be here. I kept calling until I got the response I initially wanted, but now I wasn’t so positive it was a good thing: “Sure, the doctor can see you tomorrow”. I could not help but wonder why is it that the doctor does not have a full schedule for the next two months. Oh, well. The risks of being nomadic.

Check the bottom. Twice.

The port engine had been acting up lately, especially when engaging reverse. The whole boat would wobble wildly, a clear sign that some rotating thing was out of balance. I waited for a warm day with an afternoon high tide (mostly arbitrary reasons just to buy time to gather courage) to don my snorkel mask. Facing alligators, flesh-eating bacteria, and who knows what other dangers that lurk in those murky waters, I dove and found the culprit: a piece of line tangled in the propeller.

Two weeks later the new moon low tide was exacerbated by a persistent west breeze that siphoned the water out to the ocean. The already shallow marina ended up with barely two feet of water, and Ñandú planted her feet in the soft mud. Now I have to dive again to make sure the propellers and cooling water intake are clear of mud.

Engines

I took a weekend marine diesel engines class in Fernandina Beach, as part of our quest to be self-sufficient. The class didn’t cover how to “check and adjust the valve clearances”, which, according to the manual, was overdue. Leaving self-sufficiency aside for a moment, I called a professional. Now at least I know where those valves are.

Sound

One of the very first things I did when moving into the boat, five months ago, was to try to impress Kathy with the cristal-clear sound of beautiful music streamed from my phone to the bluetooth sound system. After an hour of cursing and fiddling with arcane settings I managed to get the stereo and my phone speak to each other. But the upgraded super-duper Bose speakers barfed a distorted crap that was to music what the Ecce Homo restoration was to art.

How frustrating. Even more so because I wasn’t sure who to blame. Bose (the speaker manufacturer)? Sony (the stereo manufacturer)? Maine Cat (the installer)? Since I enjoy subjecting myself to multiple-provider fiascoes, I have gained some experience and know that a good approach to make progress is to emphatically and convincingly blame someone until they prove themselves innocent. I started with Bose. I took the speakers to a Bose store demanding an exchange (with no proof of purchase, mind you). They politely connected the speakers to a stereo in their display, and they emitted the most pure sound I’ve heard. Back to the boat I connected the speakers directly to the stereo, bypassing all the wires. The reality of awfully distorted sound stroke again. So, it’s not the speakers, it’s not the wiring… must be the Sony stereo, right? I called Sony and they were willing to exchange the stereo, but I had to send them the faulty one with the original packaging and installation kit, which I didn’t have. So I ordered a new stereo from Amazon with the plan of returning the old one to Maine Cat. Only that the new stereo didn’t make a difference in the sound, so I sent it back to Amazon.

So much for self-sufficiency once more: time to make room for the professionals. It took them all of ten minutes to find and fix the problem. It had to do with the ground connection for the two speakers being mixed together when they shouldn’t… or something like that. All I care for now is that we can finally annoy our neighbors with an eclectic mix of Bob Marley, Manu Chao, Ry Cooder and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Windsurfing gear

The starboard V-berth had been entirely occupied by windsurfing gear piled on top of the mattress. I finally tackled that eyesore. The smallest sail fit in the anchor locker, and the other three in the bilge, although I’m not sure they will survive the humidity. The two booms are now tied to the transom and the three masts under the dinghy chocks. I found the ideal place for the two smaller boards: tied to the roof… from underneath. The ceiling is now a bit lower in each of the V-berths, but no-one will notice. At least none of the permanent residents. I think. And I still don’t know what to do with the large board. It was painful, but I am now glad I got rid of half of my gear before leaving California.

Bahamas bound

We are still struggling with forms and paperwor of all kinds. We are gathering what we need to enter The Bahamas (including flags that are required to be flown in specific areas of the boat). Kathy called the Bahamas Ministry of Agriculture to clarify what was needed to get Oliver cleared, and she got three different versions from each of the three people she spoke with.

After four months waiting for the boat registration papers the Coast Guard told us that there was an error in the forms and we had to wait another four months after submitting the amended forms. Fortunately, some begging through letters and phone calls got that solved and we finally have the certificate. Otherwise, our Bahamian plans would have been derailed.

We are also beefing up our safety gear. We bought and installed an EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radiobeacon; more forms to fill to register it), and are stocking up on spare parts.

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A short bonus track to finish this post.