Day 83, Year 10: Passage to FL, Day 3—Cumberland Island, GA Arrival
Date: Thursday, January 1, 2015
Weather: Overcast All Day, High in the low-60’s F, NE Wind 15-20
Latitude: 30 46.013 N
Longitude: 081 28.289 W
Location: Anchored Off Cumberland Island, Georgia
Miles Traveled: 262 Nautical Miles
Happy New Year! We anchored off Cumberland Island this morning around 10:15 after a rough night and a really rough entry from the sea. But we made it. The rough night was due to strong winds from the North, 18-22 knots, directly, and I do mean directly, behind us. We motored, keeping only the main sail up and centered it as tightly as we could, but still it slatted back and forth, back and forth, as the waves threw us one way and then the other. Dead downwind sailing is tough. In retrospect, we probably should have sailed further out to sea and then tacked back in this morning. Instead of motoring, we could have been sailing and we think the conditions would have been much smoother. Live and learn. And after a rough night, the entry from the sea was even rougher. Another tactical error. The tide was coming out and the wind was blowing in, causing standing waves. We now remember reading that you should only enter here with the tide, but the ‘remembering’ came too late. We were just anxious to get in and anchored, so we went for it. As a result, we had things thrown all over the place down below. I could hear the words of a friend from Concord, NH, who once said to us, “And you do this for fun?” Admittedly, we’re feeling a bit ‘rusty’, not yet in full cruising mode, and not paying close enough attention to the details, so we spent this evening thinking ahead to the next leg of the journey, checking tides as well as wind. It is looking like we might be able to leave here on Monday and do another two day, two night passage to either Fort Pierce or Lake Worth. If we make it to Lake Worth, we’ll spend a couple of days there before heading on to Fort Lauderdale. At least that is a tentative plan. We need to talk to Lee and Lynda tomorrow and see if they are in agreement with that plan.
In addition to the rough sailing conditions, we also had a mechanical issue. After I sent last night’s log, Mark was playing around with the auto pilot. He put it in stand-by to hand steer for a minute while he was making an adjustment and discovered that we had no steering. The wheel just spun around. Yikes! Obviously we had a problem with the steering cable or maybe the chain that links the wheel to the cable. So Mark started trouble-shooting. This first required taking the compass off the binnacle (the column in the cockpit to which the wheel attaches). Once the compass was removed he could look down in the column and see that the problem was not with the chain. Good. Next he had to remove the mattress from the aft cabin bed and get underneath it to check out the cable where it wraps around the quadrant. The quadrant is attached to the rudder which steers the boat. And sure enough, the problem was there. One of the two steering cables was broken. Mark was able to cobble things together so that we once again have manual steering, but we will have to replace the cable as soon as we can. It is something that has to be ordered, so we’ll probably try to make it to Ft. Lauderdale before tackling that job. Thankfully the auto pilot attaches directly to the quadrant, circumventing the cable, so we can still steer the boat using auto. And for now, the temporary fix allows us to also manually steer the boat. For that we are thankful. But this was not the before dinner project we were looking for on New Year’s Eve.
To add insult to injury, today we discovered a problem with our dinghy engine. Happy New Year! The first thing we always do after anchoring is launch the dinghy. When Mark tried to pull the cord to start the engine, it would not pull. He then had to spend the rest of the day working on this. He and Lee worked together and got the pull start working. The engine runs, but only revs and then dies. Since Lee and Lynda’s dinghy has a hole in it and our motor won’t work, we are going to have to combine forces and use their motor on our dinghy. Mark hopes to get this done tomorrow morning and then take the dinghy the five or miles over to Fernandina Beach to get someone to work on the Yamaha. The weather was ugly today, overcast, windy, and cool, and is now forecast to be the same tomorrow. So it will be a good day for working on problems. Then on Saturday, when the sun is supposed to shine, hopefully we’ll get to explore Cumberland Island. The year 2015 has come in like a lion for us. But really all of these issues are just small stuff; nothing major, just not allowing for a smooth, upbeat beginning to the year. It will improve.
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| 150101 Day 83 Passage to Florida–Day 3, Cumberland Island, GA Arrival |
