by Judy Handley | Jan 27, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 97, Year 11: All About the Weather
Date: Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Weather: Overcast and Rainy
Location: Anchored in West Palm Beach City Anchorage
Whether experiencing it or reading about it, today was all about the weather. We woke up to an overcast, rainy morning, but soon the sky opened up and the rain was pounding down. About that time, we got a radar alert on Mark’s phone. He took a peak and saw that it wasn’t just a rain or flood warning, it was a ‘possible’ tornado headed our way. The last time we saw this kind of warning on Mark’s phone, a few seconds later Windbird was hit by a micro-burst and drug across Quissett Harbor. So we don’t take these warnings lightly. But since there is no place to go when you are on a boat, we just watched the radar and hoped the ‘possible’ tornado didn’t get this far north. It didn’t and we were greatly relieved when the warning time ended. I did see a report on the internet that said a ‘possible’ tornado hit in the Fort Lauderdale area this morning, flipping cars over, ripping off hoods of cars, and generally causing havoc. Like the ‘whatever’ that hit our boat this summer, the weather folks are hesitant to call these events full-fledged tornadoes. They just say ‘possible’ tornadoes. But whatever they are, I’d like them to go away! Heavy rain continued off and on all day and filled the dinghy with water. I also put buckets on the deck, and we now have overflowing five-gallon buckets of water. The rain is supposed to go on through tomorrow, so we continue to be held hostage by the weather. We haven’t been off the boat since we left Little River, but for sure on Friday morning we will make it to shore. We have someone coming to get our dinghy motor for repairs at 9am on Friday and then my sister-in-law Sue and her husband Brad are driving up from Boynton Beach to take us to their house to visit for the day. We are looking forward to walking on land and to visiting with Brad and Sue.
The dinghy motor . . . this is the same motor that was submerged during our “weather event” in June. The Boat Guy on Cape Cod finally got it running. We used it for the rest of the summer and it was great. But it hasn’t been run since we left Cape Cod in late October and Mark cannot get the pull-start working. So we called A Mechanic on Wheels here in West Palm Beach and he is going to come to the dock on Friday morning to pick it us. He says he will return it on Monday and that is good as we are planning to leave here on Tuesday. Hopefully he will be able to get it running. If not, plans will have to be adjusted.
And speaking of plans, we just spent the entire day looking at weather information and learning more about the northern group of islands in the Bahamas, the Abacos. When we left Cape Cod, we assumed we would be returning to the Exumas again this year. But in the past few days, we have been thinking that it would be much easier to go to the Abacos. For one, you can leave from here and not have to travel further south in Florida before crossing. And it will make for a much easier return. If the weather was just right, we could leave the Abacos, hop out into the Gulf Stream, and be back in Little River in 4-5 days. And if not Little River, we could easily make it back to Fernandina Beach. So we spent the day comparing the long term forecasts for Florida versus the Abacos versus the Exumas. And the forecast for February looks a bit dismal for all. We knew that this strong El Nino was supposed to result in drier and warmer weather in the northeast this winter and wetter and cooler weather in the southeast. And it looks like that prediction for the southeast, or at least for Florida, might be accurate. Actually, the forecast is probably not all that dismal. I think we are just tired of looking at weather information. But it really does look like we need to leave here this coming Tuesday, February 2, or wait until after the middle of the month. We had really hoped to just sit here for at least a week, but it doesn’t look like that will happen. Since we have to return to the mainland to get Mark to Boston before the end of March, we figure we had better go now while there is a window. Maybe, just maybe, once we reach our destination in the Bahamas we are going to get to sit still and just relax for a few days. Now we just have to make a final decision on just where in the Bahamas we will go.
We might not know exactly where we are going, but we did make one decision today. Since we will probably be leaving Florida on Tuesday, we will visit with Mark’s family on the Gulf Coast this weekend. Mark’s brother will come pick us up on Saturday and his sister will drive us back on Monday. Luckily, Lynda and Lee Kaufman on Sea Turtle plan to arrive here in West Palm Beach on Friday and they have agreed to watch over Windbird in our absence. Thanks, Lynda and Lee!
by Judy Handley | Jan 26, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 96, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 7—Arrival in West Palm Beach
Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Weather: Sunny, Hot (almost 80 degrees F); Wind 15-20 SE
Latitude: 26 42.673 N
Longitude: 080 02.893 W
Location: Anchored in West Palm Beach City Anchorage
Miles Traveled: 263 nautical miles @ 1:30 pm
Ah, warm weather at last. At least for one day. We arrived in the anchorage here in West Palm Beach at 1:30 this afternoon and the temperature was almost 80. The sun was shining, the palm trees were glistening in the sunshine, and there was plenty of room in the city anchorage for us. We were happy sailors. We are going to have rain and cooler temperatures starting tomorrow through Friday, but then it will warm up again. And cooler temperatures this time does not mean freezing, so we are fine with that. And we really hope it does rain as the boat is covered with salt and needs a good washing. How did the boat get covered with salt? Well, last night was a rowdy one. We had a 3-4 foot swell from the NE and 5-7 foot wind-driven waves from the SE causing confused seas. Of course, we were traveling SE and the 20 knots of SE wind was right on the nose. We were bucking the waves from the SE and once in a while a wave would hit us broadsided and spray the entire boat with salt water. It was an uncomfortable night, but not really rough. But the adverse winds did slow us down and delayed our arrival by a few hours. But we got here safely and are looking forward to sitting still for a bit.
by Judy Handley | Jan 25, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 95, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 6—Dolphins and Gannets
Date: Monday, January 25, 2016
Weather: Mostly Sunny, High Upper 60’s, Lower 60’s F Tonight F; Wind 10-12 NNE
Latitude: 28 03.960 N
Longitude: 080 28.180 W
Location: Motor Sailing 3 Miles Off Melbourne Beach
Miles Traveled: 176 nautical miles @ 4:30 pm
Hopefully last night was our last cold night at sea for a bit. In fact, it should be the last night at sea for a few days as we should arrive in West Palm Beach tomorrow morning. Tonight the temp should be a balmy 60 degrees. Yippee! Hopefully we can shed the winter coats on watch and have our wool sweaters be enough to keep us warm. Unfortunately another cold front is headed our way so the temp on Thursday and Friday nights in West Palm will dip into the 50’s, but the daytime temps will be warm. We have only had to use our Mr. Heater a couple of times on this trip, but it is a lifesaver when you need it.
This morning Cape Canaveral was in view. Even though it was sunny, there was a haze in the air, so it wasn’t a great photo op. Later in the afternoon, however, the photo op arrived. I have been observing larger than normal sea birds sitting on the water in the distance since yesterday afternoon. This afternoon, we finally got close enough to one to take a photo. It was a Northern gannet (Morus bassanus), the largest seabird in North America. At first I was confused by the coloring. It was white with a yellow beak, but it had black splotches near the tail. I thought it must be a juvenile that just hadn’t lost all of its dark feathers. Then all of a sudden there lots of these birds, both white (adults) and dark (juveniles), swooping and diving into the water. They were in a feeding frenzy and put on quite a show. I went out on deck to get some video of them and then the dolphins arrived and added to the show. A couple of these guys were the largest Atlantic dolphins I have ever seen. It was a great show.
Otherwise, the day was filled with more mundane activities. We ran the watermaker and then took showers and did a small laundry to make sure we used up all the water we made. We love the West Palm anchorage, but the one downside is that there is no laundry nearby and no water. We’ll just have to keep that watermaker going and get back into the bucket laundry technique.
by Judy Handley | Jan 24, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 94, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 5—Headed Down the Florida Coast
Date: Sunday, January 24, 2016
Weather: Sunny, High 48, Low 38 F Tonight F; Wind 3-5 NE
Latitude: 30 06.962 N
Longitude: 081 17.081W
Location: Motor Sailing 3 Miles Off the Coast, 12 Miles N of St. Augustine
Miles Traveled: 42 nautical miles (9:30 am to 4:30 pm)
The wind is gone for now, the sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky, but the cool temperatures are following us south. Tomorrow we will be south of Cape Canaveral and the temperature should start inching up. So life is good. In last night’s log I said we would probably duck in at Cape Canaveral and finish the trip to West Palm on the inside. But we won’t be doing that. Thanks to Active Captain, we read last night that the lock in the Canaveral Barge Canal is only open from 6-7 am and after 5 pm due to construction. It should again be open all day after the 1st of February, but that doesn’t help us much right now. We wouldn’t want to enter the canal in the dark, so we have decided to head on down the coast. We are going to hope that the WeatherUnderground forecast is right and that NOAA is not. WeatherUnderground does not predict the stronger SE winds, so hopefully we will just have 10 knots of adverse wind, not 15-20. In any case, we should now arrive in West Palm Beach on Tuesday morning. As always, that statement is subject to change. The weather rules and we’ll see where it leads us.
For now we are just motoring along with only the main sail up to steady us. There is a 2-3 foot swell that gives us a gentle roll with what wind there is right behind us. It is cozy and warm in the cockpit and there is a full moon tonight which makes it my favorite kind of passage night. With a full moon, the moon rises when the sun sets and sets when the sun rises giving us light all night long.
My favorite photos of today are attached: a shrimp boat in Fernandina, sand dunes covered with vegetation on Fernandina Beach, and a “borrowed photo of the whale’s tail sculpture in Woods Hole in the snow.
by Judy Handley | Jan 23, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 93, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 4—WINDY
Date: Saturday, January 23, 2016
Weather: Overcast, High 50, Low 30 F Tonight F; Wind 20 WNW
Location: Fernandina Harbor Marina Mooring Field, Fernandina Beach, FL
Today was spent inside the boat listening to the wind roaring outside. About 5:30 am, the wind piped up to 25 with higher gusts. It was so loud it woke me up and that’s no easy feat. I couldn’t sleep, so I finally got up and just listened to the weather on the HAM radio. Mark coughed a lot last night, which kept him awake much of the night, but this morning he was able to sleep and sleep he did. His cold seemed worse this morning, but is better this afternoon. So maybe the sleep helped. And this evening the wind is back down to 20 knots which sounds calm. If the wind actually calms down to less than 10 knots from the WNW by tomorrow morning, we have decided to make a short run outside and down to Cape Canaveral. Port Canaveral is one of the six big ship channels on the east coast of Florida, so it will be safe to duck in there on Monday and head to Coco Beach via the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) for Monday night. We’ll then stay in the ICW from there to West Palm Beach, arriving on Thursday or Friday if all goes well. Our hope to go all the way to Palm Beach on the outside has been thwarted by stronger than previously predicted south winds coming in on Monday evening. So we’ll just do a little outside and then a little inside. Once there we will decide what comes next. We are starting to rethink our Bahamas trip. Instead of going further south in Florida and then across to the Exuma islands, we are considering leaving from West Palm Beach and going across to the Abacos which are islands further north in the Bahamas. We’ll keep studying the possibilities and make our decision while in West Palm.
Last night I got an email from long-time friend, Patsy Decker. We met Patsy and her husband Eric through our son Justin back in the 1980’s and have kept in touch over the years. She read my log last night and emailed to see if we could get together for lunch today in Fernandina Beach. She and Eric spent the last two weeks in Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast of Florida and were heading north today. They would be driving right past here on I 95 and it would have been a great opportunity to get together. I had hope that we could launch the dinghy and go to shore, but when I got up this morning to that roaring wind I knew it was a lost cause. Getting the dinghy off the deck and into the water in these winds would have been difficult, maybe even dangerous, and the dinghy motor hasn’t been run since October. Reliable as our old motor is, you never know if you are going to have difficulties after such a long rest. Last year when we got to this area and launched the dinghy, the motor wouldn’t start. We had to have it serviced in Coco Beach before we could use it. So the whole proposition was just too risky. Patsy did call this afternoon and we talked for a bit. She and Eric now live in Chapel Hill instead of in Salisbury, Maryland, so maybe when we return to Little River in the spring we can meet.
When Patsy Decker and I were texting back and forth this morning, at one point she said, “It’s snowing in Lake City!” And when I talked to her this afternoon, she confirmed that they had snow flurries in more than one place in northern Florida. We will have a freeze in this county tonight, but nothing like those of you north of us are having. We talked to Ed and Lynne in Nyack, NY this afternoon and they confirmed that the white stuff has been coming down all day, accompanied by lots of wind. Later in the evening we talked to the Goldpebbles and they said Cape Cod was getting lots and lots of snow and plenty of wind as well. We called them because we got tagged on a photo Heather posted on Facebook. Today was the Boy Scout Pinewood Derby race and Sam and Jonah walked away with 1st and 2nd place overall. In addition, Sam won 1st place for his Den, Jonah won 1st place for his, and Jed entered a car in the Scout Masters race and he won that. While we were there recently, Granddad helped all three boys shape their cars and start the sanding process. After we left, Jed helped them with the painting and the placement of the weight in the underside of the car. This is obviously the key to winning and Jed has that figured out perfectly. Ollie is not yet a Scout, but he made a car and was absolutely delighted to be included. Congratulations to the Goldpebbles!
by Judy Handley | Jan 22, 2016 | Sailing Logs Year 11 |
Day 92, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 3—Safe Arrival in Fernandina
Date: Friday, January 22, 2016
Weather: Partly Cloudy, High 71, Low 41 F; Wind WSW 20-25, Gusts to 35-40
Latitude: 30 40.339 N
Longitude: 081 28.138 W
Location: Fernandina Harbor Marina Mooring Field, Fernandina Beach, FL
Miles Traveled: 257 nautical miles
We timed our arrival perfectly, entering the St. Mary’s (Fernandina) Inlet at daybreak and just before the current turned against us. We had south winds against us much of the night, but for the most part they were light and not directly on the nose. At 5 am they piped up to 20 knots but by this time they had turned to actually speed us along. Of course, we didn’t want to speed up so we just adjusted the RPM’s. By 7:30 am we picked up a mooring across from the Fernandina Harbor Marina, ate breakfast, and went back to bed. This afternoon we have been sitting in the cockpit and bouncing a bit in the heavy winds. Ever since our “weather event” this past summer when we were hit by a micro-burst and 100 mile an hour winds blew us and our mooring into rocky, shallow waters, heavy winds give us a bit of a fright. We aren’t expecting any mini-tornadoes, but we both have to admit that we are more on edge than we used to be when the wind pipes up.
There’s not much to look at here as this side of Fernandina Beach is industrial. Fernandina is the home of the modern shrimp industry and it is the home of a pulp and paper mill. So today we enjoyed the sunshine and got in a good deal of reading. Since early afternoon the wind has been SE 20 to 25 knots and gusting to 40. It is supposed to calm a bit overnight and then pipe up again in the morning and stay this way through tomorrow afternoon. A cold front is coming in tonight and will keep the daytime temperature in the 40’s tomorrow and tomorrow night it will be a chilly 30 degrees here. We won’t complain, however, as many of you are experiencing much colder temps and bracing for the big snow. By Sunday the wind here will subside and the temperature will return to something a little more normal for this time of year in northern Florida. We will sit still until at least Sunday morning and decide then whether to go back outside and down the coast or start the long, slow slog down the Intracoastal. One possibility is to go inside to St. Augustine or Titusville and go outside there. In the meantime, we’ll try to stay warm and get in lots of reading.
