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.

160126 Day 96 Passage to Florida–Day 7, Arrival in West Palm Beach

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.

160125 Day 95 Passage to Florida–Day 6, Cape Canaveral, Dolphins, Gannets

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.

160124 Day 94 Passage to Florida–Day 5, Leaving Fernandina

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!

160123 Day 93 Passage to Florida–Day 4, Pinewood Derby Winners

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.

160122 Day 92 Passage to Florida–Day 3, Arrival in Fernandina Beach

Day 91, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 2—Happy Birthday to Sam
Date: Thursday, January 21, 2016
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, High 50’s, Low upper 40’s F; Wind NE 10-12
Latitude: 31 43.414 N
Longitude: 080 58.525 W
Location: Sailing ~3 Miles Off
Miles Traveled: 187 nautical miles

Nine years ago, our first grandchild, Samuel Ellery Goldstone, was born on a snowy Cape Cod morning. We had sailed Windbird across the Pacific Ocean and left her in New Zealand to come home for Sam’s birth. Holding that first grandchild for the very first time is a beautiful memory. And Sam has developed into a beautiful, bright, spirited nine year-old boy. He has been a natural sailor since he first set foot on Windbird in Thailand when he was not yet two and he quickly earned the title of co-captain aboard Windbird. His little brothers have followed suite and are co-captains as well. But as Sam would remind us, he was first. And as this photo shows, he was right by Captain Granddad’s side giving directions.

160121 Day 91a Passage to Florida–Day 2, Happy Birthday Sam

And writing in the log.

160121 Day 91b Passage to Florida–Day 2, Happy Birthday Sam

Happy Birthday, first Co-captain!

160121 Day 91c Passage to Florida–Day 2, Happy Birthday Sam

Last night was warmer than expected and we didn’t need to fire up the Mr. Heather. We wore long underwear, wool sweaters, our winter coats, and Mark wore his winter hat. But with all this on, we didn’t even need a blanket. Today has been mostly cloudy, but there has been enough sunshine to keep us warm. At one point it was so hot in the cockpit we had to open up. We had up to 14 knots of wind against us last night and it seemed that we had current against us all night as well. Today, however, we have had current with us and wind behind us. We had one little scare this morning. The engine overheating alarm went off and indeed the engine was overheated. Mark checked all the possible causes—fan belt, water filter, thru-hull, impeller, and heat exchanger. Everything checked out fine, so he poured some anti-freeze in the overflow container and the engine has been running cool ever since. So either we were low on anti-freeze or something was blocking a line and was released when Mark took off the hoses to check things. Whatever it was, it is fine now. We are making good progress and are on schedule to arrive at the entrance to the St. Mary’s River on the Florida/Georgia border early in the morning. After that, the weather will determine our next move. If it is not as bad as predicted, we might motor on past Fernandina Beach and anchor just north of Jacksonville tomorrow night. But we do think we will go inland into the Intracoastal Waterway instead of traveling on down the coast. It takes longer, but at this point the weather outside doesn’t look good. Florida is a very long state and it takes three days and nights outside to get from the border to West Palm Beach. From what we are seeing, there is no three day window in the next week. If that forecast remains, then inside it will be.

160121 Day 91d Passage to Florida–Day 2, Wool Sweater Weather

Day 90, Year 11: Passage to FL, Day 1—Love That Sunshine
Date: Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Cold, High 45, Low 40 F; Wind N to S 5 knots
Latitude: 33 13.349 N
Longitude: 079 06.494 W
Location: Sailing ~3 Miles Off Georgetown, SC
Miles Traveled: 54 Nautical Miles (7:30 am to 4:45 pm)

It was a chilly start this morning, but the sunshine has kept us warm all day. It was so cold this morning that the lines were frozen to the dock. But with a few tugs, Mark got the frozen coils unstuck and we were off. The weather today has been as forecast—partly sunny with almost no wind coming from the NE and moving to the S in the afternoon. Some reports say we will have very little S wind all night and others indicate that we could have up to 20 knots from the SW. We vote for the “very little” forecast. Of course, this means motoring, but we were prepared for that. The seas are flat and the ride is smooth—very nice. The temperature in the cockpit has been around 70 degrees most of the day, but when the sun goes down, so will the temperature. That’s when we’ll turn on the Mr. Heater and hope that it adds a few degrees of comfort to our night. Weather aside, it feels good to be out here.

We are running close to shore and have had phone service all day. We talked to our friends Ed and Lynne Kirwin in New York this morning. And then we talked to my niece Janet and my sister Patsy in Nashville. Weather was the topic of the day. New York is preparing for winter storm Jonas to hit this weekend and Nashville was closed down today by cold, snow, and ice. It doesn’t take much to close down Nashville as they are not prepared for this kind of weather. When we hear the ‘s’ word—snow—and the ‘i’ word—ice—it makes our choice to head south as quickly as possible sound like a really good idea. And weather aside, it just generally feels good to be out here.

160120 Day 90 Passage to Florida–Day 1, A Chilly Start

Day 89, Year 11: Sailing South Tomorrow Morning
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Colder, High 35, Low 22 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

It was a ‘freezy’ day here in South Carolina. Regardless, we have made the decision and are sailing south tomorrow morning. It is a 48 hour passage from here to the Florida-Georgia border and we should arrive there on Friday morning. Tomorrow is going to be warmer than today by about 10 degrees, but it will still be in the 20’s F when we leave the dock around 7 am. It is supposed to be a partly sunny day, so we are going to depend on the sun to warm the cockpit. And at night, we will use our propane Mr. Heater to keep the worst of the chill off in the cockpit while we are on overnight watch. This won’t be the most comfortable passage we have ever made, but when we look at the weather for the next 14 days, this looks like our only window. We will get hit with south winds during the night on Thursday going into Friday morning, but otherwise the winds look fairly benign. But as I am sure all of you are aware, the whole east coast is going to get hit with winter storm Jonas on Friday. Hopefully we will be on a mooring in Fernandina Beach, Florida when the worst of the winds hit. We will plan to stay there until Sunday when the winds die down and hope to do another 48 hour passage on Sunday and Monday to West Palm Beach before the next storm hits. Plans are all weather dependent, of course, so we shall see how things go.

As always, when we start out on a passage, I’ll give my little warning that there is the chance that technology could fail us and we won’t be able to send logs. Hopefully that won’t be the case and we’ll keep you informed about our crazy winter passage down the coast. Send warm thoughts our way!

Day 88, Year 11: Uncooperative Weather
Date: Monday, January 18, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Cold, High 44, Low 20 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

Some things never change and the weather being uncooperative is certainly one of those things. But then we are trying to sail down the southeast coast of the United States in late January when uncooperative weather is expected. We have spent our day trying to cobble together some sort of plan to get us from here to get us to Cumberland Island on the Florida/Georgia border. We need 48 hours and if we left tomorrow morning we could make it just fine. BUT the temperature tomorrow night is going to be colder than tonight. Both nights are forecast to be around 20 degrees F, plus or minus a degree or so. And we have decided that we really don’t want to be out at sea in temps like that. We are still toying with leaving on Wednesday morning, but if we do that we know we will have adverse winds starting Thursday night and going into Friday morning. If the forecast holds, we would make it in before it gets too bad. But if the stronger winds forecast for late Friday morning come a few hours earlier than expected, it would be tough going. Whatever we do, we need to sit still all day Friday and Saturday as it is going to be very windy. However, at this point, the weather on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday looks like the calm between storms with mostly no wind. At this time of year, no wind is better than too much wind. During this lull we could move on to West Palm Beach and sit out the next onslaught of bad weather there. The weather late next week looks really wicked and it would be nice to sit through it with warmer temperatures. We’ll do more weather checking in the morning and make our decision then. Or maybe we’ll just flip a coin!

We talked to our daughter Heather this evening and she reported that they did get snow on the Cape last night. Since there was no school today, the boys got to enjoy the little bit of snow they got. Sam’s birthday party was today and Heather said it was the easiest party she has ever hosted. Sam just wanted a few of his best buddies to come over and play Legos with no interruptions from younger brothers. The big boys played Legos upstairs quietly and then come down for lunch. Sam requested ribs, so ribs it was. And he also requested chocolate cupcakes instead of a fancy cake. Jonah and the little brother of one of Sam’s friends spent the morning out sledding on the slushy, icy snow and had a ball. The sleds went so fast down the hill in the backyard that the boys hit the fence a few times. This happened despite a barrier of fall leaves that had been left at the base of the fence for this purpose. Evidently Jonah has a few scratches on his face tonight from the sledding, but it was so much fun he didn’t really complain. Ollie opted for quieter indoor play, so it was an easy birthday celebration and everyone had a great time. Sam’s real birthday is on Thursday, so birthday wishes from Oma and Granddad will be forthcoming then.

Day 87, Year 11: A Chill in the Land of Palm Trees
Date: Sunday, January 17, 2016
Weather: Overcast and Cold, High 46, Low 32 degrees F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, SC

I do believe we brought cold weather with us when we returned to the land of palm trees. The thermometer only reached 46 degrees F today and it was overcast and windy and felt colder. Tonight temps will dip to the freezing point and the next two nights the low will be around 20 degrees F. Chilly!!!

Last night when we got here, we started checking the weather for our passage south to Florida. We had promised ourselves we would sit still for a week or two until we figure out what is going on with the nighttime pain in Mark’s abdomen. But when Mark saw four straight days with mostly north winds (tomorrow through Thursday), he changed his mind. If we left tomorrow morning (Monday) we could be in West Palm Beach by Friday morning. We saw the forecast for two 20 degree nights (Monday and Tuesday) in this part of the world, but we ignored that because starting on Thursday or Friday of this week, it looks like southerly winds for all of the next week. It looked like we would either have to leave tomorrow and freeze or wait two weeks. So we decided to spend today doing the last provisioning and be on our way. But this morning, we started rethinking about just how cold we would be in the cockpit at 21 degrees F and it did not sound like fun. In addition, Mark has come down with a cold and probably doesn’t need to be doing freezing nighttime watches. Nevertheless, we did go ahead and do the last grocery shopping. We are ready to go, but we decided to stay put. It might be possible to leave on Wednesday and get as far as the Florida-Georgia border by Friday and then wait out the southerlies there. Or we could continue on in the Intracoastal from there as we did last year. Another option would be to travel the Intracoastal all the way from here to southern Florida. The problem with that is that the Intracoastal has some very shallow areas between here and Florida and the thought of going aground is not inviting. But however much we dislike traveling in the Intracoastal, at this time of year it might end up to be our only choice. The next two days will be spent doing more weather watching and by Wednesday morning we hope to make a decision. And we hope for warmer weather.