So I know blog has been a bit behind, i wont go into all the details now but I finally took two weeks off from “work” while aimee went to race in Antigua race week so i finally have some free time.
Don and I managed to get out of the BVI on schedule on the 28th of April in spite of a few days of parties with our friends in Cane Garden Bay and Sopers (The Slappers, Tom and Maggie our new 440 friends Mike and Jen on 3 Sheets not to mention Burt and Emily and of course Don).
All these parties made pre departure a bit challenging but I did manage to get 2 solid days of water maker repair in during the day. And yes, after rebuilding the clark pump for the 3rd time finally found this seal in the very middle of the thing had been installed wrong. Good news is it is working awaiting Aimee’s return, but I digress.
Even though Don and I got under way on the 28th he was not up to heading straight to the bahamas so we spent a day anchored off st john fixiing his honda generator and patching his collectors item dingy and mostly waiting for don to recover!
We had a bit of a debate on the schedule for the trip, don told me to plan on 10 days but after looking at the 1600nm distance i was thinking 100nm days and 16 days total (it is a 35 foot cat and i get 125 nm days on the 45 foot palapa). don assured me cats where much “faster”
i was skeptical but i figured it would be what it would be. we got underway at 5am on the 29th and it became apparent we where not going to be setting any speed records on this event. with both his engines at full and the headsail out in 15 kts of wind we where doing 5.5 kts. in don’s defense he has two 1 cylinder 10 hp yanmar sail drives (same as charle barr)
the good news is we had been warned about expensive bahamas everything so we stocked up on beer, rum, raman, mac & cheese tuna in that order. pretty easy menu all you need to do is heat water, what could go wrong with that!
so early on in day one we recognized this was not going to be a 10 day 1600 nm passage to Annapolis. We where able to get 4.5 to 5.5 kts with one engine and the headsail depending on wind. we did some calculations and with 130 liter tanks x 2 and burning a liter an hour we are in pretty good shape for motorsailing the whole way with perhaps a stop.
We are now on day 3 or 4 i have lost track. i have finished all my books. the dingy patch has been replaced twice and it still leaks. i have been more relaxed over the last 3 days than i have been all season!!
i think the new job has been stressing me more than i realize as the first night i was on watch and must have drifted off or something because all of a sudden i woke up pulled the engine to neutral and yelled to don that we had to pick up a mooring to drop the guests off. he relieved me a bit early but then a few hours later i again woke up stumbled into the cockpit and again told don we needed to drop the guests off.
good news it that only happened the first night, the remainder of my night watches (i do 6 to midnight and 4am on) have been relaxing reading books and watching some bad movies. there has been almost nothing out here with only an occasional cruise ship and two sail boats. of course we have no radar and no ais and no moon but i have not seen a running light anywhere!
so getting back to the provisioning last night as i finished up dons dinner of yaki soba (fried noodles with egg) we ran out of gas. fortunately we where able to split his large meal and not starve (i did have another can of tuna on watch when i discovered we are almost out of mayo).
this am our wind dropped even further and i finally got the bgan (which i have been paying 60$ per month just to have) to work after 2 days of errors. this allowed us to see the forcast for the rest of the trip at less than 10 kts with a few days on the nose!
after looking at our progress and our distance to go i observed even if we cut the trip short by 300nm and stopped in NC we would only have 3 days to “explore the bahamas” this was based on the 5.5 125 nm days. 100nm days all bets are off. based on this we have decided to just press on to abaco where i have some charter guest friends with a hose and boat.
this means another 3 days with no propane but at least we have plenty of beer and chips!
all and all i am having a great time, don seems a bit board but he is now reading all the books i finished and getting more into the offshore passage life.
for those of you who are not getting the delorm track info our current location as of this am was
Lat 22.478778 Lon -72.785968
cheers
Roger & Don
Good to hear you got the watermaker fixed finally. Glad you’re relaxing and having fun. G&L.