Passage to Charleston

Back in the USA!  Wow, what a great passage J  We had a largely uneventful trip to Charleston and are happy to be back! The trip took a total of 61 hours and we covered 547 nautical miles. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get off to a very auspicious start. We made the decision to leave quite late on Monday – after the marina had closed. This meant that we couldn’t request that the chain across the marina entrance be left open for us so we needed to wait until around 9am to leave. Low tide was at 10 and we didn’t want to leave on a falling tide because the channel is so shallow. So while the best departure time would have been sunrise, we didn’t head out until 11. We were told to keep to the center of the channel but went a bit to starboard coming around the turn and whomph – we were dead stopped and aground! We’ve been in and out of Palm Cay several times so we knew we’d lift off with the rising tide but it was a drag to be sat there. It only took about 10-15 minutes before Martin was able to wiggle us off using the thrusters. (Yea hydraulic thrusters - they don’t heat up and time out like the electric ones can and we sure ran them hard.) And we were off, again! 

Much to our relief, we passed through Nassau Harbour without incident or a cruise ship entering. 

We were happy no ship was coming in and equally happy to pass this spot :/

 We saw a very sad sight as we passed the bridge just before Atlantis.

Very sad 

The squalls waited for us to leave, very polite!

Looking back at a rainy Nassau

The real excitement of the day was seeing a whale at the tongue of the ocean. I was a little worried that something was wrong with him. He stayed at the surface until we were close (we made sure to keep a healthy distance from him) before he did a shallow dive. He was small and seemed to be alone. We checked him out in passing and saw no fishing lines, nets, scars or abrasions so hopefully he was just relaxing on a lazy afternoon.

Blowing spout

Later that afternoon we had a big storm cloud form just over our heads and follow us for about 4 hours across the bank. No other squalls for miles, go figure. Wednesday was largely uneventful and calm. We saw very few ships and hit the Gulf Stream where we picked up 3 knots that held for the duration of the time we were in the stream. We cruised steadily at about 10.4 knots for 2 days.

Wednesday day

Sunset on Wednesday

Thursday early morning it got a bit bumpy before returning to very calm conditions in the afternoon.

Martin enjoying the view on Thursday

Sunset Thursday evening

We met a really nice sailor (on the VHF) who was single handing it from Marathon to Charleston. His SSB had gone out and he asked us if we could contact his wife to let her know he was okay. We got her number and gave her a call, she was very happy to hear from us! I saw two dolphins but they didn’t stay to play. They were really big, very dark and really fast. I’m wondering if they were dolphins, or if there are small whales that fit that description? I know there are several different kind of dolphins so maybe these were just different from those you usually see farther south.

As you can tell by the photos, our panorama didn’t change much and the conditions were ideal…

This trip we did things a little differently than we have in the past. We kept to our 4 hour shifts as that seems to work well for us, but stayed in the pilot house a lot more. Normally we each spend most of our time off-shift below, leaving the person on shift alone in the pilot house. This time we only went below for extended periods of time when we had to sleep. It was a bit frustrating not to clean or pick up while underway but conditions late night Wednesday/early Thursday would have made me queasy if I’d been below. So it helped with sea sickness, eased the anxiety I can feel alone at the helm and made time pass more quickly for both of us. We also discovered the Sirius station “Road Trip Radio”, music from the 60s through today. Simon and Garfunkle, Styx, Queen, Blonde, Sir Mix a Lot (!), Ramones, Gin Blossoms, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga. Quite the mix. It was a “this is your life in music” experience, we had a great time singing along.

We approached Charleston in the evening and the temperature dropped almost 5 degrees. We happily turned off the ac and enjoy a fabulous evening. Because it was a less than ideal time to arrive (around midnight) we anchored off the south channel next to Fort Johnson. This was a first for us – to enter a major shipping channel and anchor at night. We’ve been through here a few times now so we knew the lay of the land/sea which made it much less scary.

Martin dropping the hook

Our views in the morning

Our slip at the City Marina (Megadock) isn’t guaranteed to be free until noon today so we slept in and are having a lazy morning.  We head in to the marina around 1, at afternoon slack current. Then we’ll head over customs and check back into the country.

So now we’re in Charleston, one of our favorite cities. We need to figure out how long we’ll be here and what our next move will be (weather will likely be a deciding factor). It’s comforting to know that we’re only about 4 days (including 1 overnight) from our hurricane hole in Virginia.

We’ve been in the Bahamas for 2 months so we’re looking forward to catching up on all things internet, being able to call friends and family cheaply, ordering a few spare parts/boats bits we’d like to have on board and maybe visiting Amazon.com. Woo hoo, all the conveniences of home!

Boat Business. Blossom performed like a champ with the exception of a slight engine issue, see below.

• Revisiting the varying RPM/Engine load. Oddly, about 12 hours into the trip this began again. It was mild, not nearly as drastic as it had been a couple weeks ago, but it was there. After a couple hours everything stabilized, but we were running at 25 rpm lower with a decreased fuel burn (about .3 less). This lasted several hours and then it went back to normal. Fouled fuel filters again? What could be in our fuel? Martin is going to change the filters out a second time and polish our fuel while we’re in Charleston. Then we’ll see how it does when we head north next.

Leaving the Bahamas

A last minute post here!

I’m feeling a bit sad as we prepare to head out, back to the US. Our future plans (which of course, are written in sand J) are to spend the next 2 years in the north, exploring new territory – including the Chesapeake, New England and maybe beyond to Canada. We're really excited to explore the NE but it does mean that we won’t be back to Bahamas until 2019. The Exuma’s and the out islands here are magical places -  I don’t think there’s anywhere else quite like it. It’s sad to say goodbye, even if only for a couple of years.

We had hoped to spend a few days relaxing in Palm Cay. It’s been a busy 2 months and we’d both like to hang out for a few days, catching up on chores and chilling out a bit. We spent yesterday alternating between working and playing. I even pulled out the fabric for my next quilt project! But then last night we got an email from our weather router saying that he thought it best that we depart Tuesday as this week is the best weather window to leave. It looks like some stormy/windy stuff could blow up from the south next week and we'd like to make the Carolina's by mid-Month at the lastest.

We're incredibly lucky to even have the choice to stay here into June. Our insurance stipulates that we be north of Florida by July 1st. Many demand north of Georgia or the Carolina's by June 1st. Our plan is to have Blossom in storage by July 4th so we have a few weeks to play with. Of course hurricane season still hangs over your head this time of year.

We've decided to head to Charleston, knowing that we can go to shore at Jacksonville if we need to (if we get tired and want to take a break). I've reserved a slip there so now we need to decide how long we’ll stay. That may well also be weather dependent. Charleston would put us about 4 days out from our hurricane hole which is reasonable given that you normally have at least a week notice that something might be coming.

Last minute changes aren't our forte but we’ve rallied and are preparing to leave ;) We'll get a later start than we might have liked as Martin has to finish some maintenance tasks and I need to prep the boat for the passage. But the real reason is that the water is really skinny here and low tide was at 10am. The channel is dredged to an even 7 feet and we draw 6'8". So we'd like to wait for a rising tide at the very least!

In all honesty, Martin and I are bit anxious. One year ago this week we left Palm Cay Marina, anticipating a lovely 26ish hour cruise to Palm Beach, Florida. We had a lovely cruise for about an hour or so before it all went up in smoke - a fire in the engine room. Needless to say, we’ll both breathe a sigh of relief once we’ve passed through Nassau Harbor.

And so we’re off. We expect the trip to be about 60 or so hours. It’s difficult to guestimate because of the gulf stream. One time we sped up to 12 knots on our way to Charleston! We're not banking on that though and anticipate arriving early and anchoring out until slack high tide on Friday when we'll go into the marina. Oh, and this trip I'm trying half a patch on the arm for sea sickness though I don't think I'll need anything!

See you state side…

Boat Business:

•  I finally sewed the dinghy cover zipper. It's been leaky and needed to be repaired. My Juki is a killer sewing machine and marched right through 3 layers of stamoid!

Split along the zipper needing repair

Rocking my sewing table!

•  Wing Engine Racor. Martin changed the racor on the wing as the vacuum gauge is showing that it is beginning to clog.  

Eagle Ray jumping in Palm Cay marina

A rare posting by Martin! While enjoying happy hour on the flybridge we noticed two spotted eagle rays swimming in the marina. A rare enough sight as it is but then one of them jumped!

Amazingly, Paul was filming them. So we get to share the video with you all!

Atlantis - the end of a fabulous visit

Somehow, two weeks flew by and we found ourselves docked at Atlantis, a bit stunned to realize we only had a couple of days left together.

Blossom in her slip

I think I wrote in the last blog entry that we arrived during a mean thunderstorm. It was first real rain that we’ve experienced in two weeks and it feels to us like that storm ushered in the Bahamian summer. The combination of being at a marina and the change in weather made our last few days together very different. We’ve been basking in AC and had to eat ice cream to keep cool J

Sitting on the ice cream bench, post ice cream binge

Atlantis is an amazing place. A bit of an adult Disneyland on water. It’s a huge complex with a casino, enormous aquariums, a water park, several restaurants and a marina that features mega-yachts. The closer in to the main building you get, the bigger the boats are. Blossom is a wee boat here and we’re docked in the outermost slips. This is actually quite nice because a) it’s much cheaper (the $ goes up with proximity to the complex) and b) less looky-loos. It’s also a quarter mile walk to the park so it helps burn off the ice cream J  The marina staff will come get you in a golf cart and transport you back and forth is you give them a call. This is a really nice service if you have luggage or groceries, etc and need a lift.

The four us of sitting in the Atlantis Throne

An amazing Chihuly glass sculpture

The rain persisted our first night here so we spent the evening walking around the inside of Atlantis and went for a drink and dinner. We had a hard time getting a drink so we went off to an early dinner at our favorite restaurant – the most incredible buffet we’ve ever experienced. Sushi, salad bar, cheese bar, fresh pasta made to order, grill and of course – a dessert table(s) featuring dozens of goodies including made-to-order sweet crepes. Yup, went there twice J

Enjoying people watching and waiting for drinks (that never came!)

Pics from around Atlantis

 Lobster

 Shark

 Sawtooth Shark

Lemon(?) shark

 Hammerhead 

Turtles

Filefish

The day caught up with me and I had to have an early night after dinner so I missed out on the rest of the fun, but Mart, Ed & Jo went out for an evening on the town at Atlantis. (Thanks, again, Jo for the pictures!!!)

Evening out at Atlantis

Thursday was a sunny, hot day and we had a blast in the park. We went to get our wrist bands and towels and look at that - they even put a "blossom" by our name!

We spent most of the day riding the Crazy Rapids. We were in there for hours, until we all started to prune.

Fun in the rapids

Getting to the Tower, hard work for the guys

Ready to drop...

After a day in the sun and rapids we came back to Blossom for drinks... We were having a great time up top when we looked over and saw that a boat had come in 3 slips away – Stellina – the folks we met at Conception Cay! We went over and said hello and made plans to meet up on Friday.

Checking out the scene from the fly bridge

 And returned, of course, to the buffet for dinner.

Kitty on light, waiting outside the restaurant for handouts

And then it was Friday and I think we all felt a bit shocked and sad. We went out in the morning to do a bit of shopping and check out the little straw market on Paradise Island. Then we went back for a bit more fun in the rapids, lunch at Murray’s Diner, ice cream and soon it was time to say good-bye.

I bought this beaded octopus and found a place to put my lemons!

We’ve had the most wonderful time with Ed & Jo these past two weeks. They were amazing guests and made everything easy. We were sad to say goodbye but feel blessed to have made so many warm memories of laughter and adventure.

The goofballs. We miss you guys!

And so it was Friday evening and Martin and I came back to a very empty feeling boat. We only had a minute to wonder what to do when Steve knocked on the hull and invited us over to Stellina where we met their friends Tom & Sandra. We got a tour of Steve & Angela’s gorgeous boat and all went to dinner. We learned that Tom & Sandra had been at Highbourne with us (and that Cristobal had actually anchored a boat length off their bow after circling us!) and that they’re from St. Pete. It’s seriously strange how we keep meeting such wonderful people from that city!

Today is a rainy Saturday and we’re spending the day preparing for our next guests who arrive tomorrow. I feel like an incredibly lucky person. Life is just so dang good.

Boat Business:

• 20K gen. Mart changed the oil and filters on the 20k per the maintenance schedule.