We left Mangrove Cay mid-afternoon to sail off the banks at about dusk and to arrive at Florida’s St. Lucie Inlet early the following morning. We do the gulf stream crossing this way for two reasons: weather conditions in the gulf stream are generally calmer and more stable during the night because the sun is down and not pumping energy into the atmosphere; it is easier to enter an inlet with the sun up and behind you providing visibility for entrance markers, wave conditions and other boat traffic, important elements of making a safe passage through it.
The weather was cooperative for our crossing – by design, we had picked a window with friendly winds (SE, 10-15knots), nice seas (1-3 feet in the gulf stream) and placid weather (an isolated thunderstorm possible, but not very likely). As an added benefit, a 3/4 moon would rise about 11:30pm, providing additional visibility. However, even with all this cooperation, we definitely had some “surprises” during the crossing.
Sailing in the dark is a unique (and sometimes stressful) experience – you can’t see the size and shape of other vessels until they are very close – too close to safely pass. Vessels use special lights, a.k.a., running lights, to get around this problem: the lights help you figure out a vessel’s course and by watching them for a while, you can get a sense of whether it will cross your path – i.e., whether it is a collision threat. Radar, which gives you a sense of a target boat’s distance as well as its course also can help; it gives you a “warm-fuzzy” when it confirms your reading of the lights; it can also tell you when, uh, you might have gotten things wrong. My Weigh has radar.
When we crossed the gulf stream last year, we encountered 1 or 2 other boats. This time was very different – in the first part of the night, before the moon came up, we had two cruise ships and two freighters that converged on our course line and at least another half dozen boats that didn’t. All but one of the course convergences were comfortably far away (a few miles when they crossed our path), the exception being a cruise ship that passed just under a mile behind us. Sue, who was off watch and sleeping at the time, happened to wake up as it passed and was “wowed” by the sight of the ship – it was lit up like a Christmas tree.
At one point around 1:30am, Sue noticed Bob’s boat turn and head due North, not a good thing if you are trying to crab across the stream to get to St. Lucie Inlet. Suspecting something was wrong, she called Bob on the VHF; as it turned out, he was grateful that she called to get his attention. To recover, he turned around to come back to our course line, but overshot it and ended up crossing in front of us to our other side. Then, he promptly turned back and re-crossed in front of us to settle back into his leading position – a kind of boat pirouette in the dark.
When I woke up for my 3am watch, I found the house batteries were dangerously low -- the engine’s alternator was apparently not keeping up with the drain from all of the lights and instruments that we were using to make the crossing (radar, for example, draws a lot of current). Fortunately, we had kept Bob’s generator on board for just such an emergency; I simply hooked it up and started it, keeping the batteries from failing and us on track to make the Inlet at about 7am.
At about 3:30 in the morning, some yahoo in a fishing boat cut between Bob’s boat and mine – he came within a boat length off my bow, – uncomfortably close in the dark – why they had to “cut through us” in the dark I will never know.
Despite all the “surprises”, we made it safely across the stream and were approaching the St. Lucie Inlet at about 7am, on schedule and happy that we were about to be home.
Of course, there was one more “surprise” awaiting us – it was about an hour before low tide and the ebbing St. Lucie against the SE winds created some large (5-6 feet) standing waves in the entrance channel. Worse, a swarm of small fishing boats exiting the inlet at high speed were being bounced around in those waves like balls on a racquetball court – now moving this way, then suddenly, changing direction and moving that way. This made picking our way through the entrance and the oncoming traffic a harrowing experience -- ten minutes of dodgeball with oncoming, erratically moving, fishing boats. And, topping it all off, the set of the strong ebb pushed us into shallower water just as we exited the entrance channel (I saw 6.5 feet at one point – My Weigh draws 5). Fortunately, we managed to avoid any collisions with the exiting fishing boats and find the deeper water once we saw we had been forced into the shallows.
Having made it through the final surprise, we wound our way up the channel and into the Manatee Pocket, our 2016 Bahamas Adventure having come to its end.
.
The weather was cooperative for our crossing – by design, we had picked a window with friendly winds (SE, 10-15knots), nice seas (1-3 feet in the gulf stream) and placid weather (an isolated thunderstorm possible, but not very likely). As an added benefit, a 3/4 moon would rise about 11:30pm, providing additional visibility. However, even with all this cooperation, we definitely had some “surprises” during the crossing.
Sailing in the dark is a unique (and sometimes stressful) experience – you can’t see the size and shape of other vessels until they are very close – too close to safely pass. Vessels use special lights, a.k.a., running lights, to get around this problem: the lights help you figure out a vessel’s course and by watching them for a while, you can get a sense of whether it will cross your path – i.e., whether it is a collision threat. Radar, which gives you a sense of a target boat’s distance as well as its course also can help; it gives you a “warm-fuzzy” when it confirms your reading of the lights; it can also tell you when, uh, you might have gotten things wrong. My Weigh has radar.
When we crossed the gulf stream last year, we encountered 1 or 2 other boats. This time was very different – in the first part of the night, before the moon came up, we had two cruise ships and two freighters that converged on our course line and at least another half dozen boats that didn’t. All but one of the course convergences were comfortably far away (a few miles when they crossed our path), the exception being a cruise ship that passed just under a mile behind us. Sue, who was off watch and sleeping at the time, happened to wake up as it passed and was “wowed” by the sight of the ship – it was lit up like a Christmas tree.
At one point around 1:30am, Sue noticed Bob’s boat turn and head due North, not a good thing if you are trying to crab across the stream to get to St. Lucie Inlet. Suspecting something was wrong, she called Bob on the VHF; as it turned out, he was grateful that she called to get his attention. To recover, he turned around to come back to our course line, but overshot it and ended up crossing in front of us to our other side. Then, he promptly turned back and re-crossed in front of us to settle back into his leading position – a kind of boat pirouette in the dark.
When I woke up for my 3am watch, I found the house batteries were dangerously low -- the engine’s alternator was apparently not keeping up with the drain from all of the lights and instruments that we were using to make the crossing (radar, for example, draws a lot of current). Fortunately, we had kept Bob’s generator on board for just such an emergency; I simply hooked it up and started it, keeping the batteries from failing and us on track to make the Inlet at about 7am.
At about 3:30 in the morning, some yahoo in a fishing boat cut between Bob’s boat and mine – he came within a boat length off my bow, – uncomfortably close in the dark – why they had to “cut through us” in the dark I will never know.
Despite all the “surprises”, we made it safely across the stream and were approaching the St. Lucie Inlet at about 7am, on schedule and happy that we were about to be home.
Of course, there was one more “surprise” awaiting us – it was about an hour before low tide and the ebbing St. Lucie against the SE winds created some large (5-6 feet) standing waves in the entrance channel. Worse, a swarm of small fishing boats exiting the inlet at high speed were being bounced around in those waves like balls on a racquetball court – now moving this way, then suddenly, changing direction and moving that way. This made picking our way through the entrance and the oncoming traffic a harrowing experience -- ten minutes of dodgeball with oncoming, erratically moving, fishing boats. And, topping it all off, the set of the strong ebb pushed us into shallower water just as we exited the entrance channel (I saw 6.5 feet at one point – My Weigh draws 5). Fortunately, we managed to avoid any collisions with the exiting fishing boats and find the deeper water once we saw we had been forced into the shallows.
Having made it through the final surprise, we wound our way up the channel and into the Manatee Pocket, our 2016 Bahamas Adventure having come to its end.
.
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| This (not so great), picture gives you a sense of what the cruise ship looked like as it passed behind us – the stainless steel tubes in the foreground support My Weigh’s Bimini – at this point the ship was perhaps 1.5 miles away – it looked a LOT bigger when it was behind us |
