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Published: April 18th 2010
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We made it to Fernandina Beach. Paul left this morning and I am sitting at the dock at the city marina. This is the first dock I have been tied to since Datona beach in early Nov. Feels good to be able to walk off the boat into town without starting the dinghy. Had a nice meal last night and a few beers. As always I can't afford it but hard to pass up.
So the advice for being in the Gulf Stream is, never be there when there is wind from the NW to the NE. When we took off on Sun the wind was supposed to turn east at about 15 to 20 knots. That was going to be a little rough water but probably not bad of a ride. We get out and there is a NE wind but we figured it would change soon because all the forcasts said it would. Ha. It not only stayed NE but increased in speed. The current in the Gulf Stream runs north. So when you have a wind coming from the north the wind and current make crazy waves pile up. Pretty soon we were in eight foot waves
which is not really all that bad if they are rolling and far apart. These waves were like little hills coming from different direction. It made the boat rock in all directions instead of being a steady motion. That is when I got seasick. Then we started hitting squall. Black clouds sarted coming at us and you could see the rain falling and the waves getting more crazy, confused as the sailors say. Paul was still having a pretty good time even though he said it was definatley not ideal waves. People who have been out in those conditions always talk about seeing elephants on the horizon. These wierd looking waves start stacking up and you can see them on the horizon and they look like big animals. They last for a few seconds and disapear and then others pop up. You can see what looks like 100 of them popping up and disapearing. I don't like elephants on the horizon. So Paul says don't worry Don you don't see any elephants do you? So he takes a look at the horizon, leans back against the doorway, looks down and starts shaking his head. I got a little more sea
sick. By this time we had put a double reef in the main sail and rolled the furling jib in over half way. So the first squall hits and the boat heels over so that that my little port window on the port side is underwater and staying there. Water is at the rail. Several good things were that there was no lightening and the fact the little Seaquel was preforming like a blue water boat. Her wing keel seemed to keep her in the water. We did not slam and loose speed except for a few times. She would ride straight up one wave and down the other side and stayed pretty dry at the same time. Very impressive. We did get waves slapping into the side of the boat that would slam us on deck but not bad. The rainfall was unbelivable. Could not even see because it hurt to look directly into the wind. That is no big deal because there is not much to hit about 15 miles off shore. Another good thing was that, since we were getting a push from the Gulf Stream, we were making nine knots. That is very good speed. So after the fourth squall we decided we would bail out and head into Lake Worth Inlet just north of West Palm Beach. We had a pretty violent roll coming in but it leveled out when we got into the channel. It was good to throw out the anchor and grab a beer. You may say well why didn't you hug the coast. Well with a wind that is blowing toward or close to toward the shore we would have been in danger of running aground at the beach. We needed to keep a lot of water between us and the shore until we could run directly into the inlet. All the pounding stirred up the fuel and made the fuel filter clog up which is why the engine stopped going through the bridge the next day. That is a pretty common occurance after such a ride. We stopped in Saint Augustine to get two new filters just in case.
Anyway it was very exciting stuff but I think I must be getting too old. It was good to run the ICW for a few days. It drove Paul crazy though. He wants to get in the ocean and relax. We popped back out in Saint Augustine and had a really good day with resonable seas until the wind gave out and we motor sailed for about a third of the way into St Marys Inlet at Fernandina Beach.
I will probably head out tomorrow morning and see if I can get a ways into Georgia and find a new adventure or two or ------. the good thang and the bad thing at the same time is that it goes from adventure to adventure.
Wish we could have had better sailing but except for the massive nonstop Ne wind and a a few squalls it has been pretty nice weather. We hit one pretty big squall a few days ago. Paul showed me how to pick a marker and run up until you can't wee it and tehn run the reverse route, called the reciprical, back to it until the storm passes. Definately always exciting stuff on the boat. The best sail was coming into Miami on Biscayne Bay with Desiree and Suzie. That was a great sail for about six hours on a nice easy reach. My kind of fair weather sailing day. At any rate it will be nice to get back to Va for a while though.
By the way Frank you know that boat hook of yours that has been riding on the side of the boat. Well it went flying off into the Atlantic Ocean when the second squall came upon us. Ha. I'll have to buy you another.
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