Steinhatchee Crossing

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Had a restful night anchored at Dog Island and a nice leisurely morning.

After breakfast we set off by dinghy to go walk along the white sandy beach. The waves were definitely too large to attempt a crossing. Saw lots of shore birds, crabs and seashells. I brought two back to make tea candle holders. Most residents live here part time. There are old vehicles they use to get around the sandy roads. They would have had to bring them by barge. They bring fuel from the mainland, there is electricity and wells for water. Seems to be a nice little community.

When we got back from our walk, the wind had died and the bay was calm. We looked at our weather resources and things seemed to be favourable for a crossing. So we loaded up the dinghy, had lunch, picked up the anchor and off we went at 2 in the afternoon. We knew we would reach Steinhatchee in the dark but we did this before.

The seas were nice and smooth with some left over swells but quite pleasant for the first 4 hours. Half way through our crossing, once we were fully committed, the weather window slammed shut. Winds came up from the north, not good as this was on our beam. We kicked up the speed for half an hour but that was threatening to tear the boat apart. We ended up having to cut the speed way down to handle some of the six foot waves. Most of the time we had 3 to 4 foot waves. It looked bigger than that as viewed from the side window by the first mate. Things were flying around the cabin until I just put everything on the floor. When darkness came, I felt much better since I could no longer see the big waves coming, I could only feel their impact. To make matters worse, we were using a plotted course on an IPAD with no night vision so the Captain was blinded and couldn’t see outside for the last 3 hours. We had to close all the windows to keep the sea out and the fumes from a gas can that was rolling around the top deck. When I started to see a red light in the distance three hours from reaching the channel, I felt much better. Not so the Captain, he was struggling to keep the boat on course as it was being turned every which way by the waves.

We finally anchored in the Steinhatchie River at 11:15. I kissed the anchor before I threw it overboard. Isn’t boating fun? The only damage is to the dinghy that was on the swim platform. One of the chambers is deflated.

We will be more careful with the next two crossings, we do not want to go through that again.

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