St Thomas, Turks, Georgia Passage

The last major passage before returning to the States would be from St Thomas to Georgia, appx. 1500 miles. My buddy Sean Jahr flew down to get a taste for “Blue water sailing” and I can say now that I didn’t let him down. We left with 2 other boats, both single handling. Ketching Up and I have been together on and off since the Panama Canal. Mistral we met in St Thomas. He’s an older French man on a 34’ boat. We met him in St Thomas when we did some sail work for the guy. His plan is to end up in NYC but since we’re leaving at about the same time, he asked if he could tag along.

We all took off but Mistral had problems from the get go. First, he told us he has a “marine project” growing on the bottom of his boat. Why he didn’t get it cleaned before a passage like this is beyond me but whatever, as long as he doesn’t slow us up too much. About 5hrs in, his autopilot started acting up and he had to head up a little. Towards nightfall, we were about 13 miles ahead of him. Patience running thin, we told him to motor-sail and catch us or we’re moving on w/o him. He caught us at about 9pm, only to be left behind again at sunrise.

Right about this time, he told us he was taking on water around his packing gland (where the prop shaft enters the hull of the boat). Most of the time, bilge pumps can keep up with a leak like this (usually just a fast drip) but he told us his pumps were clogged! Once again, why you wouldn’t check this stuff out before a 1500mile passage is nothing short of stupidity (sorry Mistral if you’re reading this but you don’t have a leg to stand on). He was pumping by hand until morning when he could then fix the electric bilge pumps. Once we heard everything was under control, we tried to get him to go to Puerto Rico to get some repairs done however received the following response (with a heavy French accent) “I have crossed several ponds hand-steering, no problem”. When a sailor says “ponds”, they’re referring to oceans. My response “have at it but we’re not waiting anymore for you”. He decided to fall off the wind and go straight to NYC. He arrived on the 24th (we left on the 9th). He said he was tired and planned to sleep for 2 days straight. We were just happy to hear he made it.

Anyway, back to Ketching Up and me. We headed for Grand Turk with plans of sleeping, drinking and swimming. About 1 mile out, Noel changed his mind and chose to keep going. He was feeling good and I think missing the wife and kids so he literally spun his boat around and sailed off into the sunset. Sean and I thought about going with him for about 3 seconds until we remembered the steaks we had in the freezer. We approached the anchorage where a pilot boat came out and told us to follow him in. We did as we were told. He pointed literally out his window at the water and said, “Anchor here”. We did. It was after 5pm so thinking Immigration was closed, we proceeded to the beach and had a few beers with some locals, then returned to the boat for those steaks!

6:30am the following morning, we hear and feel this very strong gurgling sound. Sean woke up and thought we were taking on water. After 5 months in St. Thomas, I knew exactly what it was…..bow and stern thrusters from a cruise ship. We popped our heads out and saw a big white wall about 30 yards from us. They were able to squeeze by us but learned later, we delayed them by about 30mins as they tried to hail us on the VHF (that we had off). Anyway, later that day, Sean and I walked around town and as soon as anyone found out we were on a sailboat, the next question was “were you the ones that blocked the cruise ship this morning, that was so funny!”. I was famous on the island after only 24 hours.

Grand Turk was pretty amazing. Great reefs, very nice people, etc however they got hit with a cat 5 hurricane last year. When they went to tap the emergency funds for repairs, they were empty. Guess the Gov’t is corrupt and stole the money. The high school was still in tents after a year. Pretty sad but they’re slowly making progress. Sean and I met a bunch of the locals and negotiated a tour of the island and a ride to the grocery store for lunch. Not a bad deal considering the tour guides were female and about the nicest people I ever met cruising. After 4 days we were ready to leave. We checked the weather one last time and took off. At this point, the only issue was 12hrs of 25-30kt winds on Wednesday, then flat calm on Thursday. With that said, we took off.

We had a great sail the first 2 days, flying the spinnaker and making anywhere between 7-9kts over ground. As we went around the top of the Bahamas, the weather changed rather abruptly and the seas began to build. Within minutes, it was blowing 30 with 20’ seas. Not bad but rather just wet and cold. During the night, we had gusts probably hitting 40. At this point we were talking to the Coast Guard and asking for weather updates. Over the course of 3 days of complete hell (for lack of better words), they repeatedly told us that it’d pass in about 8-12 hours. When we got this 1st update, we decided to keep going. We had 2 options…stop in the Bahamas or head for FL. Both options were at least 8-10hrs away so we decided to stay out and weather the weather.

If we knew at that time that the storm would last 3 days, we definitely would have popped in somewhere and anchored. But like I said, every time we spoke to our Coast Guard friends, they told us 8 more hours. Let’s just hope they can sail boats and fly choppers better than they can read weather!

About 4 hours after the Coast Guard told us it was going to die, we had 65kts in the middle of the night! We got pooped 3 times over about 15hrs. Pooped is when a wave breaks into your cockpit. It filled the cockpit up to the top, once causing 3 cushions to float overboard. I quickly found out that teak floor grates float as well. I was out there in 65kts in waste deep water trying to keep the cushions and floor grates on board. It took about 10 minutes for the cockpit to drain (a very long 10 minutes).

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.l.kinkead/StThomasTurksGeorgiaPassage#5340169381608990386

The following morning, I had about a 2’ tear in the main sail at the batten pocket. Also, the UV cover on the jib started to tear and fray simply from the wind and rain hitting it. I plan on simply taking off the UV cover (the sail is old anyway) and fixing the main. New sails will be on order as soon as I get some funds. Arun at my old place of work in St Thomas said he’d give me a deal. Anyway, after the weather passed, we had a great final day as we approached Brunswick Georgia.

We reached the channel markers at 3am. I wanted to stay out until morning but Sean wanted to go in. I thought about it and decided that I was ok with heading in as the channel is very well marked. Right about then, an alarm went off and said that batteries were low. I quickly looked down and noticed that although the engine was running, the tach wasn’t (usually….no tach, no alternator). This happened before and I simply turned off the engine, fired it back up and the alternator worked. Well, I killed the engine and tried to restart but remember…low batteries! Oops. Now we’re true sailors with no wind. We thought about sailing in but then the wind died (of course). We sailed for about ½hr and went appx. 300 yards. Once we cleared the channel, we dropped the anchor (manually as we had no power for the windlass). The plan was turn everything off and wait for the sun to come up. The solar panels would charge the batteries and we could then fire up the engine.

Finally, something went right and the sun broke at 6am. 9am we turned the engine over and were on our way in. About ½ way in, the engine started to sputter. I quickly switched over to the back up Racor and she settle down. About an hour later, in the middle of the channel, it sputtered again. I had Sean aim for the beach to get us out of the channel. As soon as got clear of the channel and had about 30’ of water, I dropped the anchor. As the anchor was paying out,, the engine died…can you say perfect timing. Once again we had no engine and no wind. I went down below and started the process of changing filters and bleeding the engine. About 45mins later, she fired up and we were once again underway. The marina at this point was laughing at us. It took us about 18hours to cover the last 4 miles of the trip.

Anyway, we finally got in, tied up and proceeded to drink, a lot. Sean flew home today (5/29) and I’m back to the norm. Going to search for some jobs online. This is a safe spot to leave the boat so if I can find anything, I’ll simply leave Spirit here and go work. Otherwise, I may head up to Wilmington next month.

That’s all for now, but as always, there will be more later!
Dan