Treasure Cay, Abacos - 4/1/02
We had heard from our friends on Evergreen and Southpaws that the beach at Treasure Cay is the most beautiful they had ever seen, so we had to take a look. After a short and uneventful trip from Guana Cay we arrived to find the small mooring field completely filled. Anchoring was a little tight next to the mooring field but with light winds predicted for the next 24 hours, it was not a problem.

After we got settled we headed for shore. What we found was a very nice marina and resort that covered both the harbor and the beautiful beach. It was as nice as advertised. We had a perfect day with some light clouds. The water is a unique color of light blue.  In fact it was so blue it reflected up to the clouds giving them a very unique blue hue. You have to see it to believe it.

Mike & Fred enjoying the awesome beach

On our way back to the dinghy we walked by the marina's pool side bar.  It was surrounded by palm trees and beautiful flowers.  The setting was to tropical not to stop and enjoy a cold one.  Fred enjoyed a rum drink while I had my first pina coloda of the trip.  Delicious!  Just another day in paradise.

Some of the beautiful bougenvilla by the pool area

Facilities we found here:
* Treasure Cay Marina - moorings for $10/day, but not many of them.  If you anchor outside the moorings, the charge is $8/day which then gives you access to the marina's facilities.
 

Marsh Harbor and Hope Town - 4/2/02
Our friends, Max and Roberta, were flying in today from Cincinnati and we planned to meet them in Hope Town but Mike wanted to buy an outboard first. Price on outboard motors here in the Bahamas are about 20% less when you include the fact that you don't have to pay taxes. So we stopped at Marsh Harbor before continuing onto Hope Town.  After going back and forth a few times and getting thru the hassle of finding a helpful bank (because they wouldn't take a credit card), Mike decided on getting the 15hp Mercury - what a great looking motor!

As soon as S.O. had their new purchase, we were off for Hope Town. On our way out of the harbor we received a call from a familiar boat, Halcyon.  Max and Roberta had arrived on time and called us with their handheld VHF.  After a quick trip from Marsh Harbor over to Hope Town, we jumped into the dingy, went ashore, walked up to the lovely Hope Town Harbor Lodge and found them enjoying the beautiful evening on the patio.   It was so great to see them.  We had a wonderful dinner at the lodge.  The conch bisque was fantastic!

Max and Roberta on their hotel balcony overlooking the ocean.  What a view

The next day we planned to take Max and Roberta snorkeling right off the beach at the lodge. There is a nice series of reefs there which protect the beach from large waves and swell. After checking out the reefs and fish, we all decided to have lunch at the poolside/oceanside cafe at the lodge. The conch burgers were great here and so were the Mango Madness drinks.  Ahh, another beautiful day in paradise.

That evening we wanted to treat them to an evening in the life of a cruiser. So the first order of business was cocktail hour.  We were all invited aboard Significant Other for some fun stories and appetizers along with Gayle and John from Southpaws.   We enjoyed a few rum drinks and beers and were off to Early Out for dinner.  Afterwards we returned the tired travelers back to the lodge.

Our buddies on S.O. decided to move the next day through 'The Whale'.  Its a passage through two ocean cuts that can be challenging with any kind of wind or swell action. This was the first step to leaving the Bahamas. We, however, had a big day planned for Max and Roberta. We picked them up at the lodge and brought them out to the boat for a journey over to Man-O-War Cay for the day. I wish we could call it a day sail, but we didn't have any wind so it was a motor back and forth.

Once we arrived we had to point out Nick Ellison's boat, Lusty Wind.  Max knew him from Cincinnati. Once ashore we took a walking tour of this beautiful island. Lots of flowers and pastel houses. Not many cars to speak of but you did have to be on the look out for golf carts on the narrow streets.

We found a nice place for lunch, the Hibiscus Cafe. After a little more shopping we hopped back in the dinghy and back out to Early Out for a motor back to Hope Town.  Arrived in Hope Town and had to drop Max and Roberta off at the Lodge and said good-bye. We needed to be on our way. It appeared we would have a weather window in the next few days and we needed to be in a position to take advantage of this opportunity to head back to the states.  It was hard saying goodbye, but we knew they were at a great spot and would be having lots of fun.  Fred and I on the other hand were sad that our time in the Bahamas was quickly coming to an end.

After we left Hope Town we weren't quite sure where to go. It was forecasted to be windy out of the Northwest that night and/or the next day so we needed and anchorage with some protection from that direction. Nothing looked ideal except Marsh Harbor and we really didn't want to go back there. So we plotted a course through the whale over to Green Turtle Cay where Mike and Jan were.  When we calculated the arrival time, it was about and hour after sunset. After weighing the pros and cons of making an entrance into a new harbor after dark, we decided to go for it since we would be through "The Whale" before sunset and the current conditions were perfect.  We arrived safely and anchored outside Green Turtle Cay.  Leaving when we did turned out to be an excellent decision as the winds really picked up and going through the Whale the next day in strong northwesterly winds would have been quite challenging.

Green Turtle Cay, Abacos - 4/4/02
Green Turtle turned out to be a another quaint island with lots of personality. There was a garden with bronze busts of some of the top citizens from the Bahamas - all of them done by the artist in Little Harbour. There was a little boy on the corner selling fruits and vegetables and narrow streets with pastel houses and buildings. We had a very nice day exploring our last settlement in the Bahamas.  We also had to use the last of our minutes left on the famous Batelco phone card.  This card is something I'm not going to miss.   The winds continued to build so we decided to stay anchored outside the main harbor because we had more swing room.  Infact there were no other boats anchored with us.  For a couple days had a nice secluded anchorage all to ourselves.
 

The streets of Green Turtle Cay
 

Great Sale Cay, Abacos -  4/8-10/02
The sail from Green Turtle to Great Sale was a fun one. Dead down wind in 20-25 knots but very little seas since we were traveling inside the chain of islands. All we needed was the mainsail with a preventer on and we did 6-7 knots the whole way. The fishing was kind of frustrating. We caught 3 barracudas butnothing edible.

We arrived at Great Sale and found a wide open anchorage with about 10 other boats that either just arrived from the states or were waiting for a window to head back. This was a great staging area with no civilization on the island.

Since arriving in Green Turtle we had been checking in with Herb every day. We were the only boat at Great Sale checking in so we quickly became the focal point of the harbor for weather information. I don't think we ever talked with so many people on the VHF before that we had never met in person. Since everyone had their dinghys stowed for the big passage, we couldn't go meet all these people face to face...nor could be get together with Mike & Jan for cocktails.  But is was fun talking with everyone and hearing their strategy for dealing with the upcoming conditions.

We ended up being there two nights which gave me lots of time to prepare a couple quick and easy dishes for our journey.  We weren't sure how the passage was going to take, but we sure knew we would eat well!
 

Sailing Back to the Chesapeake - 4/11-17/02
The plan for our return trip the states was an ambitious one. We were hoping to sail direct from the Abacos to Beaufort, NC or further up to the Chesapeake, if possible. Sailing direct to the Chesapeake involved sailing through the most dangerous water on the east coast, Cape Hatteras.  So, if we tucked into Beaufort and took the ICW the last 3-4 days, that would have been a successful passage in our view.

We continued to check in with Herb every day at 3:45pm and waited until around 5:30pm before he got to our part of the Atlantic. He was looking at a high pressure system centered near Bermuda that would give us some southeasterly winds for several days. The winds were a bit strong at first and the gulf stream needed a day or two to settle down from the strong northeasterlies we had. The gulf stream flows from south to north at about 2-3 knots so when the wind comes from the north, against the stream, you get huge, steep waves which make the trip almost impossible in a boat the size of ours.  So after a couple of days of waiting at Great Sale Cay we heard the forecast for 15-20 knot winds from the southeast and 4-6 foot seas and holding, we decided to go.

We left at first light on April 11th along with our buddy boat Significant Other. It was 3 months to the day from when we all four arrived together in the Bahamas. We had a sunny day and 15-20 out of the southeast just like the prediction. The first 50 miles of the trip was in 15-20 feet of water so the waves were very small and manageable for a downwind sail to Matanilla Shoals where we would enter the Gulf Stream. We sailed wing and wing with a total of 8 boats in sight at one time heading the same direction. It was nice to know a few other people thought this was the right time for a crossing as well.

Once we got around the shoals we were able to take a more northerly course which set us up from a broad to beam reach. Soon the water got deeper and warmer so we knew were getting into the Gulf Stream. Also our speed started picking up. At first just a knot pushing us from 7 to 8 knots. Then as we got closer to the middle of the stream we were doing 8.5 to 9 knots consistently!  I know 9 to 10 mph does not sound like much to most people, but any cruising sailor will tell you that is moving.

We talked with Herb again that afternoon and he said the conditions should be favorable for us all the way to Beaufort, NC. So we kept heading North right in the middle of the gulf stream. Just before Fred went down below to talk with Herb on the SSB, we caught a 4 pound Spanish Mackerel.  So he had a good excuse to get out of the fish cleaning process.  What a mess.  But the fillets we got from it were worth it.

Debbie showing our catch of the day - a Spanish Mackerel

Our first overnight was uneventful. As always, it's nice to have Significant Other sailing right along side us all night. There isn't really much we can do for each other in case of breakdowns or other problems, but it is very nice to know someone else is out there with you in the middle of the big dark ocean at night.

The conditions started to build shortly after we talked with Herb to around 20-25 knots out of the SE with waves increasing to  6-8 feet.  It was a spirited but comfortable sail under staysail and either one or two reefs in the main.  I took a nap after dinner until around 10pm while Fred enjoyed watching the sunset.  I was on watch til 2am, then Fred finished things up.  We have no fixed schedule for our watches.  We find it works quite well if the person on watch goes as long as they feel comfortable they can stay awake.  Then they get the next person up for their watch. Shifts on this trip were between 3 and 5 hours long.

The next day when it got light we could finally see the seas that had built during the night. At night with no moon out you can't really see the waves coming or going.  All you know is that the boat is rocking. Since we had almost a beam reach, the sails stabilized the boat quite well which makes for a fairly comfortable ride.  In the morning when we could see how big the waves had become, we were surprised.

Around 10am we received a call on the VHF from Significant Other. Their autopilot stopped working. They suspected the pin had broken again and Mike estimated 3 hours to fix it. Sailing in what was now 8-10 ft. seas was not bad when you were out in the cockpit. But going down below in a crammed hot space working on an autopilot for any length of time was a good way for Mike to get sea sick and make the problem even worse. While Mike analyzed the problem, Fred tried to figure out our best bail out port.  Jacksonville, FL was due west 70 miles but we couldn't get there in daylight and the entrance looked tricky enough on the charts that we did not want to try it at night. Savannah was about 90 miles to the northwest and we would arrive at first light but it looked like we needed to go 20 miles past the entrance to find an anchorage.  Charleston was due north about 150 miles and at our current pace we could make it by early afternoon the next day. Mike and Jan thought if they could make it through the night hand steering they could probably make an additional few hours to make it to Charleston.

As the day went on, Mike decide to try to get his windvane steering working. They had it installed for a situation just like this but had not had a reason to use it....until now.  After a couple of hours setting it up and playing with it in 8-10 ft seas, we got an excited call over the  radio, "It's Working!".  We were all so happy.

Significant Other using their windvane steering!

As we approached the Charleston inlet, conditions did slack off to the point that we had to motor. Unfortunately for Mike and Jan the windvane did not work while motoring so it was back to hand steering. Since it was Saturday, we thought just for kicks we would try to call our friends Greg and Carol from Charleston on the VHF and see if they were out for a sail. Sure enough, we were surprised when they answered our call. They were just coming out the inlet and were less than a mile away from us.  We pulled along side and chatted with them for a while.  It was nice to see them but unfortunately we couldn't get together since we were leaving first thing in the morning and our dinghy was deflated and stowed below.   What a small world.

Greg, Carol and company aboard Dream Catcher

After a shower and a goodnights rest we were off to Beaufort, NC. We estimated about a 36 hour sail which would potentially put us in just after dark. Beaufort isn't extremely complicated to get into but anchoring at night in the swift currents of the town at night did not sound appealing. So we figured we could get into Cape Lookout Bight at night no problem since Early Out had been there before (our very first anchor out with 25+ knot winds almost exactly a year ago).

Coming out of the Charleston inlet there was good news and bad news. The good news was the waves and swell were very light. The bad news was the wind was right on the nose at about 10 knots. We motored for a while being confident that the predictions said the wind direction would shift. Sure enough it finally shifted, but is was still too light to make any decent headway so we continued to motor.
The night was a rolly one.  The swell had not settled down yet from the big winds we sailed in the day before. So back and forth and back and forth until we finally took down the mainsail because we were tired of hearing it flapping back and forth.

The next morning as we were cruising all of a sudden we were startled by a dolphin jumping 6 ft into the air right next to the boat. This guy was a loner but quite the entertainer. We both went up to the bow to watch as he continued to jump and flop around.  He was  having a good old time and so were we.  What a show we saw.

A couple hours later while we were relaxing and motoring, the wind was starting to pickup.  Just as we started thinking about putting up the sail our decision was made for us. The engine hesitated slightly for a minute or so. Fred jumped to the helm and put it in neutral in case we picked up something on the propeller. A couple of seconds later a few more hesitations and then it died. Out there in the ocean miles away from any port and the engine just quits. This is a first for Early Out. Without much hesitation we put out the genoa and this kept us moving and gave us steerage. We also gave S.O. a quick call to let them know what was going on.

On our way to Beaufort, NC from Charleston - Significant Other

Well the first thought that came to mind luckily was the right one, bad fuel. With the Caliber there are two completely independent fuel systems on board that can be changed by flipping 4 levers. So we flipped the levers and opened the bleeder screw to bleed the air out the system. As soon as the bubbles stopped coming out of the bleeder screw, Fred tightened it down and I fired up the engine. Just like that she came back to life.  I think that classified as our adrenaline rush for the day!

Well the wind did pick up nicely for a while and we were able to sail. But soon it died again and we motored the rest of the way to Cape Lookout. We arrived there just as it was getting dark. With electronic charts showing us right where we were and where we needed to go, it was a piece of cake getting in and shortly there after we dropped the anchor. After a quick shower and meal we were out like a couple of rocks until the alarm went off. Up and Adam and another day of sail. Boy this is a tough life!!!

The wind was a little on the light side so after we cleared the shoals off Cape Lookout we needed to turn the engines on again for a while. When the wind finally filled in, it is was dead behind us at about 15 knots. The swell had settled down overnight so it was a fairly pleasant day. After a short debate we decided to put up the spinnaker. It didn't take too long and the spinnaker was up and drawing nicely. We can't go dead down wind so we adopted the strategy of sailing off at about 140 degrees to the wind until we were about 1 mile off the rumb line.  Then we would jibe over until we were 1 mile off the rumb line on the other side. The first two passes we didn't not gain much on S.O. who was wing-and-wing going straight down the rumb  line for Diamond Shoals. However, after we got things tuned and got our jibes down to near perfection, we put some distance on them.

As we approached the mark off Diamond Shoals with the Cape Hatteras lighthouse in sight, the sun was setting with a beautiful orange reflection on the clouds. We knew it was not smart to sail the spinnaker after dark so we decided to take it down. While taking down the spinnaker we noticed a boat off in the distance with a Bart Simpson on their spinnaker.  It wasn't long and this boat caught up to us and passed us like we were standing still.  As it turns out it was the Team News Corp. boat from New Zealand that was racing in the Volvo Round the World Race.  They were headed for the end of the leg and a finish near Baltimore. It was something to see this boat go by us about two boat lengths away. It was so fast and well out of sight in no time at all, very impressive!

Sunset while passing Cape Hatteras

We sailed for a while, motored for a while, then sailed for a while.  Back and forth all the way to the Chesapeake. The wind died completely about 10 miles from the mouth of the great bay. Much to our satisfaction, 3 of the Volvo Round the World boats were parked in the dead air while we slowly motored by.  They are impressive boats but even they can't go anywhere with no wind.

One of the Volvo Round the World race boats passing us after sunset - Team News Corp.

Entering the Chesapeake after an offshore passage was pretty exciting for us. Just a little over a year ago we went over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and thought how cool it would be to come through here from an offshore passage and here we were.  Before sailing over the tunnel, we saw a submarine making its way thru the channel.  Amazing how large they are and boy what a wake they make.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

It was now flat calm and about 85 degrees. We motored the 12 miles across the bay over to Old Point Comfort. This is an anchorage we had used twice before prior to entering or exiting the ICW. What Fred likes about this anchorage is that it's next to an expressway and he can watch the people in their cars and trucks going to work in the morning. You need to see that sometimes to appreciate how good we have it.

After calling several marinas/boat yards, we determined that York River Yacht Haven was the best for what we needed - a haul out, storage and some minor woork done. So the next day was a 25 mile sail up the Chesapeake to the York River. Unfortunately the wind didn't cooperate but we did get a taste of something we hadn't missed for a long time, crab pots!

Early Out and Significant Other enjoying a rest in the marina - York River Yacht Haven

As it turns out, this marina, which was recommended by Neena on Evergreen, is great. The people are very friendly and the facilities, first rate. As a result, they are quite busy and will be unable to haul us out for a week.  Not totally bad news since they are giving us deal on the slip until the boat is hauled.  This gave us plenty of time to take care of some projects. Once we get hauled out and take care of a few maintenance items, we'll head home to Cincinnati, yeah!   We'll miss Early Out but are looking forward to catching up with family and friends.

Early out will be on the hard til end of July.  Log entries will be made again as we make our way north in July.