A Ride-Along on the Atlantic

The time is 2020 (8:20 PM) and we are currently under sail at Lat N20 4.62’ and Long W70 0.37’. Or, Latitude  N 20 degrees 4 minutes and 62 seconds. (Now 63 seconds) and Longitude W 70 degrees 0 minutes and 37 seconds. (Now 38) You can see where the Lat and Long are going. 

Compass shows our heading,
as does chartplotter,
below right.

We are moving northwest (on a Heading of 320 degrees) toward the small island of South Caicos, to a place called Cockburn Harbor. It is one of the Customs and Immigration entry points into the Turks and Caicos. 

Top-time of day.
2nd-Apparent wind speed
3rd-GPS Heading
4th-GPS Speed
5th-Depth (blank here)
6th-GPS Position

We are sailing at a blistering speed of approximately 5.5 kts, or 6.3 mph. You might be able to run faster. We left at 0600 this morning and have calculated that the passage will take us about 36 hours. We hope to arrive before nightfall tomorrow.  Entering an unknown harbor in the dark is not a wise thing to do. Whenever possible, we attempt to err on the side of wise.

These islands are all the Turks & Caicos,
part of the UK

First off, to those who earlier praised my writing skills, I apologize. My recent post about lost and found words was dull and trite. Secondly, to those who suggested that I might consider teaching geography, I chuckle heartily and hope you will join me in doing so when you learn the following.

When seas are calm, I
can work outside on
cockpit table

I was in error when describing the Bahamas in an earlier post, which I now want to correct. I stated with certainty that the Turks and Caicos are part of the Bahamas. Not true. At one time they were all part of the Bahamas Colony of the UK, but in 1848 they gave up trying to unite all the islands. 

Explains Q Flag and Bahamas
and Turks & Caicos flags

The Turks and Caicos Islands remain a part of the United Kingdom while the remainder of the islands are Bahamian. Maybe this seems like an insignificant geopolitical point, but I’m sure that to the people of the Turks and Caicos it is not. So, when we arrive in Cockburn Harbor, we will be flying our Q flag (bright yellow quarantine flag) until cleared in and then the flag of the UK, not the Bahamas flag. 

A comfy spot in cockpit at night. The picture
looks red because we use red headlamps at
night to prevent interference with
our night vision.

Since the night stretches out before me with little wind and not much to do in the way of active sailing, I thought I would share something of what is going on in the cockpit of the sailboat. Inotherwords, if you were sitting here with me, what are the things you would/might be paying attention to as we sail along. 

This is what you would see facing forward
standing behind the wheel. Chartplotter
on right. Autopilot on left.  Wheel below.
You can see the sails through the window.

To other sailors, this post will also be somewhat dull and trite. However, I have a lot of friends and family that have never sailed (some that would rather die than step onto a sailboat) and I feel a certain responsibility to fill in some of the gaps about sailing and perhaps dispel some fears. Or, potentially create new ones.  We’ll see.

When you look down you would see the
wheel (helm) and compass. There's a
seat for you at the helm if you like.

The trade winds are mellow for the next 24 hours or more and they’re at our back. Mellow, but fairly consistent at around 12 knots. That’s just enough energy to keep us moving at that 5.5 knots that I mentioned. If the wind should die, we’ll turn on the engine to maintain a speed between 5 and 6 knots. We need to arrive in daylight after all. 

Many ways to look at
weather  forecasts. These
are only some of them.

Because the wind is behind us, this is a downwind sail. We are using only one sail, that being the genoa, the larger of the two headsails that attach to the top of our mast and extend to our bow. (Bow= pointy end of the boat.) We have it *sheeted loosely, so that it forms a big scoop to catch as much wind as possible to push us forward. 

This is a photo of mains'l, but it
is intended to show how you can
look at the sails in the dark.
Headlamp, or flashlight.

*On a sailboat, the sheets are the lines that are attached to the sail that we pull tight or loosen from the cockpit to control the sails’ shape. There are no ropes on a sailboat. None. All of the lines have other names which are important to know but for your ride-along this evening, you can let that slide. 

Several lines run through
chocks to lock them. The
sheets are wrapped around
winches. 

Why do we have only one sail up? The mains’l remains tucked in its resting place atop the boom because if we were to raise it, it would block the wind from reaching the genoa and then our genoa would be flopping back and forth. So, we adjust the sheets from the cockpit to get the most that we can out of that one sail and leave it at that. Nothing fancy about this evening’s sail.

The video has two sails up, but I wanted to
show you what the ocean is like when it's
fairly calm.

How do we know where to go? We find our destination or a waypoint shy of the destination and set a course toward it by setting the auto-pilot to steer the boat in that direction. Given that we’re in deep water and there is nothing out here to run into, this is a simple matter. An auto-pilot can steer in heavy seas better than we could. It’s a unit that is connected to the rudder and tells it how to steer. Ingenious.

Alternate topographical display on the
chartplotter 

The moon hasn’t risen yet and it’s black like velvet.  Of course, there is nothing to see except for the water around us. If we saw lights on the horizon, we would have to put some thought into figuring out how far away the vessel was and where it was heading so as to avoid a collision. We have tools to help us with that and it’s astonishingly easy to do. Chart plotters are amazing. 

Chartplotter display showing our boat, our
path behind us and direction we're headed.
Ocean depths are the tiny numbers.

I have checked the chart plotter out to a distance of about 40 miles. There are no boats anywhere around.  At least, none that are broadcasting their position by AIS ( Automatic Identification System) and this far out on the ocean, most boats are going to be broadcasting as well as receiving data from other boats that are transmitting their location, heading and speed. 

While not on watch, we can sleep. The dark
cloth is a lee cloth It's tied to prevent the
sleeper from rolling off the settee.

In spite of that relative margin of safety, we cannot just all go to sleep and let the boat do its’ thing. It is theoretically possible that a fast moving boat could intersect with us in 20 to 30 minutes so you and I are on watch for the next three hours. We have chosen 3 hour watches for our passages. It’s an arbitrary period of time.

GPS position also shown
upper left part of screen.

Back to the chart plotter.  It not only shows us the location, heading and speed of other boats but also shows our own *GPS location (our Lat and Long), our GPS heading, our GPS speed, and even the depth of the water beneath us. Tonight, the depth meter has shut itself off when the distance to the ocean floor dramatically increased. 

Other boat instru-
ments. Top, last
recorded depth.
Below-water temp
82.3 degrees

The last reported depth was 54 feet. It will turn on again when the ocean floor rises up to meet us. At that time it will be our job to avoid running into that ocean floor, which will have become an island or at the very least, a rock. But we’re a long way from any land and so we won’t worry about that tonight. 

Look behind you to see the dinghy
riding several feet above the water.  

If you’re interested, the chart plotter map face or a paper map can show you the reported depths of the ocean floor based upon readings taken at some time over the last three centuries and that now inform the makers of the maps, etc. The map says that the ocean depth here is 14,580 ft. About 2 1/2 miles deep. Cool.

We use paper maps, too.

So, things are going swimmingly here, don’t you think? Our 3 hour watch will soon be over and we can go to bed. Until then, some chamomile tea? It’s been a quite pleasant evening out here on the Atlantic, has it not?

We are heading to a location on the upper
right side of the Caicos Bank. (paper map)

Countdown to Set Sail

Salty Dawg Rally boat leaving Bluewater Yachting Center

A large percentage of the Salty Dawg Rally boats left as planned, on November 2nd.  We did not, however.  Our decision-making was influenced by the fact that we were still in need of one prescription medication AND a box of supplies before departure.  Leaving without those things would have brought about other problems down the road, and so we waited.  It also appeared to us that we would have better wind for sailing and possibly less motoring if we left a couple days later.

from L to R: Carl, Harry, Luke, Finola (Harry's wife) and me, Ardys

Our departure date is now set for today, Saturday, November 4th.  We are not unhappy about this as there was very little wind in this part of the Atlantic on Thursday.  The boats that left then are largely motoring. Many will have to make a side stop in Bermuda to fill up with fuel before finishing the passage to Antigua.

Our friend, Dale removing dock lines from the piling before departure

Departure today will mean a little more wind for sailing and we are happy about that.  It’s been a very long time since I have sailed on Northern Star, in fact, not since the beginning of April.  I enjoyed photographing some of the boats during their final preparations on Thursday morning and watching them leave the dock.  We will catch up with them later, in Antigua.  

Fin won 2nd prize for her Halloween costume

People who are interested in following our journey will be able to track our course via our inReach satellite system. Go to:  https://share.delorme.com/NorthernStar. You will see our location on a map of the Atlantic and the location will be updated every 15 minutes, give or take.  Because the ocean is so huge and we are so small, it may appear as though we are barely moving. Do not be alarmed—we will definitely be moving—somewhere between 4 1/2 and 7 1/2 knots from departure until we reach Antigua.  

Honorable Mention for McGruff's Halloween costume 

Our inReach will also allow us to send short text messages to our families from the ocean, as well as to receive texts from them.  

Rhumb line from Hatteras to Antigua

The photograph shows a “blank” map of the Atlantic where we have marked our rhumb line.  The rhumb line is the most direct route from our current position to Antigua.  It is not our anticipated route however. Leaving Hampton, we will first go southeast toward Hatteras to avoid running into the counter-clockwise eddy on the eastern edge of the Gulf Stream.  From Hatteras, we will push hard to get as far east as we can before turning south toward Antigua.  

A Rally boat with 9 diesel jugs.  Northern Star holds 125 gal diesel

Why do I say, “we will push hard to get east?” This is because of those pesky Trade Winds that flow just north of the Caribbean.  Once we get into them, they will push the boat back toward the U.S. Thus, we want to get in as much easting as possible, before turning south. Once every 24 hours, we will mark our exact Latitude and Longitude (LatLong) on our paper map. (The paper map will make a memento of our passage). Other than that one daily event with our paper map, our electronic charts and compass will be used exclusively.

Topping off water before departure

The sailors have a saying about this course.  “Head east until the butter melts (in other words, until the winds and seas are warmer, along the 65th parallel) and then turn south.”  This strategy will take us much closer to Bermuda than one might think would be necessary.  But that will help us avoid having to motor straight into the Trade Winds later.  

Nice fishing pole for trolling on passage.

Carl and Harry have set our waypoints on the chart plotter which will guide whoever is on watch and monitoring the autopilot.  Our autopilot will do the bulk of the steering for us. Our crew of four plan to follow a 3-hour watch schedule round the clock.  Thus, each of us will be on watch twice/day for a total of 6 hours.  The rest of the time, we can sleep, prepare meals, read, or whatever else needs doing.  Anytime the weather requires a change in the sails, two of us will be required for that.  The person that was on watch during the previous 3 hour period will be called into service for a sail change. 

Find the toys: paddle board against starboard lifelines. Two bicycles lashed to the mast.

Throughout the passage, we will be in contact with other boats in the Rally by way of our SSB radio (Single Side-Band) twice/day, at 0700 and 1800.  Each boat will call in their position to the Rally. If there is an urgent need for a boat to be contacted, the Rally can call us on SSB and contact us on our inReach. We will monitor Ch.16 on our VHF at all times. 

Checking to be sure our ditch bag floats.  It DOES!

We also have the assistance of our weather router, Chris Parker, who broadcasts wind direction, currents, and sea state specific to any LatLong that we need.  He specifically is working with all of the Salty Dawg Rally boats as we travel to Bermuda, Antigua or Bahamas.  His input is what helps us figure out our heading, and decide where to enter and exit the Gulf Stream.  The Gulf Stream is about 100 miles wide off of Cape Hatteras which is where we will enter the Stream. As you know, the Stream will push us north as we cross it and we don’t want to get caught up in that counter-clockwise eddy on the other side of the Stream.

Fin helped me with my third and last major provisioning run.

Carl and I will maintain our same phones in the Caribbean.  We will use them primarily for texting family and friends.  Talking to folks in the U.S. will be extremely expensive. We will continue to be available by email while in the Caribbean. 

FYI: While all you landlubbers will be going on Daylight Savings Time soon, we will not.  The Caribbean remains on Atlantic Std Time. 

Our crew for the Rally to Antigua.  Carl and I on boat. L-Luke.  R-Harry.

Our crew is in place and we are pumped!  We are leaving the dock this afternoon in order to enter the enormous St. James River during the ebbing tide. That will help push us out onto the Atlantic about 12 miles from here.  The four of us, Harry, Luke, Carl and I, are ready to go sailing!  Woo-HOOOO!

Jax Figures IT Out - ICW Day #28

posted by Ardys

Before we left

Shore at Beaufort, S.C. The grasses at half tide.

Annapolis, most of our fellow southbound travelers told us that they were going to go down the ICW until Charleston or thereabouts, but certainly would not be continuing on the ICW into Georgia or Florida.  We heard, “Too shallow, too many bridges to get under, too hard.”  When you 

Darker green indicates where high tide was.

hear something enough times, you start to accept it as fact.  The other thing we heard a few times was, “I don’t think you (NORTHERN STAR) can do the ICW, referencing the height of our mast (63 1/2’) and our draft (6 1/2 ‘).  The usual fixed bridge height is 65’.  At high tide, there may be less room than that to get under.  Some parts of the ICW are notorious for shoaling and cannot be traversed at low tide.  Yup, we were pretty sure we were going to have to go offshore from Charleston and on.

Cruising Guide for the ICW

Then, we happened upon some fellow southbound travelers with a 6’ draft sailboat, Radio Waves.   They were planning to continue on the ICW and this made us reconsider our options.  Waiting for the right weather window for ocean passages is rather unpredictable.  And we are counting the number of days available to get from here to a safe place in Florida to leave our boat for a month while we visit family and friends in Tennessee and Minnesota around the holidays.  So we have ventured forward on the ICW following our new friends on Radio Waves.  We study the charts every night, noting the mile markers where there are bridges and where shoaling is a problem.  We have made good use of the Cruising Guide for the Intracoastal Waterway by Captains Mark and Diana Doyle.  

Garmin, Navionics and Active Captain, all on iPad

Those five manuals provide us with minute detail about the ICW mile by mile, describing anchorages, marinas and “trouble spots.”  We also are relying heavily upon the information we pull from our app, Active Captain, which is integrated with our Garmin charts.  Carl can see all comments from other boaters on his iPad and I can see all the same information on my iPhone 6+.  VERY handy.  We also have Navionics charts on the iPad and both Garmin and Navonics have the latest tide and current projections for various locations. When he’s driving the boat, I review the trouble spots and direct him on whether to hug the Green or the Red Marks, and so forth.  When I’m driving, he does the same for me. 

Birds' eye view of South Carolina ICW.  Lots of twists and turns.

Our review of the information available to us helps us decide what time we should get going in the morning so as to take advantage of tides.  Again I’ll say it—I continue to be astonished by the tides which are different every day, and different from one place to another.  I suppose that if you’ve grown up near tidal waters, your response to that might be, “Well, yeah—Duh!”.  For example, today, at Statute Mile (STM) 666, we pulled up anchor in Wally’s Leg (it’s a creek—I don’t name these anchorages, you know) rather late today (noon) because low tide was going to be at 12:12 PM where we were headed.  High tide would be at 5:17 PM.  We needed at least half tide to get through an area of shoaling in Jekyll Creek, at STM 680.  So, here’s the Math equation: If a sailboat leaves Wally’s Leg at 12:00 and needs at least half tide to get through an area of shoaling at 3:00 PM, how fast should the sailboat be motoring?  Answer:  No more than 4-5 knots/hr (or about 5 mph) Perfect.  We did just that.  We did run aground briefly but Carl was able to gun the engine and get us off again.  No big deal.  

American White Pelicans mixed with smaller Brown Pelicans

photo courtesy of Peterson Field Guide to Birds 

We have found some beautiful anchorages along the way.  The variety of birds is increasing and I am studying my Peterson Field Guide to Birds more and more.  We have seen large groups of huge American White Pelicans on sandy shores, a few Great White Egrets, lots of Terns bomb-diving the water for food, flocks of Brown Pelicans (much smaller than White), Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Cattle Egrets (which always look to me as if they are skulking—they would be the Mafia of the bird world) and today I 

Dolphins in the Brickhill River, in our anchorage

saw what I believe was a Tricolored Heron.  I described it as I was looking at it through binoculars and later went to find it in my book.  There was the bird I had just described.  Carl thinks I should not call that a confirmed sighting because Tricolored Herons are uncommon, but then what do I call the bird I saw?  Even a novice birder can see an uncommon bird once in a while, right?

Jax is curious about dolphins

Tonights anchorage is wonderfully quiet.  There is little wind and so we can hear all kinds of squawking bird calls all around us.  Kind of like a jungle.  The dolphins have been swimming in small groups of 2 or 3 on all sides around us.  Sometimes I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them expel steam from their blowholes.  Jax is enthralled.

Almost forgot—you’re wondering what Jax has figured out?  Yesterday morning, he did his business on the bow of our boat—49 hours after his last BM.  My husband was right—he did NOT explode.  And now, Jax uses his self-assigned “head” whenever he needs to empty his bowels.  Whew—what a relief for the humans onboard.  And for Jax, no doubt.

Cape Fear River and ICW Day #16

posted by Ardys

My dad milking cows

There are no good weather windows for another comfortable ocean passage in the next few days and we want to keep moving south.  It’s become cold the past few nights.  Not cold by Minnesota standards, but still… cold  We have been running our wall-mounted propane heater while we’re awake in the evenings but shut it down before we go to sleep.  I could see my breath the last two mornings.  Kinda makes a person reluctant to plant one’s bare feet on the floor.   Carl has been the first awake, and he gets the heater going so it can run a bit before waking me up.  I told him that these mornings have taken me back to my adolescence on the dairy farm.  My mother’s thankless task was to pry me out of my warm bed on dark winter mornings and steer me toward the barn to help my father milk cows.  So, this morning, he whispered, “Ardys, those cows are waiting to get milked.”  “NOOOooo, not the cows again!”

Festive fishing boat

 The channel where we were anchored connects with the ICW of course.  We pulled up anchor just after sunrise and returned to our southward trek. Two things will stand out in my memory about resuming the ICW in Wilmington.  First, that we were boarded by the Coast Guard at a most inopportune time, and second, the Cape Fear River moves REALLY fast!  Wow!

Two of the three officers who boarded our boat.

Being boarded by the Coast Guard is really not a big deal in and of itself.  We have been boarded a few times over the years.  We’ve had safety checks, and there was the time we were rescued from the shipping channel our first time away from the dock many years ago.  (The reader is referred to The Case of the Bucking Tiller for that story).   The USCG comes alongside and asks if the boat has had a safety check recently.  “No, we haven’t.”  Then they will ask permission to come aboard to perform said safety check.  “Of course.”  The only problem was in where we were at the time they boarded us.  

Jax 

Here’s where we were.  First let me say, it’s taken us (me actually) a little while to sort out what my role is when Carl is at the helm in the ICW.  There are the Red and Green markers, of course, but the channel sometimes snakes around unpredictably within the water “road” and the charts provide additional cautions about shoaling and trouble spots that have put boats aground.  Also there are power boats coming from behind and passing and other boats are meeting us within in the narrow channel and sometimes putting up a (forbidden) wake.  So rather than being a “looky-lou” and taking photos of birds and things, I really need to help pay attention to all of these variables while Carl is at the helm.  It’s a two person job.

Pelicans are a common subject of "looky-louing" 

 We were boarded right where two small rivers were converging, the red and green markers were intermingling, the channel shifting around and several cautions appearing on charts regarding recent shoaling.  Our depth meter was bouncing from 22’ to 16’ to 8’ (NORTHERN STAR, you may recall, draws 6’6”) so an 8’ depth makes our eyes open a little wider than usual.  Meanwhile, the officers wanted to see our documents which meant that one of us had to leave the cockpit and go below to find the paperwork.  That would be me.  Plus, Jax has a love/hate thing for uniformed people.  More hate than love.  So Jax was hyper-vigilant with three unknown men climbing aboard, with or without uniforms.  The officers instructed us, “Just keep going; we’ll do the safety check while you’re underway.”  So, I was sent below, clutching Jax, schlepping our paperwork out to them, answering their questions and all the while being very cordial so that Jax knows these are “good guys.”  Meanwhile, Carl is alone at the helm, answering questions and trying to not run aground.  

Their conversation, "Have you ever been photographed during a safety check before?"

By the time the officers returned to their boat, we had passed through the most complex part of the channel and could breathe once again.  Really….almost anywhere else on the ICW would have been a better place to entertain the Coast Guard than where we were, except maybe for the Cape Fear River.  

Fast current pushes over buoys

We entered the river within a few minutes of the Coast Guard departure.  The current grabbed the boat and pushed us downriver a few miles toward the mouth of the River.  Behind each of the buoys marking the channel could be seen a leeward wake, because the water was rushing past so quickly.  I ended up letting the engine idle and we were still making 7 1/2 knots.  Following the curves of the intended channel was “interesting” at times.  I had to steer the bow well away from the buoy and the boat would then “crab” sideways through the water and narrowly avoid broadsiding the buoy.   Carl resumed his spot at the helm and when he later, missed turning at the right time to slip off onto the quieter ICW channel, he was required to gun the engine to fight back up the current and move off the river.  

Home port, Cape Fear

We pulled off at a marina alongside the ICW for a good night's rest.  No dreams about cows for me.