Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort NC End of Day 4

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage.  They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system.  We sent the messages daily to my daughter Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

1800hrs (EDT, GMT -4) 23 May 2020

Dear All,

Lightning and clouds bubbling off on our starboard side but a good long way away, thank goodness

After midnight the wind built nicely from the southwest and we had a fast downwind sail which was great after all of the motoring we have done.  There were still a few distractions: my 5am logbook entry read, "Lightning in our 3 o'clock, 1 o'clock 5 o'clock and 9 o'clock!!!".

It looked much nicer when the sun came up (R) but there was still a thunderstorm off to our left (L) coming towards us

We got a quick answer back from Chris Parker about our question of whether or not to set off immediately towards Guernsey. He wrote, "OK, actually not a difficult answer. I think there's a possibility a Tropical Low forms about a week from now, near Bermuda, and its most likely track is N or NE, which would potentially be in your path if you were sailing across the Atlantic.

I really have never seen this bad a weather pattern for heading E across the Atlantic in all my years doing this. I don't know if the pattern is going to change in the next few weeks, but it just looks ugly now, with no big persistent RIDGE - except N of area, which means you're going to tend to have more E winds than W winds. It's just bizarre.

If you can hold off a bit and wait in Beaufort NC, I would...Chris".  So, Beaufort NC as our immediate destination it is then!

Lovely sailing on the final leg in towards Beaufort NC

However, and on a brighter note, we finished the passage to Beaufort NC with a glorious sail.  Bright sunny skies, 10-15 knots of wind on the beam or aft, and BV romping along at up to 7 ½ knots.

Race on!  Lots of yachts heading for Beaufort NC

It was also a bit of a racing finish with a total of 6 yachts showing on the AIS all seemingly rushing towards the entrance to the harbour.  Actually, most of them changed course and went off to the anchorage at Cape Lookout which was a good thing for us because we got one of the last few spaces in the anchorage in Taylor's Creek.

Nicky dolphin-gazing

We were welcomed to the approaches of Beaufort by a pod of dolphins, including a baby one.  Nicky got a good look at them but they swam off as soon as I appeared on the foredeck with my camera.

Getting into Beaufort was not difficult but it’s a long channel to motor up and we were constantly being overtaken by sports fishing boats rushing into port like a scene from the cartoon ‘Wacky Racers’.

Working our way into Taylor Creek, Beaufort NC

Lots of holiday weekend boat traffic in Taylor’s Creek

It's a big holiday weekend here in the USA (Memorial Day) so Beaufort is madly busy on the water and seems to be so ashore too.

Anchored in Taylor Creek

In terms of our passage, the ship's log measures the distance run through the water and it clocked 519 nautical miles.  Our planned passage distance on the GPS between Fort Lauderdale and Beaufort NC was 573 nm so, allowing for an extra 15nm sailed because of our dodging thunderstorms, it seems that the Gulf Stream gave us a boost of around 70 miles.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 23 May: N34 15 W76 53

Position at 1800hrs 23 May: N34 43 W76 40

Midday to midday distance: 158 nautical miles (average 6.6 knots)

Midnight to 1800hrs distance: 115.7 nautical miles (average 6.4 knots)

Total miles covered:  519 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Beaufort NC): zero nautical miles

End of Day 4 Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort North Carolina, USA

Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort NC End of Day 3

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage.  They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system.  We sent the messages daily to my daughter Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

2359hrs (EDT, GMT -4) 22 May 2020

Dear All,

Nicky had another difficult night watch dodging thunderstorms overnight Thursday 22 to Friday 23 May.  We had been warned by Chris Parker's evening HF/SSB weather briefing that there would be some thunderstorms coming off the Florida coastline during the evening which would track northeast.  In fact, his description of the mass of thunderstorms building over Florida was "it's like a bomb's gone off".  Sure enough, whilst enjoying sundowners we could see a particularly large dark cloud brewing a hundred miles out to our west.  By the time I went off watch we could see the lightning, not just sheet lightning but lightning bolts striking the sea (happily, still a long way off).  By this stage we had already come well off heading for a couple of hours (about 30 degrees right of our desired heading) to try to avoid being hit by the storm.  Whilst I slept blissfully below, Nicky brought us even more off heading so that we were tracking 90 degrees right of our desired course and quite a long way south of east; not good for making progress towards Beaufort NC or, indeed, to intercept the Gulf Stream. 

Avoiding the thunderstorm.  The stars and suns are plots Nicky made of parts of the thunder cell when the storm was close enough to be picked up by our radar (it only got to within 20-24nm of us and that felt quite close enough, thank you!).  Friends of ours who were a little closer inshore that evening, near to Cape Canaveral, later told us that they were hit by multiple squall of around 40knots and one sustained squall of 54knots – and they have photographic evidence of the latter to prove it!  Very nasty.  We think that they were caught by the storm we managed to avoid, so we’re even more pleased that our avoiding action was successful

When I came back on watch 4 hours later, I found the sails reduced to just a triple-reefed mainsail, Nicky in full oilskins (admittedly in tropical weather format with the oilskins trousers rolled up to her knees; I should have got a photo) and the chartplotter showing that we had been on a 30 mile diversion; but in doing so we had managed to stay away from the lightning and heavy rain.  With the thunderstorm now ahead of us and moving away, my job was to get us sailing roughly towards Beaufort NC and to get some more sail up to help increase our motorsailing speed.  The diversion means that we are unlikely to intercept and benefit as much as we hoped to from the Gulf Stream, so the passage will be a bit longer but better that we think than risking being hit by lightning.

And in the morning, all was beautiful again

All morning the engine chugged and the sails slatted.  For brief periods we got some extra help from the sails but then the light and variable wind would veer, back or died off to nothing, so foresails were furled again and the mainsail was back to slatting.  But we were making progress directly towards Beaufort NC.  The big change was just before midday when we had enough of a northeasterly wind to sail and the engine was finally switched off; peace and quiet which was a lovely change even if we couldn't quite sail directly towards our destination.  We had a good bit of help from the edge of the Gulf Stream though.

A nice boost from the Gulf Stream (28.2 degrees sea temp) giving us a speed over the ground of 9.4 knots

And so, onto the question of our destination.  The forecast at the moment does not show a good window for setting off from Beaufort transatlantic for 7-10 days, assuming we stay a few days.  On the limited information that we have, however, if we turned east now we might be able to get across to a favourable wind pattern. Turning now, however, would mean setting off transatlantic a bit light on fuel for comfort. So, we appear to have the choice of diverting for fuel and setting off, continuing on to Beaufort NC to get fuel and immediately set off transatlantic, or waiting in Beaufort for a better weather window.  To make the best choice from those 3 options we really need to see a bit more forecast detail than we currently have so we have fired the question to Chris Parker to see what he, as a professional weather forecaster, recommends.

Gentle progression goose-winged.  What a difference from the previous evening

Early evening saw us sailing again and we are now gently progressing towards Beaufort with the genoa poled out to starboard.

And a pretty sunset too

It was a bit of a disappointing fishing day today.  This afternoon I hooked up a 6ft Wahoo which, somewhat disgruntled, promptly tore off at great speed.  It then leapt out of the water and managed to shake the hook free before I had set it properly; so, sadly, another tale of 'a big one that got away'.  However, it was a very good day in the galley because I didn't set fire to any teabags.  Yesterday evening I dropped a teabag onto the cooker and it promptly caught fire.  In my rush to grab the teabag and put out the flames I managed to scatter tea leaves into every nook and cranny on the cooker and seemingly across most of the galley too.  It was a monster of a clean-up job.  So in comparison, today was a very good day in the galley.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 22 May: N31 51 W78 27

Position at midnight 22 May: N33 02 W77 31

Midday to midday distance: 164.4 nautical miles (average 6.85 knots)

Midnight to midnight distance: 159 nautical miles (average 6.6 knots)

Total miles covered: 403 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Beaufort NC): 112 nautical miles

End of Day 3 Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort North Carolina, USA

Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort NC End of Day 2

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage.  They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system.  We sent the messages daily to my daughter Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

2359hrs (EDT, GMT -4) 21 May 2020

Dear All,

Taking pictures at night on a moving boat is mostly not terribly successful.  However, I felt that I should at least TRY to get a picture of the lightning illuminating some of the immense build-up of cloud

Last night was dominated by trying to keep clear of 2 very unpleasant looking thunderstorms.  Lightning flashed on the one behind us every 5-10 seconds and it was really difficult to tell if it was catching us up.  We stowed all of our computers in the oven (it's effectively a Farraday cage) and disconnected aerials to try to keep some form of electronic navigation and communication gear available to us in case we were struck by lightning. We reduced sail area and tried to sail the angles to let the storm pass off to our side, which I'm pleased to say that it did.  Nicky had a similar experience on her night watch with an equally aggressive looking storm cell ahead of us on our track.  That was dodged with a heading change.

Sitting near the top of the swell…….

Come dawn the wind had completely dropped off and, sadly, somewhere along the way, we had come out of the Gulf Stream so we were no longer getting that nice push forward.  Between setting off from Fort Lauderdale and midnight the Gulf Stream had advanced us an amazing 48 miles.  So, as we continued under motor power, we debated the time benefits of sailing 20 miles further west to gain the extra speed from the Gulf Stream versus the extra distance we'd need to sail to come back towards Beaufort NC.  In the end we decided that we should continue as we were and not divert northwest.  But we still monitored the sea temperature carefully to see if we were getting back into the edge of the stream; the sea temperature where we were had dropped to 27.9 degrees Celsius whereas it's about 28.5 degrees in the Gulf Stream.  Each 0.1 degree increase in sea temperature through the afternoon brought the possibility that we'd get that speed boost again.

……and sitting rather lower down on the swell.  The height of the swell was around 3m

Coming at us from the northeast is quite a swell which we think is coming from Tropical Storm Arthur.  When we have checked in on our long range SSB radio we have heard reports from some yachts on the edge of Arthur; one reporting a ripped mainsail and needing to do lots of bailing.  We might be needing to motor, and are not quite heading towards Guernsey yet, but we are pretty happy to be where we are and not out being battered by Arthur which, if we had rushed to set off transatlantic, we might well have been.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 21 May: N29 36 W79 36

Position at midnight 21 May: N30 25 W79 11

Midday to midday distance: 154 nautical miles (average 6.4 knots)

Midnight to midnight distance: 157 nautical miles (average 6.5 knots)

Total miles covered:  244 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Beaufort NC): 291 nautical miles

End of Day 2 Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort North Carolina, USA

Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort NC End of Day 1

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage.  They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system.  We sent the messages daily to my daughter Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

2359hrs (EDT, GMT -4) 20 May 2020

Dear All,

Departing Fort Lauderdale. Seventeenth Street Bridge in the rear-view mirror…..

…..and a whole line of departing boats ahead

The weather in the western Atlantic is all messed up at the moment.  Tropical Storm Arthur and a couple of other depressions are disrupting things to the point that the forecast doesn't show a good weather window to set off transatlantic from Fort Lauderdale for the next 2 weeks.  Chris Parker, the weatherman, has suggested that we move north to Beaufort in North Carolina because he believes that when things start to settle back to the normal patterns we'll be able to leave earlier from there.  So, we left Fort Lauderdale this morning and we are riding the Gulf Stream north towards Beaufort NC.

Florida coastline

11.4kts over the ground, when we were only doing
 6.5 to 7knots through the water.  Not a bad push at all
and, unlike the tidal flow in the English Channel,
 the Gulf Stream just keeps going in the same direction

There is hardly any wind so we motored for several hours but are making great progress because we are getting a helpful 4.5 knot push north from the Gulf Stream; our speed over the ground has been up as high as 11.4 knots!  It's lower than that now because from 1830hrs we were able to switch the engine off and just sail.

Very gentle motor sailing

We had a good stop in Fort Lauderdale, staying on the dock of friends who are the OCC Port Officers for the city.  The weather was pretty miserable with lots of thunderstorms and heavy rain during our stay but that's why we took shelter there.  Fort Lauderdale was our port of arrival into the USA so we cleared immigration, which was very easy, and customs with a little more difficulty.  But we came away from the latter with a US cruising permit valid for the next 2 months which means that we can cruise up the coast and not have to visit any more CBP offices until we plan to leave the US.  All we have to do is to remember to call in to CBP each time we stop somewhere.

Eventually all of the instruments will match the new one on the right

Perfectly positioned close to shops and with the loan of a car, we were able to buy in some fresh food to keep our stocks up, and also some new instruments for BV (we are gradually upgrading the system to the newer NMEA2000 network standard).  So, all in all life on board BV is good.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:

Position at midday 20 May: N26 13 W80 00

Position at midnight 20 May: N28 11 W079 43

1030hrs to midday distance: 9.6 nautical miles (average 6.4 knots)

1030hrs to midnight distance: 87.5 nautical miles (average 6.5 knots)

Total miles covered:  87.5 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Beaufort NC): 445 nautical miles

End of Day 1 Fort Lauderdale towards Beaufort North Carolina, USA

Fort Lauderdale Fl USA

Looking west up Carlotta Canal from Richie and Susan’s dock (Fort Lauderdale).  ‘Florida, the Sunshine State’ is the strapline on Florida registered car number plates.  Sunshine State?  Really?

The view east down Carlotta Canal towards the Stranahan River

It was rather grey and overcast when we arrived at Fort Lauderdale and made our way to our friends’ dock.  We had always intended to stop in and see Richie and Susan (who are also the OCC Port Officers for the city) on our original pre-Covid-19 plan to explore the Florida coastline on our way north towards Newfoundland.  However, the pandemic has messed up our plans and our expected visit time and so, sadly for us, Richie and Susan were actually away when we arrived.

On the dock

But when we turned into the inlet at 0735hr on Sunday 17 May, Richie and Susan’s neighbours, Jean-Marc and Melissa, were out on the dock to meet us and to help us with our lines.  They immediately made us feel very welcome and we arranged to join them for sundowners on the deck later.

Fort Lauderdale was our port of entry into the USA so our immediate priority was to clear in with CBP (Customs and Border Protection, the federal body that covers customs and immigration).  This is a 2-stage process for us as non-US citizens/residents.  The first part was to notify our arrival on the ROAM App and, once that was complete, we were given permission to go ashore to the nearest CBP office to complete the process.  Jean-Marc and Melissa were stars and offered us the use of one of their cars, so getting about suddenly became very easy indeed.  Checking in with immigration was quick and efficient, with the office open on Sunday.  Clearing the boat in with the customs side of CBP would need to be done on Monday.

The Fort Lauderdale CBP office is about 5 miles away from where BV was moored and in the same area are a host of shops including a large West Marine chandlery, a laundrette, and a big supermarket.  Laundry was left for a day but after a trip to West Marine, Nicky came away with some new sea boots and deck shoes so that she can move around safely on our Atlantic crossing [Ed: my old boots and deck shoes both had nearly slick soles and neither had any significant grip on the deck, particularly when the deck is wet], whilst I had done some research for a new Raymarine instrument to replace the one at our chart table  The instrument in place was rather old and had had a number of funny turns on our passage north following which it had, at best, taken to displaying depth only in fathoms, with other data displayed as and when it wanted to show it, in the format it decided met its needs, not ours.  Our return trip was via the Publix supermarket to check that out and to buy a few bits and pieces for dinner.

I tinkered with some minor maintenance jobs on BV whilst Nicky caught up with some admin and work for the OCC.  Before we knew it, it was time for drinks with Jean-Marc and Melissa on the patio where we could chat whilst maintaining appropriate social distancing.  It was a lovely evening and, along the way, we hatched a plan for a barbeque the following evening with some English friends of Jean-Marc and Melissa.

Now that’s more like the weather we expect of Florida!

Monday (like most of Sunday, to be fair to Florida) was a beautiful day with blue skies and warm [Ed: hot!] weather.  First thing, we studied the latest forecast and checked with Chris Parker the weatherman.  Unfortunately, it looked as if there wouldn’t be a good weather window to set off transatlantic from Fort Lauderdale for 10-14 days.  Two weather systems, particularly Tropical Storm Arthur [Ed: an early start to the hurricane season this year] were forecast to kill the wind almost completely, after which the trade winds were forecast to fill in strongly from the east, rather than the more normal southeast.  On top of all that, Tropical Storm Arthur looked to be curving back southeast, towards the routing that we would want to take though, admittedly, quite a long way further east than we would be.  So, we made a new plan to move up eastern the USA until the conditions are right for turning towards home.

The clarity on the weather was opportune because our priority for the morning was to don facemasks again and visit the CBP customs office.  That proved to be a little more difficult than the check-in at immigration, but we came away with a US cruising permit valid for the next 2 months which means that we can cruise up the coast and not have to visit any more CBP offices until we plan to leave the US.

The new instrument fitted at our chart table.  We are gradually
upgrading the whole system to the newer NMEA2000 network
 standard.  We currently have a mix of the old and new networks
 with a couple of boxes to translate between the 2 but it’s
 proving to have too many niggly and irregular errors

A further trip to the shops saw us arrive back at BV with more food, a topped up propane bottle, and a Raymarine instrument from West Marine.  They only had one instrument in stock, so we bought that and ordered another one for the cockpit.  Once the food was all stowed, Nicky took a trip to the laundrette complete with a huge bag of washing, whilst I played carpentry and electronics and fitted the new instrument at the chart table.  Sadly, by sundowners time the weather had turned very thundery so we postponed the planned barbeque.

Tuesday was literally a washout.  The weather was miserable all day with lots of thunderstorms and heavy rain.  Exactly the unpleasantness that we had timed our visit to Fort Lauderdale to avoid; it would have been miserable being at sea during it.

With little enthusiasm to venture out, we spent the morning catching up with some admin and blog stuff.  However, during the afternoon we had to do a quick run out to pick up the second Raymarine instrument from West Marine, which I then fitted in the cockpit under the shelter of the sprayhood.

By late sundowners-time the thunderstorms had moved off far enough for evening drinks on the deck again with Jean-Marc and Melissa, though it was too cool for lazing in the pool.  Again, Jean-Marc and Melissa (and Tillie the dog) were great company and it was lovely to hear about their work in Fort Lauderdale, their future plans and some of their previous sailing escapades.

All in all we had a lovely 3 day stop in Fort Lauderdale, all resulting from the generosity of Richie and Susan in letting us use their dock.  It’s such a shame that they were away when we visited but we touched base with them via FaceTime and emails and hope to see them properly again when we are back in the USA.  Melissa and Jean-Marc were absolute stars, lending us one of their cars and making us feel so welcome.  In the current climate, with Covid-19 still prevalent and taxis/Ubers difficult or impossible to come by, having the use of the vehicle made such a difference to us in being able to get around Fort Lauderdale quickly and easily.  We achieved so many things during our stop that we would not otherwise have been able to do and, better still, we had some lovely evenings chatting to delightful and interesting people.  As ever, we were sad to move on, but the next leg of our journey east was beckoning – a 500nm+ leg up to Beaufort in North Carolina.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Isla Mujeres towards Fort Lauderdale End of Day 5

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage.  They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system.  We sent the messages daily to my daughter Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

0745hrs (EDT, GMT -4) 17 May 2020

Dear All,

Since midnight we have only run the engine for an hour and half.  The rest of the time we sailed and it was good sailing too with the wind on our beam.  For part of that time we had a bit of a boost from the Gulf Stream, even seeing a maximum of 9.5 knots at one stage.  So much so that I had to slow BV down so that we didn't arrive off the entrance to Fort Lauderdale too soon.

Miami

The sail up the Florida coast was interesting with the bright city lights of Miami off to our port side and a dramatic lightning display way off in the distance to our starboard side over the Bahamas

Dawn looking out towards the Bahamas…

… and towards the Florida coastline

A rather grey sky for our early morning approach through Bar Cut, the entrance to Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale

We just made it in time for the 0730hrs opening of the Stranahan River bridge

In hindsight slowing BV down was a mistake and we only just made it through the entrance and up to the SE 17^th Street bascule bridge across the Stranahan River a minute before the 0730hrs lift!  A few minutes beyond the bridge is Richie and Susan Goldstein's house.  They have very kindly allowed us to moor BV on one of their 2 docks whilst we make our final preparations and wait for a good weather window to set off towards Guernsey.

So now that we have arrived, our priority is to complete the arrivals paperwork with the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office.  That's partly done using a smartphone app (the CBP ROAM app) followed up by a trip to the CBP office to get our passports stamped and the boat documentation completed.  If we can get all of that admin done today, Sunday, that will be a bonus, leaving us free on Monday and Tuesday to refuel, top up our in-use propane tank and to buy in some fresh food.  Right now there is a possibility that we might be on our way again starting our transatlantic crossing as early as Wednesday.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky 

Passage statistics:
Position at 0745hrs 17 May: N26 06 W80 07
Position at midnight 17 May: n/a
Midday to 0745hrs distance: 130 nautical miles (average 6.6 knots)
Midnight to 0745hrs distance: 49.2 nautical miles (average 6.3 knots)
Total miles covered:  559 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Fort Lauderdale): 0 nautical miles

End of Day 5  Isla Mujeres, Mexico, towards Fort Lauderdale, USA