FLYING FISH & ROLLING SWELL

Cape Canaveral, Florida 28º24.51N | 80º37.655W

We're the line going northwest, Great Sale to Cape Canaveral.

You never really know what you're sailing into when you head into the ocean. It's part of the allure. The weather guessers predicted very light winds from the east, clocking to the south and dropping during the night.

As planned, we lifted anchor in Great Sale, Abacos, mid-morning yesterday for a 24-hour crossing to Cape Canaveral. We sailed onto the Bahama Banks under this:

Good omen or bad? Either way, it was lovely.

Counter to predictions, we had a beautiful sail across the Bahama Banks toward Mantanilla Shoal, skimming over smooth turquoise water with a brisk breeze. What's not to love about that? It was northeast wind.

Northeast wind + Gulf Stream = bad. The Gulf Stream flows south to north, so any wind blowing against it kicks up waves.

We sailed safely off of the Bahama Banks into deep water without incident -- and without much swell so far. I made Chip take the 6-9 watch, because, for the first time, this impending darkness with a northeast wind riling the beast ahead filled me with foreboding. Not a we're-all-going-to-die fear but more of that uneasiness you have sitting in the dentist's chair before a root canal, knowing even at it's best, it ain't gonna be that great.

On second thought, the sun setting over the water is so calming.

On we sailed as the wind eased back, clocking more to the east, and the swell increased. I took the helm for my 9 to midnight shift in moonless, inky darkness. The swell was coming on our stern quarter, 4-6 feet with the occasional 8 footer. I could keep our course but not without a swaggering roll that was uncomfortable but just short of miserable. I found songs on the iPod that kept the same beat and worked the roll into my dance step. I had a pretty good dance routine going until I whanged my knee on the wheel. Ouch. At least it was dark, and, as far as I know, nobody was watching.

As the wind clocked around almost behind us, not quite, I tried to cheat it. We had been motorsailing for a while and having any sail up makes the ride smoother, so I had been letting out the main as far as possible to keep some traction in the swell. As the wind dropped, the pressure on the main also lessened, causing it to flop around occasionally when we teetered back and forth in the swell.

When Chip came on watch at midnight I told him I was getting worried we might jibe (where the wind gets behind the sail and bangs it across to the other side), so he rigged up a preventer using sail ties and line. I observed that it would likely give way if we really did jibe, but he said his goal was to slow down the boom to lessen the impact. A proper preventer (a rig that holds the boom in place to prevent accidental jibes) is on the very long list of things we need to do this summer.

So off I went to try to sleep in the wildly rocking cradle of a v-berth, stuffing pillows all around me to keep from flopping around too much, my own preventer. Just as I was drifting off, I felt the boat buck and heard a loud WHAM. I knew what it was. We had jibed.

I ran to the cockpit, and Chip turned over the wheel.

"Point into the wind while I get the preventer off," he said.

So, half asleep, I took the wheel in the pitch black and tried my best to point into the invisible wind and deal with the nasty swell, while Chip was up there in no-man's land on the cabin roof.

Our policy offshore is that anyone leaving the cockpit wears an offshore lifejacket with a leash tied off in the cockpit. While that is theoretically comforting, the reality is less so. All I could think about was if he went overboard, how I would reel him back in while keeping the boat stable.

Mid-thought the wind caught the sail and whammed it across the boat again, flying over Chip's head as he went spread eagle on the cabin roof, hanging onto, well, nothing. I got us stabilized again but couldn't tell if the boom had hit Chip on it's way across or if he had gone down on his own.

It's amazing how terrifyingly long two seconds can seem in the middle of a black, bucking ocean.

He jumped up and came running back to the cockpit.

"Point in again so I can drop the main."

In that moment I was deliriously happy that we had waited for this night to cross the Gulf Stream. Why? Because we took the time to fix the Dutchman flaking system that catches the mainsail as it drops. We had considered leaving the lines off and managing the sail the old fashioned way: Catching miles of billowing canvas, piling it onto the boom by hand and tying it in place with sail ties.

Instead, with the newly repaired system in place, Chip released the halyard, and the main dropped mostly into place, although the lightening wind and the roll of the swell made it messy. He quickly got it under control, and I turned the boat back on our old rolly course.

"That was fun!" Chip said, without a hint of sarcasm.

Well, the other of us didn't think so. We debriefed, and I went below trying to quell the piping adrenaline and get some rest.

Chip fought the swell until my 3 a.m. watch then dropped exhausted onto the cockpit bench while Bill Cosby and David Sedaris entertained me on the iPod.

About 20 minutes later, Chip came shooting up out of sleep yelling, "Squid!"

Of course I thought he was dreaming, even when he started clawing at the neck of his jacket.

"Oh, it's a fish," he said.

I pulled out my flashlight, and sure enough, here's what I saw:

The wayward flying fish that whispered in Chip's ear.

We had been seeing flying squid all day, thus the SQUID alarm, but this was a standard issue flying fish that had haplessly flown into the cockpit, right into sleeping Chip's ear and tried to flop under his collar.

Now who had adrenaline pumping? Both Chip AND the fish. The latter got pitched overboard, the former sent below.

The swell mellowed a little, and David Sedaris and I steered us through to just before dawn without further incident, other than the rush of seeing the knot meter hit an all-time high of 8.9 as the Gulf Stream carried us north. It did make me do a double-take when I first observed the real-life occurrence of set and drift, where the magnetic compass goes at odds with the GPS heading, because the GPS registers our northern flow in the Gulf Stream. The instruments might not have agreed on which way we were heading, but boy, were we getting there f a s t.

Chip took the last watch that brought the sun up behind us and our country before us.

Cape Canaveral ahead.

Just short of 24 hours after leaving Great Sale, we tied up in Cape Canaveral in green, murky water, tired and happy, ready for proper land showers and whatever culture shock might await.

TIME TO GO!

Great Sale Cay, Abacos, Bahamas 26º58.612N | 78º12.954W

After weeks of watching the weather and maneuvering into position, we are finally leaving the Bahamas, crossing the Gulf Stream to Florida: Destination Cape Canaveral.

We predict it will take about 24 hours, so we are leaving mid-morning, hoping to be off the Bahama Banks in the last of daylight, reaching that capricious lion-or-lamb of a Gulf Stream in the dead of night.

We have offered the beast about 48 hours after a big blow, time enough to calm down, theoretically. Unfortunately, the wind has calmed as well, so there might be some motoring. (Some sailors consider it a failure to use the engine, but, hey, the engine is a tool in my toolbag, no better or worse than others. Whatever it takes to get us across safely!)

And so we leave with heavy hearts. Our first season of cruising the Bahamas is ending, but family and friends are waiting on the other side.

Gulf Stream and Cape Canaveral, here we come.

CAN WATER BE SAD?

Great Sale Cay, Abacos, Bahamas 26º58.612N | 78º12.954W

Cara Mia, all alone in Great Sale.

You remember that bet we had about how many boats would leave for the U.S. today? Chip said there would be 7 boats left here with us. I said 6.

By noon, we were the very last boat in this large, lonely anchorage. All 11 boats left to cross the Gulf Stream to Florida. Once again, we said bye to Jessie Marie as she set off on Karen's birthday. We hope to meet up with them again in Charleston next week to give Karen her presents.

There was a time when it would have bothered me that we were the only ones who chose to stay. I would have had nagging second thoughts. What do they know that I don't? What if they're right and I'm wrong?

I still might -- and should -- ask those questions, but every day I grow more confident with our decisions. We decided to wait until Monday to cross the Gulf Stream. We are not right. The others are not wrong. We merely made decisions. They made theirs. We made ours. And so we all go in our own time.

Which leaves us with wide open time and space to do our chores, chores made so much more pleasant by our gorgeous surroundings.

First chore: Fix the Dutchman flaking system (lines running through the main sail that make it fold nicely and stay in place when we drop it) that broke coming into this anchorage. Lots of fits and starts (mostly fits) trying to fix that one, but with persistence and patience, we got it done.

Our wide open anchorage leaves us time to ponder returning to our own country, our own culture after being gone for six months. I think about what has changed and, other than the price of gas, I'm pretty sure most of those changes are in me. Looping back around where we came from inevitably leads to retrospection. There's your warning: lots of reflective posts coming.

But most of all, right now in this quiet anchorage, our last in the Bahamas, I'm looking into turquoise water and thinking about how much I'll miss it.

As if the water is feeling a bit melancholy too, it has gone cloudy on me, brilliant turquoise but no longer clear as air. Maybe it's just kindly weaning me off its splendor.

Bye bye turquoise water. How I'll miss you.

THE LAST STOP

Great Sale Cay, Abacos, Bahamas 26º58.612N | 78º12.954W

The sun showing us the way to Florida.

Today's sail was a long one compared with the last few, 7 hours and 20 minutes from Spanish Cay to Great Sale in good wind. Well, when we turned south around the island the wind did start writing a chore list for us. It kicked way up, and blew the last remaining threads out of the bottom of the jib and broke one of the Dutchman flaking lines while we were reefing the main. That will give us something to do the next few days.

That weather window we've been waiting for is beginning to open. Our plan is to start our 24-hour crossing on Monday when we hope the Gulf Stream will have settled a bit, we have our chores done, and we can listen to another round of weather guessing on the SSB Monday morning.

That same weather has determined our routing as well. We had hoped to ride the Gulf Stream to either Fernandina or Charleston, but there's some sketchy activity south of Hatteras, so Cape Canaveral, here we come.

The sun is setting on Great Sale and the 12 boats anchored here The optimal departure time from Great Sale is midmorning, and Chip and I have a bet on how many neighbors we'll have by noon tomorrow. All or none or somewhere in between? Meet us at high noon to find out.

BARRACUDAS DON'T WAIT

Spanish Cay, Abacos, Bahamas 26º56.4N | 77º31.9W

We hop, hop, hopped today, a 3-hour sail to Spanish Cay. I was dragging my line in the water, like I do, when the line zipped out about 30 yards. The second I picked up the pole, I could tell it was a darn barracuda. The two edible fish I've caught were feisty but relatively easy to reel in. Barracudas are warriors.

I fought it long enough to bring it up near the boat, so Chip could 1) take a picture and 2) cut the line. Darn barracudas.

Spanish Cay will be our last stop before our last stop. We'll stay here until we have some clarity on the weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream, because once we get to our FINAL last stop, Great Sale, we won't have phone or internet connection. We'll have to rely solely on the SSB for the latest.

At least Spanish Cay has a nice little bar. 'Nice.' Have a look at the restaurant.

We ate at home.

MEMORY'S STRAIGHT LINE

As we turn our bow back toward the Outer Banks, I am reminded that this will not be the first time we have sailed this boat home.

The first week of May, just one year ago, we brought our new boat home to the Outer Banks from Rock Hall, Maryland.

Land still had a stronghold on us. Although we had sold our house and old boat, we still lived ashore in a tiny rental house. We owned a wine shop, two cars and an enormous pile of land belongings.

Last year, on May 27th, we celebrated the fifth anniversary of our wine shop, the last major piece of our complicated puzzle that had to be dispatched before setting off on our cruising life. The store was under contract waiting on loan approval. Five years of 'ifs' were suddenly stacked in one big, emotional heap threatening, just maybe, to turn into 'whens.'

At the same time, we were in the final throes of disposing of the remainder of our belongings. When we moved from the rental house to the boat, we were officially live aboards, but, in fact, we were much more "move aboards." We were still pushing around piles of stuff dumped in huge plastic bins, bins that we hauled around in our cars until we found the time and emotional fortitude to take each item in hand, live through its remembrances and make the final decision whether or not it would travel with us.

But you know what? If I did not keep a log, I could not have told you these details. One of the great failings of my memory is that it irons out the past into a straight, thin line, losing the pulsating highs and lows that turn life into living.

FLASHBACK: Saturday, May 29, 2010

BUDDHA, AN ASHTRAY AND A MOUSE IN A RED GINGHAM DRESS

home |hōm| noun -- a place where something flourishes

All those big plastic bins holding the last of our belongings are starting to feel like so many Pandora's boxes. Every few days we pull another one out of the car and release its content, every time left to deal with the consequences.

The truth is, we don't want any more stuff on the boat, but once it comes out of the proverbial box, we have to remember its history, judge its value, weigh its role in our future, and if we keep it, deal with the increasingly onerous task of finding a place for it on the boat.

Tonight instead of the painstaking process of pulling out each item and debating its fate, we played a game of Top Ten, taking turns picking something out of the bin until we each had 10 items. The rest would go back in the car and eventually be dispatched to Goodwill.

The bin held tools, cookbooks, folders, printer paper, books, charts and fabric, but except for a putty knife, neither of us chose those things with practical value.

Instead, Chip picked a small stuffed rabbit I gave him one long ago Christmas, a dog-eared notebook of song lyrics in progress and a Queen Elizabeth II ashtray given to us by a friend. I kept a decorative wooden mermaid, a tiny Buddha that Chip gave me and a little stuffed mouse in a red gingham dress made for me by my great aunt Flora when I was nine.

We've spent months stockpiling the practical yet impersonal necessities of life on a sailboat, the things that will help us survive. But today, we both felt the need to bring aboard the sentimental and fanciful essentials of living, the things that will help us thrive.

I

If you'd like to read more about our eventful May last year, you can do so here.

ANOTHER HOP

Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas 26º39.89N | 77º19.9W

We took a baby step to the next waiting room, a 2-hour sail to Green Turtle via the infamous Whale Cut, an open space between the sound and the wide open ocean, known for being unruly. We tiptoed through on a calm day while the whale was sleeping and anchored in the bustling waters in the lee of Green Turtle.

Loyalist kitchen dating to the mid-1800s.

Green Turtle is a charming island with a museum dedicated to local history, a well-documented history that includes the indigenous Lucayan people, the first western explorers, and eventually the loyalists who fled the United States during the Civil War bringing their slaves along with them. It is these last two groups, the British loyalists and the former slaves, that seem to have found a way to live together cheerfully on this seemingly peaceful island. How they worked that out, I'd like to know.

Lucayan artifacts in the Green Turtle museum.

The other two groups did not learn to live together at all. The long extinct Lucayans fell to germs and weapons borne on the hands of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers. Those who survived were spirited away and lived out their days as slaves in Europe. Now, on Green Turtle Cay, it is only the stones and ghosts that remain.

But back to the agenda. Every morning we listen to Chris Parker, hoping for the weather off the U.S. coast to sort itself out. Every morning we find that it hasn't. And so we wait, on islands where we have internet connection to look at the weather with our own eyes.

Next stop: Spanish Cay.

Door handle on the Green Turtle historical museum.

Model ships made by a descendant of the original Loyalist settlers.

ISLAND HOPPING

Great Guana Cay, Abacos, Bahamas 26º39.89N | 77º06.67W

One might argue that our entire visit to the Bahamas has been island hopping. While that's true, up until now, our focus has been much more on the 'island' and less on the 'hopping.' Now, with our sights set on returning to the U.S. for hurricane season, we're playing a game of strategic hopping hopefully putting us in the right place to forge the Gulf Stream when the next weather window opens.

Fortunately for us, our waiting rooms are lovely.

We made a two-hour skip from Hopetown to Great Guana Cay, home of the famous Nippers bar, which was not looking all that famous when we visited, being two of only nine people sipping rum in the afternoon.

In the meantime we are scouring the charts, doing math on distances, trying to decide where to aim when we set out from Great Sale in the Abacos.

Here is the chart with our options:

From Great Sale
to Fort Pierce   112 miles  16-19 hours = easy peasy
to Cape Canaveral   156 miles   22-26 hours = easy
to St. Mary's, GA   286 miles   41-48 hours = a challenge
to Charleston   379 miles 54-63 hours = amazing

The number of hours will vary depending on how long we hitch our boat to the Gulf Stream adding an extra 1-2 knots to our speed. We have yet to make more than a 24-hour passage, but if the conditions are favorable, we're ready to test our mettle.

Yet, it is not us but the weather that will make our decision. Right now, the windows are closed up tight against an indecisive mess off the coast of North Carolina, ruffling up the Gulf Stream with northern winds.

And so we wait, one island at a time.

HAPPY IN HOPE TOWN

Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas 26º32.228N | 76º57.53W

Several of our readers (all to whom we are direct descendants) have complained that we do not put enough photos of ourselves in this blog. Well, here ya go.

Three years ago on the Hopetown dock.

Today on that same dock.

Three years ago, wishing upon a lighthouse...

Today.

ON TOP OF THE WORLD

Hopetown, Abacos, Bahamas 26º32.228N | 76º57.53W

I've loved the Hopetown lighthouse since the first time I saw it three years ago. It's hard not to love a lighthouse anyway, but climbing this one makes me feel like Dr. Dolittle. Did he live in a nautilus shell, or did I make that up? Either way, check this out:

Inside the Hopetown lighthouse.

I'm pretty sure, had I been asked, I would have totally poo-pooed painting the inside of a lighthouse pink and green, but leave it to the Bahamians to slap together two unlikely colors and make it fabulous.

As we were leaving the lighthouse, we saw this guy sitting on the dock.

Jeffrey, the lighthouse keeper.

The lighthouse is across the water from Hopetown, only reachable by boat. He was looking, I thought, longingly across the water, so we offered him a ride.

"No thanks, that's me," he said, pointing back at the lighthouse over his shoulder.

"Can we watch you light it?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "Go on up. I'll be there in a few minutes."

So, all alone, we climbed to the top, leaning precariously out the open windows to take sweeping photos of the glory below.

At dusk, overlooking Hopetown harbor and Cara Mia and the ocean beyond.

At the top, I crawled through a Hobbit-sized door (yes, mixed literature) and onto the open observation platform.

Looking north from atop the lighthouse.

Jeffrey joined us and dropped the curtains that cover the Fresnel lens during the day.

Known officially as Elbow Reef Lighthouse, it was built in 1863 to warn ships off of the reef just offshore, much to the consternation of the "wrackers," who made a living harvesting booty from wrecked ships. It is one of the last remaining kerosene lighthouses in the world, an actual flame lit and monitored by humans. A Fresnel lens concentrates the flame making it visible 17 miles offshore. The entire lens apparatus, 8,000 pounds of it, floats in a mercury bath allowing it to spin at the touch of a finger. Every two hours, all night, the lighthouse keeper cranks up 700 pounds of weights that slowly drop, spinning gears that turn the lens.

Sitting in the tiny, round room with Jeffrey as he methodically cranks up the weights, just as his father did for decades before him, you just melt into the powerful calm that surrounds him like that cloud of dust around Pigpen in Charlie Brown. It must take a certain temperament to live the storied and solitary life of a lighthouse keeper. Contemplative Jeffrey obviously has it.

Once the weights were wound up, he told us to climb up a rickety green metal ladder, right up onto the platform with the Fresnel lens.

So here I am, waiting to observe the lighting of the flame, camera in hand, thinking, "Dang, the lighting's really bad here. How am I going to get any good shots?" Sometimes I really frighten myself.

Jeffrey took care of my lighting problem, and our last night in Hopetown turned into pure magic.

"This is the best job in the world," Jeffrey told us, and standing there watching that spectacular lens cast a shaft of deliverance into the gathering darkness, I believed him.

SIGHTS OF HOPE TOWN

Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas 26º32.228N | 76º57.53W