Ok, part three! After reaching anchor the second night, Steph decided that she had to severely limit the amount of alcohol that I was consuming during the first part of the trip. I was limited to one per night... so I made the most of it. evening cocktails... ...dead calm at 6:30AM. It was a good thing that we had extra gasoline on deck. The water was so still that the horizon line disappeared. it was as though we could sail into the sky if we so chose. morning number 3 begins... ...and starting to get sticky. South of Daytona is Mosquito Lagoon... and yes, it does live up to its name. The area is mostly preserve and while passing through you can see the Kennedy Space Center in the distance. The day that we passed through this area you could see the Space shuttle on the pad... pretty impressive through the binoculars, but too difficult for the camera to capture at our distance. still no wind... ...dolphins were aplenty off our bow. Morning playtime... ...as the dolphins neared Empty Pocket. Later in the trip, we would have one of the most amazing and unforgettable dolphin encounters ever! Steph goes forward... ...nature always puts on quite a show, even if you have to really look to see it. Haulover Canal at Cape Canaveral Whisper came out from her slumber-pad to see what all the fuss was about... dolphins, birds, manatees... ...after being less than impressed by all of the hoop-la about the wildlife, Whisper retreated to her catnip-laced scratch pad... ...gettin high ...needless to say, we were eating pretty well. Steph whipped out some quesadillas for lunch. The deal that we have is: she cooks... I clean... Quesadillas for lunch... ...often requires drastic measures. I found out that the downside of the quesadillas lunch is that the cheese REALLY likes to stick to the stainless pan... This is me scrubbing the pan out over the side. As a note to our fellow galley gourmets, we rid ourselves of the aluminum cookware after they began to contaminate the food cooked in them. Salt water washing is not very friendly to aluminum, so if you are shopping for galleyware, beware of the short life of aluminum! We now own stainless exclusively... although I will be the first one to tell you how difficult it is to clean. ...my turn - cleaning! The catnip is still working... maybe I should try some of that!! 4PM... ...Still not a huff of wind, anywhere! We decided to cool off with a shower in the cockpit while still motoring. We were passing through Melbourne at this point and had our sights set on an anchorage 50 miles from Ft. Pierce, our jump-off point. We set the autopilot and Steph went first... We usually take salt water showers and then a freshwater rinse, but this was the ditch and the water was a little suspect for that... so a full freshwater shower was the order! Now one more thing about this... how is it that there can be no other boat for miles in any direction, yet when you get undressed, they show up in herds?? Steph made it through hers fine (more on this in a bit!), but when I undressed for mine, suddenly I am hearing powerboats all around and old men yelling ...that guy aint wearin no clothes! to the other men in their boat! I was pinned to the cockpit sole, unable to stand lest I reveal ALL, for at least 10 minutes, as they proceeded by in a seemingly endless parade of voyeurs... geeeeez! 6PM ...we brought along an extra cooler of ice for initial leg of the trip. As we were planning to go where others wouldnt we planned NOT to re-provision at a dock... The fact is, we over-provisioned for the trip. We probably could have left the cooler at home, but Whisper was sure glad that we didnt! This became a familiar sight for the trip down as she no doubt found relief from the heat on the cooler surface. Later in the trip, the cooler became the garbage bin. Whispers method of cooling off... ...unlike Steph, who holds some mystical power over fish when she drops a line, when I go fishing it is usually for a tool or spare part. That is me (I think Steph likes to take pics of my feet) trying to find a replacement water filter. We keep spares all the way in the back of the rear berth, UNDER the mattress... not a very convenient place, but the reality is there is alot of storage under there and for items that we dont need ready access to, they have a good, dry, safe home under there. my version of fishing... Sailing with a pet is often challenging for the owner... there is the constant worry that the pet will fall overboard. We have never lost Whisper overboard, until now. Sometime during the night, she managed to go over. When we awoke at 7AM, and it was apparent that she wasnt onboard, we really freaked out. I immediately got Empty Pocket to the dock of the adjacent marina started to search for our lost cat. We were both sick to our stomachs... (we blamed ourselves more than anything for being bad parents.) As I walked up the dock headed for the perimeter shoreline of the anchorage, I was calling Whispers name... I wasnt 50 feet from Empty Pocket when I heard her cries for help. I started scanning the docks and spotted her on the other side of the marina UNDER the docks. She had managed to swim from the boat (with help from the extremely swift current) all the way to the docks, and had found refuge in the support structure underneath. I ran to her, and as I looked over the edge of the dock to her, realized that this wasnt going to be easy. There was 6 feet between us with her perched on barnacle and shell encrusted supports. To make it more intense, her paws were bloody, and there were several large Jacks circling her underneath... not good! To top it off, I wasnt wearing any shoes! My intention was to go back to the boat and get some but she began to move around when she saw me and all I could do was envision her falling in to these large hungry fish! (...yes, I guess the fish DO get revenge once in a while!) So I scaled the pilings, bare feet and all, and retrieved our cat! We both ended up with bloody paws after that! We got her back to the boat and rinsed her off... then I took a rinse as well... What an ordeal! I think that we may have to install lifeline netting in the future... Fort Pierce mishap! ...We could hardly stand it, there was just NO WIND! Good ol NOAA weather radio was calling for west winds 10-15 knots, but just look at the water... dead calm. We took on 15 gallons of fuel in Ft. Pierce, and it was a good thing we did! We turned south after exiting the channel and cranked our Yamaha up to about 1/2 throttle, enough to push Empty Pocket at about 5 knots. I immediately got to work plotting our turn, 70 miles south of our current location. I had learned a while ago when I lived in the Keys about how to make the most efficient crossing of the Gulf Stream... so after much computation, I decided that Delray Beach would be our turn point. This should land us directly into West End Settlement. The weather was cloudy, with a chance of storms (duh! ...this IS Florida...) in the afternoon. Heading out! We kept her as comfortable as possible as we motored along. We are glad that the seas were as calm as they were, as we really did not care to repeat day one... especially for Whispers sake. Whisper recuperates... ...I need to back up and tell you all a few things. Since we were initially heading outside at St. Augustine Inlet, we thoroughly packed all of our deck (except for the jerry cans of fuel) items into the v-berth... including our dinghy Pocket Lint. It was a tight fit, of course, but the v-berth is our storage unit onboard. I recently answered a forum posting about towing your dink with the engine attached... that is fine for the intracoastal waterway, but I would NEVER recommend it for ANY adventure outside the safe confines of the ditch or adjoining river. As most of you probably already know, we use a roll-up inflatable... a 79 model that stows quite well in a small space. Also, as many of you know, we replaced the outboard motor on Empty Pocket back in December. We used to have a Honda 15 four stroke, but after much research, downsized to a Yamaha 9.9 four stroke high thrust model. We purchased and installed a set of Powerthrusters on our motors (for E.P. and P.L.) as well and for the record it took us 15 gallons to motor from St. Augustine to Ft. Pierce. This was the most that we had run the 9.9 motor since its purchase. It ran FLAWLESSLY, and pushed our vessel at a good clip as we raced south in the intracoastal. Although not as smooth as the Honda at first, after this trip, it is SMOOTHER running than our Honda 15 ever was. ...now, back to the story: About 3 miles out, Steph readied her fishing gear... Turning, turning... south! ...our Jibsheet! While I was using our trusty Marlin-spike to release the jibsheet from Stephs trusty lure, the sun popped out for a few minutes. Now, being sailboaters, when out offshore and away from prying eyes, Steph will often surrender her garments to the cabin sole and take full advantage of the opportunity, ifyaknowwhatimean . Seriously, now, what we would like to know, is there a VHF channel for powerboaters that is used to relay the gps location and bearing of a naked sailboater?? It wasnt 3 minutes before the voyeur parade came whizzing by at 25 feet, catching Steph totally off guard! ...needless to say, there are no pics. Stephs first catch... ...lets see what is behind door number 3: Lucky strike, perhaps? Grouper? Wahoo? Tuna? Steph tries again... mmmmm... a King! ...not bad! ...even Whisper bucked her injured paws and came up to see what all the fuss was about! I think Whisper didnt forgive us for 3 days after we released the King Mackeral. Good eatin, but not enough time today to properly prepare it... so we let it go. Ill get out of bed for that! I was really feeling good at this point. In 24 hours we would be arriving in West End. I was looking forward to a shower, a meal at anchor on the bank, and a SHAVE! ...me and my shadow. One more day! Steph counts down... ...one of many, MANY ships that we would encounter during the crossing. ...a sign of things to come The further south we progressed we found that we needed to be sailing tighter and tighter to shore. When we left Fort Pierce, we listened to NOAA reports that the westernmost edge of the Gulf Stream was about 7 miles offshore... what we discovered was that the effect of the Stream was much closer to shore than that. Now as you may or may not know, the Gulf Stream flows north at close to 3 knots between Florida and the Bahamas. There is in fact a counter-current that flows south about 1 mile offshore from the coast of Florida. We had to get into that current! As night fell, we were hugging the coastline in about 35 feet of water... racing through many clusters of fishing boats... having to light our sails to make them aware of our presence... kinda scary! The wind was finally blowing out of the East (of course!) at 10kts and we were motorsailing south to our turn point at better than 6.5kts on average... we were making GOOD time through there. Last shot of Florida. ...at 23:55 we reached Delray Beach. The wind had fallen calm once again, and we turned Empty Pocket to a compass heading of 90 degrees, throttled the motor to about 75% and set the autopilot. The goal was to race due east and have the Stream lift us into the Little Bahama Bank at 7 knots, ETA: 10AM! The depthsounder registered 100, 500, then 1000 feet, then lost track completely as we entered the storied Gulf Stream. (A night crossing ensures a daytime arrival... NEVER make a landfall in the Bahamas at night!) ...the turning point! As the captain, I ordered that Steph get some sleep as I would need her to be refreshed in the morning for landfall. We have never been to West End before and I have learned to take NOTHING for granted. (...prepare for the worst, and you will never be disappointed!) As we raced eastward, the glow of South Florida subsided and the coastline gradually disappeared. Once well into the stream, the water flattened out completely and the sky opened up on the surface of the water, reflecting nearly every star... it was absolutely stunning! This is when the encounters began: 1.The Coasties, (USCG) as we affectionately call them, gave us a thorough inspection with a stealthy looking helicopter, and lots of spotlights... after a few minutes, they decided that we werent a threat or drug-runner and moved on... 2.Cruise ships headed for the Caribbean. 3.Freighters! (many, many of them.) 4.Fishing vessels. 5.Other sailboats. (theyre great to deal with as many will talk to you about the path.) The mainsail was up, but only as a steadying device. All of the safety gear was in reach... overboard bag, harnesses, lights, but would only be there as a security measure, as this night would provide a one in a thousand crossing. I keep a little wind-up kitchen timer on my person and I reset it every 15 minutes just in case I fall asleep at the helm. Catnapping is a good thing when you can get them... unfortunately, this night was too busy... I drank many, many cups of java to keep alert. I mainly sat for most of the night at the tiller with the light switch for the sails within my reach as to avoid collisions with other vessels. On VHF 16, I received a call from another sailboat heading back to FL and we chatted a bit on 71 about the crossing. The other captain said that he had never seen the Gulf Stream like it was in his 45 years of sailing it... What a glorious night! Stephs watch? ...not tonight! ...like I said, LOTS of coffee that night. 5AM and the Coffeemaker strikes again... Morning arrives! For those who dont know or have never seen the color of the water, words cannot do it justice... It is a blue that no camera or painting could ever capture! At about 9AM we spotted land on the horizon... so with West End in sight, we began our prep for landfall. Land Ho! ...raising our quarantine flag until we clear in at customs. Raise the flags ...Lemme hear some kudos!! We arrived 15 minutes late! We tied to the dock at 10:15AM, and only took 30 minutes to catch our breath and get our paperwork in order for the customs officers. Hats off to the people that work there... they got us in, and out, rather quickly and with great attitudes. We have heard horror stories of people who have had problems with customs recently, so we were prepared for the worst. (...but got the BEST!) At West End Settlement!! Empty Pocket tied to the dock. West End Marina ...off to see the man at customs. do I look presentable? ...its been a while since we have flown one of these. ...how you know that youve arrived. We spent a couple of hours there in West End, roaming, showering, shaving (yessss!), and finally refueling. This pic is looking back at toward the settlement. This boat was going to make the crossing the next night. (We hope he made it OK.) Our first stop: Mangrove Cay - 20 miles due East. ...onward, sailors! ...as we sailed east across the bank the sun was setting behind us, hitting the horizon just as we arrived at Mangrove Cay... Part four will be posted soon! first Bahamian sunset...