With final weather checks completed, a float plan filed and confirmation that the Iridium GO! was working, we cast off the lines around 2230. A friend we’d met the night before happened to be walking down the dock and gave us a hand with our lines and waved us off.
Slipping away in the dead of night felt anticlimactic – the only last look I was able to get was that of the lume of Elbow Reef Lighthouse as we sailed towards The Whale, where we’d leave the Sea of Abaco and head offshore. We’d been too far away from Hope Town to even get to say goodbye that morning on the cruisers’ net, which had become a favorite ritual to tune into each day. The Sea of Abaco was choppy, and Silent Sky’s motion changed immediately once we hit the open ocean rollers, but it still felt far from settled.
I made sure to take some dramamine before we left – while I’m not typically prone to seasickness on a monohull, it had been a while since we were out in a real sea, and I didn’t want to take the risk. Jack was a trooper, and other than letting me know he was pissed, he settled into life at sea and accepted Blaine, even allowing the occasional pat.
My first watch was 4-8am on Saturday morning. The bright full moon set pinkish-orange as the sun rose, revealing deep royal blue/purple water in shades I’d never seen before. It was beyond stunning. There was nothing on AIS, and while we weren’t yet very far offshore, we were out of sight of land entirely. Our world was nothing but shades of blue.
I made pancakes for breakfast – I started to get a little queasy between the light wind and 4-6′ rollers, but I took another dramamine and sat up on deck for a bit after I was done cooking. And the pancakes were totally worth it (I swear by Ruth Reichl’s recipe from the Gourmet cookbook with a little cinnamon and nutmeg thrown in).
We set and immediately broke the whisker pole, but we rigged a preventer on the main which helped keep it a little more full and kept it from slamming back and forth on the bigger waves.
We’ve been doing coaching sessions with Jamie and Behan Gifford of Sailing Totem, and we asked Jamie to help with weather routing. We’re really new to reading weather – we had a session on understanding GRIBs, and they shared some great resources, but we don’t have enough experience to rely on our understanding alone. Based on Jamie’s input, our target destination was Jacksonville, FL, as a strong line of thunderstorms looked to be coming off the Georgia coast on Monday. As weather continued to develop, he revised our destination to Cape Canaveral in our overnight check-in. We were disappointed, but staying safe was our main goal.
Sunday began with a beautiful sunrise and moonset, just after my 4-6am watch. We eventually got into the Gulf Stream and despite light wind, we were still trucking along at 7-8kts and as the breeze filled in we saw 9-10kts. It was champagne sailing at its best. The Gulf Stream is one of the fastest-moving ocean currents, funneling warm water from the Gulf of Mexico north along the US east coast and towards Europe, and northbound sailors take advantage of the boost from the current to cover more distance. But the risk with being in a strong current is that when winds come out of the opposite direction, seas can get sloppy and miserable quickly – another good reason to keep a close watch on the weather.
In our next check-in with Jamie, he said it looked low-risk to continue to Jacksonville, so we all agreed to press on. We made grilled lobster tails and leftover Bahamian peas n’ rice for dinner – no one can accuse us of not eating well!
As sunset approached, so did two thunderstorms. We tucked in a double reef in both sails and pointed the bow west to get out of the Stream and try to slip between the two storms. I am TERRIFIED of the idea of a lightning strike. We have back-up systems for almost everything onboard and could have safely navigated back to the US coast without electronics (even without charts, we could have found Florida pretty easily – go west until you run into land. Congratulations, you’ve found Florida.) But the idea of being struck still terrifies me. And I’ll be the first to admit that when I get scared, I’m not always fully functional. Knowing that, I explained to Blaine that if he needed me to do something to talk to me like I’ve never done it before because at that point, I’m no longer thinking clearly. To calm myself, I stared at our wake, which was now laced with tiny bioluminescent stars. With everything as prepared as could be, Blaine made us all tea and we sailed on. The worst we ever got was a light rain, and we ended up shaking out one reef in the main and rolling out the whole genoa once it was clear the storm was moving past. Now that we were out of the Gulf Stream, our port of arrival would be St. Augustine.
I tried to get some rest but slept miserably, and I was already tired and out of sorts when I came on watch at 0200. The remainder of the more northern storm sat out to sea and we had a light breeze which was forecast to slowly shift right through my watch. I adjusted the sails all I could, but the way we were set up meant I couldn’t get as close to the wind as usual, and I didn’t want to head too far east. I woke Chris to help me with the sails (we had a strict “no one leaves the cockpit after dark without someone else on deck” policy) and I tried to sail a bit longer. But when my boat speed hit 2.7kts, it was time to turn on the engine. I did everything I could to stay awake, but I was REALLY struggling. I heard a splash off the bow, like a wave coming from the wrong direction and at first I thought I was hearing things. Then I heard another splash and the distinct “huff” of a dolphin breathing. As I looked out over the totally blackened ocean, I saw the silhouettes of two dolphins laced with bioluminescence and watched the footprint they created alongside Silent Sky. It was absolutely magical, and I was thisclose to waking Chris up to see it, but I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt his sleep… that is until I reached a point where I no longer felt like I was safe standing watch and turned the helm over an hour early.
Managing sleep at sea is something I need to work at. Part of me is always on alert – every change in sound or feel jolts me awake. I think figuring out how to sleep effectively will make offshore passages much more comfortable and enjoyable.
During his morning watch, Chris was visited by a flock of birds that came to rest on Silent Sky before continuing on their journey. The day was overcast and gray, and we were no longer in the deep blue sea, but the St. Augustine lighthouse was visible by the time I dragged myself back on deck.
We’d heard horrible things about St. Augustine inlet, so we called Tow Boat US for local knowledge. The captain Chris spoke to assured us that as long as you run out to the sea buoy, then line up the giant cross and stay in the channel, it was nothing to worry about, and he was right. A pair of dolphins greeted us at the channel entrance – a nice welcome back to America.
We raised the quarantine flag, dropped anchor over by the bridge and checked in on the CBPRoam app. We all signed up for verified traveler status before we returned and paid our fees, so clearing back into the US was as simple as entering our numbers and waiting for verification. JR called just after we dropped the hook to invite us to a beach party, and it made me so sad to have left that part of our adventure behind.
We got cleaned up, re-inflated and launched Squall (the current really rips here, so getting into the dinghy was an adventure), and headed over to the marina to fill our jerry cans with diesel and grab dinner before making a provisioning run (well, the guys did and I stayed on the dock with Squall).
I think the idea of offshore passages is more stressful than the reality of them – if you’re like me, you psych yourself out. What if something goes wrong? You’re totally, completely, 100% on your own out there. But then you realize that you can prepare for so much and that it’s rarely the things you think of that end up going wrong. And when something happens, you just deal with it. I learned, I grew, and I pushed beyond my comfort zone once more, and I can’t describe how rewarding it all was.
I actually found myself sad to end our offshore adventure. It wasn’t always easy, but it was an incredible experience. During the day, I spent hours gazing into the deep, ink-blue water flecked with golden sargassum; at dawn and dusk, I’d soak in its velvet purple; and at night, the moon turned the ocean to liquid obsidian. There was nothing to see but ocean, and I was obsessed.
Photo credit for the above carousel and cover image to Blaine Davis, @blaineduh.