Bye Bye Georgia

 

Thought I better catch up and put some wrapping on this adventure. Above is Georgia leaving the dock in New Bern, North Carolina on her way to her new home in Deltaville, Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay. I'm onboard as lowly crew and Jeff, half of the new owners, is onboard as apprentice captain. Definitely a bittersweet day for Chris and I. 12 years cruising, 10 years on this boat and 8 years completing a circumnavigation.  Now what? more on that latter.

It took us 5 days to travel north on the Intracoastal Waterway and into the Chesapeake. We were expecting cold November weather only to be surprised by nice days in the 70s. The bridges are a little puckering. Georgia is approximating 64 feet 4 inches from the water to the top of the hard stuff at the masthead (that's with a typical load onboard). We heard the VHF antenna twanging on the underside of the bridge while going under the bridge associated with this height reader board. No harm, no foul.

Jeff and Christy are the new owners of Georgia. Clearly a salty crew. Along with new owners, Georgia is getting rechristened to Rosalee. She's ready for new passages and adventures once she breaks in the new crew.

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Georgia was our only home. We currently have a 2011 Honda CRV in North Carolina and 2010 Honda Accord in Oregon as our choices to live in. Not sure which is the primary home and which is the summer cottage.  We are off to find a dirt dwelling to base life out of. We aren't too sure where at this point. Most likely somewhere on the west coast. Chris has some strict criteria for our new abode. It must come with a front opening refrigerator and a flushing toilet. I'm hoping for a garage/shop. Not too much to ask for.

 We both wish our reader a healthy, enjoyable and adventurous 2023 -- with a recycled 2015 Xmas card.

Paul 

More Proof the Earth Is Not Flat

If you have Google Earth installed on your viewing device, you should be able to click on the image above. It will take you to a Google Earth live image showing Georgia's path around the world that you can manipulate. Kinda fun to play with.

Let me know if it doesn't work for you (I will arrange a full refund).

(If you don't have Google Earth on your device, install it before clicking on Georgia's path. If you get a choice between Open in Drive or open in Chrome select Drive and then select Earth. If you are using Google Earth Pro on a Windows laptop, you will need to download the file and then open it in Google Earth. You might need to zoom in or change the colors to see the positions. )

Georgia's path on Google Earth. 

Download Google Earth in Google Play Store 

Download Google Earth from the Apple Store 

Playing with the Google Earth files is filling my day here, as we sit out hurricane Ian's remnants. We tied off with extra lines to the dock and pilings yesterday. Filled our water tanks, made sure the genset and main engine run, and did shopping trip to get a baguette and soup. Now its just sitting out the rain and a few gusts. The picture above is last night before I moved our east coast Honda to higher ground. The water is now about a foot higher and flooding the parking area. Hopefully it'll start to fall tomorrow, so we can actually get off the dock.

Paul

The Last of the Parents

 

In the 12 years that Chris and I have been cruising there have been many family occasions - marriages, divorces, grandchildren, and deaths. Over the years we have lost all four of our parents, pretty evenly spaced over the period. The last to go was my dad (he's the one on the left), he died this week. It was long life, making 95 years and while we weren't there at the end, I'm sure he was as cantankerous as ever on the way out.

Paul

Enjoying Bear Town

 

We've been in Bear Town for a couple of months now. The town is actually New Bern, North Carolina. Named after Bern, Switzerland. Bern meaning bear in Swiss. When you walk around town you run into a lot of bears, along with some nice restaurants, tourist hangouts and antique malls.

 My favorite bear is the one in front of Mitchel's Hardware. This is an old style hardware store with rotating buckets of nails, and along with a little bit of everything and someone working there who knows how to find it.

Mitchel's has a great stock of stainless steel screws, getting my vote. It so much easier working the boat to walk a block and half to Mitchells and grab the right bolt or screw, than to dig through mu boxes of miss matched parts. We've been doing a lot of boat work, mostly cosmetics to get ready to put her on the market. Then we'll have to decide what we are going to do (when we grow up).

The town is full of restored and waiting to be restored antebellum southern homes. It was the site of a Union-Confederate battle then ended with the town being in Union hands for most of the war.

Georgia sitting at the dock in New Bern while she gets the spa treatment

A Monarch picture because its summer.

Paul

A Grand Finale with a Couple of Kicks

 

Pilots have an old adage about piloting planes, It is hours and hours of boredom, interrupted by moments of sheer terror. Our short, four day passage from the Bahamas to North Carolina seemed to fall into line with this saying. In this picture, about 145nm off Charleston, SC,  you can see a waterspout leaping down from the clouds and exploding at the water surface. In the lower, left edge of the picture is the corner of our Dodger. I left it in the pic so you can judge how close this beast was.

This tornado on water chased us for near a half hour. I've never seen a waterspout last that long and appear so large before.

This is photo about 5 minutes after I first spotted it dropping out of the sky, before it has hit the water level. We dropped all sails and cranked up the diesel. First driving East, then South and finally West in an effort shake it off our trail. We haven't run the Yanmar that hard for a long time -- probably good for it. 

This is what the 1,300 ft container ship on her way to Cartegena Colombia, the Antwerpen Express, looks like as it comes out of a squall that we are about to enter.

Chris was on watch the last night of our passage. At around 04:30am she gets me up to discuss taking evasive action on a fast approaching and dense looking (on the radar) squall. It didn't take me long to wake from my sleep fog as the squall started to overtake us and the blinding flashes of lightning were hitting all around. This squall had the most dense lightning of any on this passage.  We could see that the thickest part of the squall was where we were and to the west. We centered the main in the driving rain with true wind about 30kts. With the engine running and small swell we were moving along at 9-10kts. The apparent wind on the boat was 18-22kts. We started a gybe so that we could turn hard to the east and try to travel away from the squall's center. As the main sail came over the connecting stainless steel half shackle that is embedded in the Lewmar traveler pulled free of the thick aluminum. This sent the boom and main flying free to the shrouds. In the process folding the boom vang (in the picture) in half. We managed to safely weather the squall with the boom loose, completely  uncontrolled. 

This where the mainsheet block pulled out of the traveler. When the winds finally dropped below 20kts we lassoed the boom and managed to get it under control. Not a fun episode and I'm sure it won't be cheap to repair. But all hands are safe onboard, if not a little worse for the wear and tear.

We're now anchored in Cape Lookout National Seashore. Today we successfully cleared in to the USA on the Customs and Border Patrol ROAM App with only a few hours of minor technical difficulty (with helpful error messages like Zoom SDK not successfully initialized).

Somehow this passage seemed like it had a tinge of the Curse of the Last Leg

--Paul

Arrived in Beaufort

 

We arrived in Beaufort, North Carolina around noon today. We actually went a little past so we could anchor Cape Lookout National Seashore, in the bay under the old lighthouse. The passage was, how do say, eventful. I'll put up some of the eventfulness tomorrow after we finish getting cleared into the US.

Paul 

Enroute Beaufort Day 3

Day 3 noon-to-noon run was 162nm.
Good sailing overnight until midmorning. Then we ran into a long squall line. Jumping out of this squall was the longest lived, largest waterspout (tornado over water) that I have ever seen. DRopped the sails and pushed the Yanmr harder than it has been pushed in a long while. First east, then hard south to get out of its track. It had this clear funnel from the cloud top halfway to the water. Then it was explosive looking on the water.
I could live a long time without those. Did get a few pictures to post.
Paul

--short

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Enroute Beaufort Day 2

Day 2 noon-to-noon run was 160nm
Making progress to Beaufort, about 250nm south this evening. BOring days interrupted by afternoon squalls. Planning on getting in on Sunday.

Paul
--short

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Enroute Beaufort Day 1

Day noon to noon run was 142nm.
Did a lot of motoring the first day out of the Bahamas. Didn't get any decent sailing wind till this morning. Mostly light 8-14kt SW winds. Easy sailing with small seas with the exception of having to take evasive maneuvers around a few squalls with some notable lightning in them. Should arrive in North Carolina Sunday or Monday morning at this pace.

Paul

--short

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Getting Out of the Bahamas

 

We spent our time hiding from the winds and rains of the tail end of tropical storm Alex behind Big Major's Spot, near Staniel Cay in the Exumas. Staniel being famous for the James Bond thriller Thunderball. This is the view from the entrance to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. Rain dumping down outside, drink pouring inside.

The good old days

 

The Yacht Club is actually a pretty cool bar. Plus, for the Bahamas, you can get a reasonable priced meal. We didn'y get any decent weather on this trip to get a taste of the Bahamas snorkeling.

 Next up is to make the 5 day passage to North Carolina. The winds are light and a bit fluky, mostly due to tropical storm Alex marching through the area. Plan A is to head Beaufort, North Carolina for our landfall. Plan B is to cut it a little shorter and head to Charleston, South Carolina. Hopefully we can get enough wind to make our original destination without having to motor too much.

Paul 

Georgetown, Exumas

 

Another orange sunset on our passage from Fajardo, Puerto Rico to Georgetown, Exumas, Bahamas where we planned to stop for a quick rest before pushing on. It was an easy passage, with consistent 10 to 15 knot winds driving us downwind.

We were not going to make the somewhat tricky entrance to Georgetown by dark so we decided to stop for an overnight at an anchorage on Conception Island.  After having sunny skies everyday of our 4 day passage the weather decided to get gray and overcast for our stay on Conception. Not much opportunity to snorkel, but we did get in some good beach walks. Got up at 0:dark thirty and did the 6 hour sail to Georgetown.

It was an easy clear into the Bahamas. The Bahamas requires a Covid antigen test within 3 days of arrival. This is pretty tough when the passage time is longer. But we had no issues checking in: it was easy, if not a bit on the expensive side.

Just so we don't completely forget in our old age, here's a few pictures of the Old Town in San Juan that we visited in our brief stop in Puerto Rico. This is the view from the ramparts of Castillo San Felipe del Morro, known as 'El Morro'. San Juan city was founded by the Spanish colonizers in 1521 and El Morro construction began in 1539 to protect the entrance to San Juan from the sea.

The old town has street after street of colorful old buildings, many of the streets are paved with "adoquines" cobblestones made of blue stone cast from furnace slag carried to Puerto Rico as ballast aboard Spanish ships

An iguana guarding the old fort wall.

No HOA requiring that all the old town buildings be painted the same color resulting in a typical Caribbean color scheme.

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Our plan was to arrive on the East Coast within the next few days. However, the weather seems to be in our way. Above is a forecast from the ECMWF Euro weather model for this coming Sunday (downloaded 5/31) predicting a nasty low between us and North Carolina. There's a good chance we'd end up in the middle of it if we left now. So being the prudent mariners that we are, the plan is to wait a bit and let the weather models coalesce into some decent agreement, and then do the passage north when this low dissipates.  It is interesting that this low is basically the remains of the hurricane Agnes that just hit the Pacific coast of southern Mexico and passed across the isthmus to effect weather in the Gulf of Mexico.  With the major models being so divergent, it is anyone's call whether this low will become a serious event or just another bit of rain and wind.

Paul

Enroute Bahamas

We anchored at Conception Island, Bahamas this evening, as we were not going to make it to Georgetown early enough to get in the pass. We are about 40 miles short o Georgetown. Easy passage, with light winds, small seas. Still, it is nice to get anchored for the night. This is the first passage in a long time that we did not have flying fish carnage on the deck. We saw little wildlife since Puerto Rico.

Paul
--short

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Enroute Bahmas - Day 2 & 3

Noon to noon run day 2 158nm, day 3 137nm.
STill cruising along in light, almost dead down wind winds with small seas. Saw one French warship and 3 cruise ships on AIS. Other than those, there is just much out here. Timing looks like we would arrive at the entrance to Georgetown late in the afternoon. This is probably too late to negotiate the entrance safely, so we will probably anchor at one of the outer islands for the night. Maybe Conception Island. We'll see where we are tomorrow after tonight's moonless run.

Paul
--short

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Enroute Bahams - Day 1

Day 1 noon-to-noon run was about 168nm. We sailed along the north coast of Puerto Rico all day and then crossed the Mona Passage, the waters between PR and the Dominican Republic. All a mellow sail, except for some of the night lightning along the coast. We ended up about 50 miles off the NE coast of the Dominican Republic where the ocean depths are near 25,000 feet. At this point we decided to change our course and sail over the top of the Turks and Caicos islands instead of the original plan of going under them. This should give a bit better wind angle and a little shorter passage, and hopefully less lightning. The nights are dark with only a little moon showing up before dawn. Not a lot of wildlife out here.
Paul
--short

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Enroute Bahamas - Day 0

I didn't get a chance to post a blog with pictures of our time in Old Town, San Juan Puerto Rico. This was because I spent way too many hours navigating the convoluted Bahamas online entry application websites. I'll post some once we get settled in Georgetown, Exumas -- our current destination. We left Puerto del Rey, on Puerto Rico's east coast this morning after a nice two stay. The first half day was slow going, but this afternoon and early evening it has been a fast, easy downwind sail.

Paul

--short

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Leaving the US Virgin Islands

 

We had a great time swimming, snorkeling, eating and playing UNO (card game) with our granddaughter in the various anchorages and bays around St John, USVI. Quinn brought her Mom with her, so she wouldn't miss out on the warm water.

She is a really a good diver for five and three-quarter plus years old. She saw a lot of fish!

The reefs around St John are pretty much devastated from the 2017 hurricane. There are a few corals that are hanging on and trying to regenerate.

Strategy session to discuss shell hunting

Flamingo cowrie hanging onto a soft fan coral

The Hawksbill turtle population seems really healthy, we saw them all around the boat in every anchorage. They appear to know they are protected while in the National Park --- letting us hang around very close to them watching as they graze.

We dropped our fun guests off at the St Thomas airport on Friday. This morning we left St Thomas and are anchored behind the reef in Bahia de Almodovar, Culebra, Puerto Rico. Well not exactly anchored, we are tied to a fairly well used and in need of some tender maintenance mooring buoy that says Day Use . The local in the boat next to us says they are for overnighters.

We had originally planned to do the 8 or 9 day trip from the Virgins direct to Beaufort, North Carolina. After looking at the weather predictions and seeing the Atlantic high pressure system move more westerly, it looked like we were going to have to take a passage much more westerly to avoid days of motoring. So, instead of going direct, we've decided on Plan B: Sail over to mainland Puerto Rico, do a little visit to the San Juan old town. Then do a 4 day passage to the Bahamas. Spend 4 or 5 days moving north in the Bahamas and snorkeling. Check the weather and do another 4 day passage to Beaufort. While it is pretty easy to show the rationalization for this approach, there just might be a touch of not quite ready to re-enter life in the US.

Paul

 

USVI

 After a very mellow 3 day passage we arrived in St John just at sunrise. Grabbed a mooring in the National Park mooring field in Caneel Bay on St John. Next to get cleared in and get a little nap.

Paul

Enroute USVI Day 1

158nm noon-to-noon for day 1.
Having a comfy, beam reach sail in light trade winds and small seas toward the USVI. ALl is pretty empty tonight. Last night we had a lot of fish nets to avoid. They have AIS beacons on there buoys and are 3 to 10 miles long. WE dealt with them for about 4 hours and finally got clear. Should be in St Johns, USVI on Tuesday. Some time tonight we will pass close by Isla de Aves, a Venezuelan rock sized island sitting on its own in the Caribbean Sea.

Paul
--short

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Can't beat a double rainbow in the morning - Prickly Bay

After a couple of weeks in Grenada we are good and relax - almost totally forgotten the fatigue from 24/7 watch after watch at sea. We got our boom re-welded and riveted, replaced the tang on the vang (just gotta love that rhythm) . We are off today for a 3-day sail to the US Virgin Islands.

Shiny new rivets and a well fit gooseneck

Cocoa for chocolate is a major crop in Grenada

When we arrived we needed to get limes for our Gin & Tonics. Turns out there is a bit of a shortage on the island. The ones you can get are very small. Another unexpected event due to the Covid Pandemic. There was a thought on the island that limes protected you from Covid, so the trees were picked bare pretty quickly. Now all you get is the early, preharvest little ones-- but they're delicious, and we're fighting scurvy.

Paul

 

Grenada - Closed the Loop, Got the T- Shirt

 

Last night as we approached Grenada, with a 3/4 moon rising, we crossed our outbound path completing our circumnavigation. It was 8 years ago we were last in Grenada, about 37,000 nautical miles ago (42,500 land miles). Since we left the Puget Sound (Seattle, Pacific Northwest) 12 years ago we've covered about 57,000nm. We have visited in my count somewhere around 39 countries and crossed the equator four times. To add to these stats, Cape Town, South Africa, which we left in February is now 5,847nm in the rearview mirror.

It was pretty fitting that we closed the circumnavigation loop in Grenada. Grenada was the first island I ever arrived at on a sailboat. I got on an orange trimaran named 'Clockwork Orange' while in Tobago as crew in 1976. After an overnight sail we arrived in Prickly Bay, Grenada and I was hooked.

It's been a long, challenging and amazing trip. The most amazing part is that neither Chris or I murdered the other one. Although I have caught Chris humming the tune to the song What If I Threw the Captain Overboard far too many times.

I have also decided it is time to resign from the Flat Earth Society.  There have been a few times on this circumnavigation when I was pretty sure we were close to falling off the edge - mostly in places where the old chart gets fuzzy and has a note Thar Be Dragons. But in the end I'm going to have to go with conventional science,  drop the Q conspiracy and accept that it really is a round earth.

I'm going to have to give some thought to the circumnavigation highlights, and a little to the lowlights, for a separate blog.

Now off to clear Customs and Immigration, then we need to go setup a rigger to fix our boom and vang. Plus we need to organize a boat survey so we can update our insurance for arrival in the USA. 

Paul

Grenada

Arrived at the mooring field in St Georges, Grenada with a 3/4 yellow moon rising at around 10:30pm local time. Tomorrow I'm going to resign from the Flat Earth Society and pick up my T-shirts.

Paul
--short

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Enroute Grenada Day 3

Day 3 noon-to-noon run was 191nm
WE passed the west end of Tobago about noon today. I really wanted to stop in Tobago. In 1976 I spent a winter hanging and surfing there, haven't been back since. Because of Covid season you have to check in in Trinidad and then you can go back to Tobago. Problem is that it isn't any easy clear in, and the trip back is straight into the Tradewinds and the current. No thanks.

Should make it to Grenade before midnight.
Paul
--short

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Enroute Grenada - Day 2

Day 2 noon-to-noon run was 175nm.
We lost the push from our current for todays run. STill nice sailing till noon. THe winds got light afternoon and we moved along pretty slowly in 8-10kt easterly winds. Latter in the day the current started back in and after an early evening squall the winds have filled back in to 15kts.
Alls well onboard.

Paul
--short

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Enroute Grenada - Day 1

Day 1 225nm noon-to-noon.
We left Illes de Salut on Sunday morning. It took about 20 minutes to get our anchor chain unstuck from something below. Had a really fast day and night sail with a 1.5kt current pushing us. Tonight on watch I can see the orange glow of the oil and gas exploration platforms about 15 mikes from our course. Dozens of support vessels, drill platforms, survey vessels, ROV, etc. A couple more days till Grenada.
Paul
--short

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Papillon

 

Prison Hospital with lighthouse in the background

We have now travelled 5,211 nautical miles since we left Cape Town in mid-February, crossing the South Atlantic Ocean, crossing the equator for the fourth time and are now in the North Atlantic Ocean. We decided on a brief stop to catch up on some sleep and do a little boat work. Given the number of miles under the keel recently, I think we and Georgia earned it. So we stopped at Illes de Salut islands in French Guiana for two nights.

 

The islands are better known as Devils Island from the 1973 Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman classic movie Papillon.

Or better yet from the 1969 book written by the Papillon himself, the Frenchman Henri Charriere.

When we get back to the states Chris wants to get a house with a living room that is sized to fit this Elephant Ear house plant along side the trail to the prison..

Georgia anchored off Ille Royal

The prison church. Front rows for administration and guards, back rows for the convicts. There is a grave yard on the island for the administration staff. The story has it that when convicts died they were wrapped in cloth and had a stone tied to them. They would be taken out in a skiff in the cut between Ille Royal and Saint Joseph islands. The church bell would be rung, which alerted the sharks and the corpse would be slid off the boat into the water -- all to quickly vanish a splash of wild shark feeding.

I swear this peacock was hitting on Chris.

The barracks

We managed to snap a boom vang tang  -- I know it sounds like a K-pop band -- while on passage. I used some dyneema lashing to back it up temporarily.  We've decided to change our plans and not head directly for Antigua in the Caribbean, but take the shorter route to Grenada. We can get the vang and boom repair work done there.

We weren't sure if we were going to be able to come ashore here, as we have not officially cleared into the country. Something you have to go another 100 miles up the coast to do. Being a French controlled country they are pretty laid back when it comes to cruisers entering and leaving. The island has a few gendarmes stationed here -- probably as security for the near by European Space Launch complex. When we took the dinghy into the dock, there were two young gendarmes (police) chatting away with locals. We smiled and walked past. There is also a small hotel that uses some of the old prison building that has a restaurant on the island (they take credit cards).

Anchor location 05*17.033N 052*35.428W in about 15 feet of water.

Nice break and we are off on Sunday morning.

Tufted Capuchin monkey on the trail

An Agouti cruising by

Paul