Well, not surprisingly we didn’t end up where we planned in Florida. We did, however, find Florida so that’s good!
The latest weather before we left Great Sale Cay in the Bahamas showed a shorter weather window for getting across the Gulf Stream than the forecast 24 hours earlier, so we decided to head for St Augustine to make the trip shorter. At least there were no North winds in the forecast so we expected the Gulf Stream to be relatively calm.
Sunrise as we left Great Sale Cay around 6:15 am. Not a breath of wind so we motored for the first few hours:
Well as it turns out, the winds were from the North. How can it be so hard to at least get the wind direction right 12 hours into the future? The wind was pretty light and dropped during the night, so the Stream was not awful, but since we were headed West and had the seas directly on our Starboard Beam (right side) we were rolling uncomfortably. We were motor sailing and making pretty good time, and we and our friends in Sea Castle were trying to stay within sight of each other, so while things were not going according to plan, were doing fine.
By now you can probably guess the next bit. Yes, the engine died. Another filter change at sea, which I’ve come to enjoy so very much. We suspect that the sloshing with the Gulf Stream roll had stirred up whatever is in our tank (a glob of algae is the leading candidate), so we made sure it started and then shut it down to save it for getting through the channel into Florida and getting us to someplace to anchor.
So now we are moving at about 3 knots with sails and rolling a lot. We’re both tired and it has become a very uncomfortable ride. We adjusted course further south to Cape Canaveral which is the closest port now, and we tried to get some rest at least since sleep is hard in the rolling.
I’m a bit grumpy, and as I lay in the berth grumpily thinking of how not-fun this is at the moment I start thinking about my bike trip and the tough times on that. Eventually I conclude that I’d rather ride the 10 worst climbs back-to-back with the loaded 90 lb bike than be lying on that bunk in the Gulf Stream at that particular moment. In retrospect this seems a bit over-the-top, but in that moment that was how disgusted I was.
Beautiful sunrise at sea:
Conditions eased as we approached the Port Canaveral Inlet and the movement became comfortable again. Now we were sweating about how long our engine would run. This is a busy inlet with a lot of cruise boat, commercial boat and pleasure boat traffic, so we were saying prayers and hoping for the best. And the winds and seas were of course picking up.
Port Canvaral is one of the busiest cruise ship ports. We passed this one on our way in.
Thankfully, the engine did fine and we tied up in a very nice and affordable municipal marina in Titusville, FL. We were very tired and glad to be there and slept like rocks that night!