Homeward Bound

Friday, May 4, 2012
Charlie returned from his trip to Chattanooga to visit with his Mom.  Carl Beckmann and Bob Kelley had helped me provision the boat for the trip back to Charleston, SC.  We had an appointment with Customs at 10a.m. the next morning.  We had downloaded the latest weather forecast.  It looked good to go.

Saturday, May 5, 2012
We had a big breakfast, cleared out at Customs, called Commander's Weather, and left our slip for the fuel dock where we filled up both tanks and 3 jerry cans.  We departed Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas at 1220.  We motored around St. Thomas and northward beyond the BVI where we put up the main and the jib and turned the motor off.  We sailed all night under a beautiful full moon until 1115 the next morning.  The engine came back on because the wind had died.  We motor sailed until 1717 when we were able to sail again.  This lasted until Sunday night at 2212 when the wind dropped below 10 knots.  We had to motorsail most of the day because winds were under 6 knots.  We were able to sail for a while (6 hours) from 1646-2208 on Sunday.  We were proceeding east of the Turks and Caicos and the lower Bahama Islands.

Monday-Friday May 7-11, 2012
We had to motor sail due to light winds usually under 5 knots until Thursday morning.  We had calculated our fuel usage and realized we needed to refuel.  We contemplated going into Marsh Harbor  in The Abacos but we could't be sure we would get there before dark, so we diverted to Cape Eleuthera Marina at Powell Point on Eleuthera Island.  We went between Cat Island, Little San Salvador and Eleuthera Island.  We were able to sail part of this (11 hours) and we arrived at Cape Eleuthera at 0930.  We proceeded to the fuel dock where we refueled and then to a slip.  We ate lunch and dinner on land.  I was able to do 3 loads of laundry while we were there.   We were also able to get a NOAA weather update and called Commander's Weather for their forecast.  They all said the weather was unsetteld for Friday.  Saturday going north  would be better.  They recommended we head up the Providence Channels to the Gulf Stream instead of East of the Abacos.

Saturday-Tuesday, May 13-16, 2012
We left Cape Eleuthera Marina at 0845 after a blocked head scare which was resolved quickly, thank goodness!  We proceeded west to the cut between Ship Channel Cay and Beacon Cay on the north end of the Exuma Islands.  Then we sailed north to Fleeming Cut and on into the NE Providence Channel .  It was smooth sailing on a beam reach.  The winds were in the 18-21 knot range.  We had a second reef in the mail sail.  We headed for Sandy Point on Grand Bahama Island and then to Freeport in the NW Providence Channel.  From there we headed for the Gulf Stream .  We had a following sea and swells of 5-8 feet.  The generator was not recharging the batteries sufficiently enough so we turned on the engine to help.  It also helped smooth out the rolling due to the swells.  Sunday afternoon we shook out one reef and turned the engine off until the wind dropped to under 8 knots Monday morning.   The wind shifted to directly on our stern so we dropped both sails to prevent flogging.  We motored  the rest of Monday until dawn on Tuesday.  We put both sails up but continued to motorsail due to low wind under 10 knots.   The current in the Gulf Stream was 3.5 knots in the southern end and was never below 1.9 knots the whole way.  We exited it about Brunswick, GA.

We arrived at the Charleston Channel at Tuesday evening 1810 where we contended with three big container ships.  We had called ahead for a slip at the Charleston Harbor Marina, but the tide was running too strong by the time we would have entered the marina safely.  We instead anchored just west of Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor.  We had a leisurely cocktail hour and dinner.

Wednesday, May 17, 2012
We proceeded to the Charleston Harbor Marina early 0625 and were in the slip and tied up by 0730.  Then we had to wait for Customs personnel to arrive to check us in.  There was some mix up about who and where we were so he did not arrive until 1030.  We had called downtown but he came from the airport and the messages were not correctly forwarded.  Liz Beckmann waited along with us and then she took Carl and Bob Kelley home.  Our friends the Beckers came to give us a ride home to retrieve our SUV to unload the boat.  We and "Blue Horizon" were now safely HOME.