Bahamas to Charleston Passage

It was a great passage from Matanilla Shoal to Charleston.  Sorry it has taken us a few days to let you know we arrived safely.  Happily docked at Charleston Maritime Center, we have been eating our way around town with our friends Pat and Eric from "Cutter Loose" since Wednesday.  What a great and fun town this is!  But - first -

We left Grand Cay at 8am and motor-sailed with light winds behind us to Matanilla Shoal (the northwestern most point of the Bahamian waters).  Though the wind was blowing at only 10-12 knots, once we turned around into the wind to anchor, the chop was a bit much!  First, we had a hard time finding the charted 15 feet of water and ended up motoring in circles to try to locate shallow enough water to feel comfortable dropping the hook.  We finally found about 25 feet and decided to go for it.  Once we knew it caught, we immediately set to raising the dingy.  In hindsight, we wished we had done this at our more settled anchorage because now, Greg has to get into a dingy that is bouncing around in the sea, unhook the motor from the transom, attach the pulley harness quickly and move the heck out of the way of the swinging motor propellor while Sharon hoists as fast as she can and does her best to get it up on the stern rail motor mount.  Not a pretty sight and one of those experiences where luck was with us.  After the dingy was then hoisted, Sharon went below to try to heat up some stew in the bouncing galley.  The point of stopping here was to get some rest.  We quickly completed our chores, tried to choke down some stew, popped a couple Bonine and reclined.  Not much rest was had, but a couple hours of supine position and deep breathing settled us a bit.

Answering the iPhone alarm at 12:30am, we roused, and prepared to haul anchor.  "Cutter Loose" went first, with us still tethered by the hook so the two of us wouldn't drift into one another, and "Dream Catcher" soon followed.  The best moment was when we turned back downwind and now had that chop at our back once gain - whew!

Though this auspicious start set our teeth grinding a bit, the rest of the trip was a gift.  Within ten miles, Eric radioed Sharon and noted the first push of the Stream showing up in the instruments.  Within twenty miles, we started to see a two-knot push and it never went below two to two and one-half until we exited the stream 230 miles later.  Monday dawned sunny and warm.  With wind still from behind and only blowing at about 10 knots, we decided to hoist the spinnaker (or "fancy sail" as Eric would say).  This added to our downwind ride and we were traveling at about 9 knots over ground.  Cool!

The "Fancy" Sail

The new AIS (Automatic Identification System) tool that we added when we upgraded our instruments in early March served us well through the night.  We can see ships on our chart plotter before we see them with the naked eye.  The signal tells us the name of the ship, the course and speed it is traveling and where and when our paths will cross.  This is a remarkable and very welcomed tool for nighttime ocean sailing.  We both receive and transmit the signal, so those ships know we are out there too.  Nothing came close enough to worry us and in fact, the next day, "Cutter Loose" was able to communicate with the Carnival cruise ship that was headed our way to determine whether he would shift course, or we should.  Very nice feature!

By Tuesday, morning, we found we were ahead of schedule to our destination.  Instead of slowing down to arrive at our scheduled time, we sped up and were able to arrive by Tuesday night.  The one thing you try to avoid is entering any narrow harbor at night.  It is very difficult to navigate smaller spaces in the dark.  But, given our timing, our speed, and the fact that we were entering Charleston Harbor, we thought we would press on.  Greg called the marina for advice on where in the harbor to drop the hook for the night.  So - we had a plan.

We exited the Stream late morning and headed towards Charleston.  About twenty miles out, we were greeted and escorted pretty much all the way to the channel by a pod of very playful dolphins.  They popped out of the water (a couple at a time!), sped underneath the boat from side to side, rode along the bow wave and obviously enjoyed the motion of the boat as much as we enjoyed watching their antics.  A great welcome back to the States!

"Cutter Loose" our buddy boat for the passage

The air was quite damp and hazy most of the afternoon and just got thicker as the sun dropped.  We cut the corner to the most inside buoy marks possible and entered the channel about 7:30pm, trying to beat nightfall.  It is a long way from the ocean into Charleston.  From where we entered the channel, it was at least 10 miles.  We kept the genoa up to help stabilize the boat against the rolling waves and push us along.  Finally inside the harbor, we doused the sail, revved the engine even higher and strained our eyes to make out the lighted buoys to guide us through the various channels to the north eastern side of Charleston.  The toughest part is discriminating between lighted buoys, range marker lights, and shore lights. It is a busy port and we had to stay out of the way of two very large container ships as we made our way up the channel and into the Cooper River.  There, we found a shallow area right off the Yorktown aircraft carrier (museum), happily shut down the engine and said a prayer of gratitude.

Since then, we have retold stories, shared experiences on each of our vessels, toasted our new friendship and the success of a fun and safe passage.  We will say Goodbye to Eric and Pat when they head out tomorrow morning to transit to Beaufort, NC.  We had planned to join them on the next leg, but Greg needs to fly to Boston for client meetings next week, so we will hang out in the marina here in downtown Charleston until next Saturday, May 23, when we hope to leave on the same next leg.  Not a bad place to hang out for a week!

More as it happens!