The Crossing, 4/28

We left Bimini Sands South around 9:00am, and motorsailed to the other side of the island to dive the shipwreck Sapona.  It is a concrete freighter that went down in the 1926 hurricane.  It's a landmark to the Bimini Islands, and it has become a colorful dive in about 15-20 feet of water.

You can see Donnie in the foreground heading out with his spear pole.
Unfortunately, he came back empty handed.

We weighed anchor and left for home at 11:30am. It was very cloudy, windy. and threatening rain all day.  The wind was coming from the east, and we were sailing S/SW, so it was a following sea.  It meant for a more comfortable ride, not having to beat into the waves, but it also meant we were hand steering almost the entire way.  Agnes could not keep up, and the waves were just working her to death. 

At about 4:00pm, before we entered the Gulfstream, this little fella landed
on our bow pulpit.  He was our hood ornament for over 14 hours!
I think he is a yellow footed brown booby.  I called him 'little buddy' and
tried to feed him cornbread.  He wasn't interested, it didn't taste like fish. 

He preened himself for about two hours, and rode up there big as you please.
When the sun went down, he tucked his beak under his wing, and slept
all through the night...through a terrible storm, wind blowing,
thunder and lightening and surfing down 8 ft waves.  He never moved.
I would check on Donnie, and have him shine a light on Little Buddy to
make sure he was still there.  At 6:30am, just as we were passing under
the Mosier Channel Bridge in the Keys, he flew off, heading back to Bimini.

We had several freighters pass by us in the Gulfstream once again...

Fortunately there were no close calls this time!

It was Friday night, so it was pizza night!

The ominous sky was a foreshadowing of the night ahead.
As always, Plan Sea was always within a mile of us in the crossing.

I attempted to get a sunset picture, but just then a six foot wave rolled
under Marquesa, and you're seeing the foam.  We were in 4-6's the
minute we hit the Gulfstream, and as the wind continued to build
we surfed down a few 8 footers.  The highest speed we saw on the
chartplotter was surfing at 9 knots.  We were sailing steadily 7-8 knots.

We were hoping to catch a break once we hit Hawk's Channel. The Channel runs south of Miami along the Keys on the Atlantic side.  We popped out of the Gulfstream north of Key Largo. We were crabbing across the stream, heading south west, as it was flowing north.  We had two knots of current against us, so even though the boat read we were traveling at 6 knots and higher, on the chartplotter we were only making 3-4 knots much of the time.  At times it felt as if we could walk faster!  In Hawk's Channel, the wind kicked up even higher, and then the rain came.  We were still surfing 3-4's in the channel in a driving rainstorm.  Cap'n Donnie was miserable.  He was all knotted up all through his neck and back from having to hand steer all night long.  You couldn't sit down to steer, or the rain poured off the bimini.  You had to stand up to see over the dinghy lashed onto the bow, and then lean over the wheel to try to get some protection from the rain.  His foulies have lost their waterproofing over the years, if that's possible.  He went through three changes of clothes trying to stay warm and dry.  I made hot coffee and passed up snacks to help him stay awake.  Little Buddy held on through it all- even in the thunder and lightening.  What a night!

While in the stream, we saw a Coast Guard chopper fly over.  About an
hour later, the search plane was flying low overhead.  We heard the
Coast Guard sending out a pan-pan alert on Channel 16 that they had
received a distress call, but apparently that boater did not have EPIRB.

  

Right at daybreak, at about 6:30am, we approached the Mosier Channel bridge.  The last time we

passed under this bridge was when we came down the ICW.  If you remember, we broke a fan belt, the engine overheated, and Donnie made a quick repair while I continued sailing toward Banana Bay.  Wouldn't you know, this time just as we approached the bridge, Little Buddy flew away, the engine overheated again, and we were dead in the water, AGAIN.  Same place.  Matt circled back

to offer assistance.  Cap'n cleaned a bit of grass out of the intake filter, we backwashed the prop 

which spit out a bunch of seaweed, and we were back underway.  That seemed to have been the problem.  We motor sailed the last 20 miles home, as it was flat calm on the Gulf side.  It was very hard to stay awake.  We were beat, and down to just half hour shifts trying to stay awake.

In all, it took us 23 1/2 hours to sail about 150 miles.

And as we put down the mainsail and motored back into Banana Bay, our
adventure ended the very same way it began...with a rainbow circling
the sun.  I'd say we came full circle, quite literally, wouldn't you?!