svIslandSpirit.com

Working since June 3, we have spent the summer repairing systems and upgrading failed systems. We have mostly been posting the progress onto our PUBLIC Facebook Page, so please LIKE and FOLLOW us there. You do not need Facebook to read a public web page! Here is the direct link, it is fun to scroll back and see the work.

https://www.facebook.com/svIslandSpirit

Here is the summary of the work completed. This has been a very big list of jobs. We will now begin our shake down and testing of all upgraded systems. We plan to make our 20th Intracoastal waterway run heading for Stuart Florida for Thanksgiving. From there we plan to push out into the Exuams and out to the USVI asap. We want to spend Christmas back in the Caribbean Sea. It is just far too nice, and we love sailing the Tradewinds. Getting there, well that is not fun. 1,200 nm on a course of 120m with a 090 wind! Or sail out to Bermuda and hang a right. For us, it will be a third trip down the “thorny path!”

WE DID IT, thanks to Alfred Holzer of Schooner Bay Marina for remanufacturing our KBW10 transmission. With his expert mechanical team, he was able to source the repair parts and remanufacture the gear. No one can do this, even Mack Boring said no, it can not be repaired. Well, not true, Alfred can do it.  If you need any Yanmar repairs, call, email or check is ENGINE LIST on his website here: https://schoonerbaymarinallc.com/site/ 

Here is our Facebook post about this repair.

 

This will be our THIRD B&G radar antenna in 4 years! Not good. Especially since the antenna is mounted 25 feet up the mast at the spreaders. So, I had to climb up using my ATN top climber, and remove the broken radar so I could send it back to B&G and they could “sell” me a replacement one then at 50% off, or $1,100. Thanks. So, in early Aug I climbed the mast and remounted the new Halo 20+ antenna, and it fired right up. We are happy to have digital radar back for our offshore nighttime passages. We had to run all the way home from Nassau Bahamas last May/June to Maryland without radar. Offshore at night full speed ahead is not really safe without radar. Here is our Facebook post about the re-install:

 

Our wonderful winter cruising adventure concluded when we sailed into Rock Hall, Maryland, our home port since 1991. We both agree the sail home from the Caribbean took much longer than first expected. We departed USVI on April 2, 2022, and we arrived at our home dock on May 31, 2022. A total trip of 3,319 nautical miles was traveled this season, including Puerto Rico to Antigua.  The total NM sailed from St. Thomas USVI to Rock Hall, MD was 2,410! We both agree the sailing was fantastic departing the Caribbean. With an approximate course of 300 degrees and with the Tradewinds blowing from 090, that makes the wind 150 degrees off our starboard bow for a broad reach all the way home. Well, at least it is a reach from the Virgin Islands to The Exumas in the Bahamas!

Once we sailed north of the Bahamas, we began to get into the coastal frontal winds coming off the USA east coast.  These frontal winds pull the trades south or southwest and then the front blows in with northwest and north and northeast winds making for a challenge to plan passages north. We easily sailed 3 days out of Puerto Rico to reach the Bahamas, and then we sailed easily northwest thru the Exumas, but once we reached the Nassau, Bahamas area, we were firmly controlled by these coastal weather patterns. These delayed us a month on our way from Florida north to the Chesapeake Bay. Many cruisers ahead of us were “stuck” for weeks waiting for weather windows to simply move a day or two up the coast or even in the ICW, Intracoastal Waterway. 

Highlights of the Season

As I reflect back on the season past, I have many fond memories and images in my mind: the Southern Cross constellation rising over Antigua as seen from the blackness of Barbuda at 3 am. Code zero sailing and reaching downwind for many, many miles under autopilot vane steering. Coffee shops of French St, Martin. Sunsets over St. Thomas as seen from St. John. Happy hours at the rebuilt Saba Rock. Watching the sunset while anchored off St. Barts. Day after day of beam reaching for the Bahamas at hull speed 7.0 knots+ and discovering the beauty of Conception Island with great buddy boat IP370 SEA LYON. This winter and spring were pure joy and a wonderful escape from the hibernation of Covid. We really enjoyed this sailing season!

Here are the 63 legs we ran this season

My interactive map where you can zoom in to see these legs is archived here:
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/029c-222ed31e-ae72/view

Leg	From	To	Nautical Miles
1	PR	St. Thomas USVI	47
2	USVI	St James	8
3	St James	St. Martin	117
4	STX	SMX	12
5	SMX	St. Barts	25
6	St. Barts	Antigua	90
7	Jolly	Falmouth	7
8	Falmouth	Jolly	7
9	Jolly	Sailing	13
10	Jolly	Sailing	20
11	Jolly	Sailing	15
12	Jolly	North Sound	25
13	North Sound	Barbuda	37
14	Barbuda	St. Barts	82
15	St. Barts	St. Martin	16
16	St. Martin	Sailing	10
17	St. Martin	Marigot	4
18	Marigot	Grand Case	5
19	Marigot	BVI	110
20	Sopers	Bitter End, BVI	29
21	Bitter End	Anegada, BVI	17
22	Anegada	Bitter End. BVI	17
23	BVI	St. John, USVI	13
24	St. John	St. James, USVI	4
25	BVI	Willy T, Normans, BVI	15
26	Willy T	Jost	13
27	Jost	Sopers	6
28	Sopers	USVI	6
29	Red Hook	St. James	4
30	St. Thomas	St. Croix	43
31	St. Croix	St. Thomas	43
32	Red Hook	St. James	4
33	St. James	Red Hook	4
34	Red Hook	St. James	4
35	St James	Red Hook	4
36	Red Hook	St. John	4
37	Red Hook	St. Thomas	10
38	St Thomas	Crown Bay	4
39	St Thomas	Culebra, PR	30
40	Culebra	Patillas, PR	58
41	Patillas	Salinas, PR	25
42	Salinas	Guanica, PR	42
43	Guanica	Puerto Real, PR	38
44	Puerto Real	Sailing	4
45	Puerto Real	Mayaguana. BS	520
46	Mayaguana	Conception, BS	178
47	Conception	Georgetown, BS	48
48	George Town	Black Point, BS	60
49	Black Point	Highbourne, BS	56
50	Highbourne	Palm Cay – West Bay	64
51	West Bay	Stuart FL	231
52	Stuart FL	Ft. Pierce, FL	30
53	Ft. Pierce	St. Augustine, FL	188
54	St. Augustine	Charleston, SC	224
55	Charleston	Cape Lookout, NC	257
56	Adams Cr.	Belhaven, NC	51
57	Belhaven	Coinjock, NC	87
58	Coinjock	Great Bridge, VA	37
59	Great Bridge	Portsmouth, VA	11
60	Portsmouth	Deltaville. VA	55
61	Deltaville, VA	Solomons, MD	64
62	Solomons, MD	Annapolis MD	50
63	Annapolis, MD	Rock Hall, MD	17
		TOTAL Nautical Miles	3319
		Total Statute Miles	3819
		Total Kilometers	6146

Again: Our interactive archive map is here:
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/029c-222ed31e-ae72/view

The Decision to Sail Back

This photo says it all. As we set sail out of St. Martin with the sun setting on the French harbor of Marigot, Radeen and I decided that it is all simply too beautiful to sail out and head home with the thoughts of never coming back. So this photo was taken the moment we both agreed to sail back next season because this is just too beautiful not to. We have fallen in LOVE with the Caribbean Islands of USVI, St. Martin, St. Maarten, Antigua and Barbuda, and Martinique. We must return, so that is our plan. The boat is in our home port, where we will refit all systems for maintenance and upgrades. We will sail right back to the Caribbean Sea ASAP in the late fall of 2022. This is why we have the boat we have, she is meant to sail, and Island Spirit loves to sail the ocean. She will take us there!

Cheers to all, and thanks for sailing along.

We decided while we were hauled out for Kyle Ulrick of Swan Creek Marina, to paint and wax and replace our gold stripe, that we would pull the stern tube and replace all. The last time this was done, was 2013 by the Island Packet Factory. Now after 2700 hours of motoring and many trips up and down the ICW and into the Bahamas and even the Caribbean, we thought it was time.

I will say, this job was way harder than I recalled from when I did it myself in 2001, I guess being 21 years older might be the reason. I highly recommend not trying this yourself. The biggest challenge was pulling off the prop shaft transmission coupler. That was very difficult. The yard mechanics said we would never get that off, well, that just made us work harder.

Thanks for some great buddies, like Freddie and Ken and Ray and Don and Radeen, we all worked for two days and pulled the stern tube and installed a new one along with a new packing gland and new packing. She is ready for another 2700 nm and 10 years at least.

Here is the Facebook post about this

 

THE TOTAL IS IN…., 3,294 nm run over 62 individual legs!
Here is the total trip:
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/029c-222ed31e-ae72/view

We made it back to our home waters of the Upper Chesapeake Bay, May 30, 2022 after a challenging weather month of May.  Many cruisers were complaining about the spring weather and how they were stuck and could not move north. We wanted to sail from the Bahamas direct to Cape Lookout, a simple 3 day passage with the aid of the Gulfstream, but our weather router, Chris Parker, said there was not going to be a good 3-day window. So we headed for Florida and then ran north on shorter, single overnight trips. Here is a screenshot of our entire voyage:

Archive Maps are interesting

 We have all of our trips archived on our MAPS page. We use two services to do this, Garmin InReach and Spotwalla. The Inreach device is the tracker that sends our position report to the Iridium satellites and then back down to Garmin which records the position into a database.  This data is then pulled and presented on our shared public map. With Garmin, you can see the current position or you can VIEW ALL position reports to see everywhere we have sailed.  Here is our Garmin shared map, click VIEW ALL then zoom back!

https://share.garmin.com/islandspirit

The second service we pay for is Spotwalla. The developer recognized the need to extract these data positions and create what are called TRIP MAPS. A trip map has a start and an end date and pulls all the data points within that timeframe. We like this better than Garmin in the fact that we can focus on one season, where as Garmin combines all seasons together. Here is this season’s trip map:

https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/029c-222ed31e-ae72/view

All our Maps

With many years of cruising, we have archived ALL our maps and indexed them by years on the MAPS menu link.  One of the tasks I am working on is to extract the data of miles from these maps. Garmin keeps the mileages of each leg and I am working on the total of all of these. We estimate we have well over 40,000 nm traveled on Island Spirit since 2001. Here is out map archives:

https://svislandspirit.com/maps/

Bahamas to Florida

Our passage from Bahamas to Florida was the calmest we have had in 11 years of crossings. Literally, the Gulfstream was a lake. What a simple motor run this was. Look at the ocean on this passage, we never see this….

Arriving Stuart, FL

Of course, we had to return to Stuart, Florida and the Sunset Bay Marina, one of our all-time favorites. We enjoyed a wonderful week there with many friends. Thank you to Tommy BOY and Sailor GrL for the best cherry smoked rib-eye steak ever. What a treat that was. Thanks to all our cruising friends who loaned us cars, invited us to their homes, and simply enjoyed the sunsets and coffee bar with us as we all caught up on each others happenings. Here are a few Stuart Photos….

Onward North….but no WX Window:

We really wanted to sail directly from Stuart Fl, 2.5 days direct via Gulfstream passage to Cape Lookout. Well, that never worked out because the storms were running and there never was a wx window more than a day or two. The CAPE index was really high, indicating strong updrafts in the air which turn into severe storms over the stream. This made us decide to NOT run the stream home, and that meant day hopping up the east coast! Here is the issue….

 

St. Augustine, here we come

We departed Stuart and made an inside run up to Ft. Pierce to visit our dear friend and world sailor, Jeffery of famed IP460 FLYING FISH. Jeffery just completed his circumnavigation and was in Ft. Pierce preparing his yacht for sale. If you are looking for the dream WORLD VOYAGING YACHT, then look at FLYING FISH HERE:

http://flyingfishsail.com/
https://www.yachtworld.com/yacht/2017-island-packet-460-8239004/

After a wonderful visit with Jeffery, we headed to sea for an overnight run to St Augustine, Florida. This is always a great stop because of the city and the outstanding harbor as well as Tina and John. We have “family” friends as we call them here in town. They always connect with us and enjoy our time together. Tina is the sister of our dear friend Anita at home. Then we also connected with our fellow yacht broker, company owner and lifetime sailor GrL, Melanie. She runs her own yacht brokerage firm called Sunshine Yachts. Always a good time in St. Augustine….

Offshore again to Charleston, SC

We had dreams of docking and walking EAST BAY Street in Charleston, but when we arrived and called every single marina for a dock, they were all full. ZERO slips available.  So we dropped the anchor off the aircraft carrier and rested. We were only here to pick up a new B&G RI10 radar interface box that never did fix the broken B&G radar. Thanks, B&G, we did not need it, even though your tech told me to buy one. The problem is the antenna and we have now ordered a new one. So, our visit to Charleston was a bust and out the inlet the next morning we raced….

Once more Offshore run to Cape Lookout, NC

We departed Charleston after breakfast and made the offshore run for Cape Lookout, NC. Each of these ocean runs was about 36 hours, so one more overnighter at sea. Sadly, much of this had to be motor sailing as again, we were running before storms and trying to get into port before they would hit us.  At this point of the trip, we were really missing Caribbean Tradewinds sailing, as the winds are steady and always from the east. Here on the coast, you need to deal with cold fronts and storms. Not fun, and we missed the trades. When we reached the Beaufort NC inlet, of course the winds were 20 gusting 25 knots. We needed to reef down to a double reef as we bashed into the ebbing tide, making 3 foot standing waves in the long, long inlet. Finally, we reached the ICW and ran up Adams Creek to a calm anchorage after 36 hours. Here are some ocean scenes…

Now to run the ICW north….easy

Well, that is what you would think, except for more severe thunderstorms and lightning. We cant believe it,.We actually had to take a dock for 2 days in Belhaven, NC to wait out storms. While there we walked, reprovisioned, used their free laundry, and ran our ship’s air conditioning, a real treat. It takes 3-4 days to run the ICW up to the Chesapeake Bay. 

HELLO CHESAPEAKE BAY

We finally reached MILE MARKER #1, in Portsmouth VA. This is always a must stop location for us. Here we walked the town and waited in line for TOP GUN TICKETS. What a fantastic time at the movies. We also connected with fellow IP sailors Jane and Pat and their friend Race of M’Aingeal. Jane is an amazing singer and guitar player and we had a wonderful time together for two days in Portsmouth.

Chesapeake Bay Stops

The normal run up or down the Chesapeake Bay always seems to be Norfolk, Deltaville, Solomons and Annapolis. These are all about 50 nm apart and take about 8-10 hours to run. During our stop in Deltaville, we met up with longtime friends Jim and Laurie and we also met new owners, Nancy and John. In Solomons, we connected with long-time boat buddies who sailed with us to Maine and Florida. Mary Anne and Ron.  What a wonderful home coming….

 

 

Pulling into Annapolis is HOME

Yes, our home dock is in Rock Hall, MD, but pulling into Annapolis is the real feeling of HOME. We first sailed here and rented boats here in 1986. Every year since we have sailed to Annapolis and have spent many nights here. This is one of our all-time top destinations. When we sailed past the Thomas Point Light, we finally knew we were HOME…..it has been a long, long, much longer than expected trip from the Caribbean Sea. We feel very accomplished and we are proud of the distances we have run. Go, ISLAND SPIRIT!

CHEERS….we did it

Thank you all for Sailing along.

We will soon wrap up this blogging season, but please be aware you can follow in more real-time on our Facebook public Web page. We enjoy posting and sharing there as well. Now it is time to check in on our house and also to fully service Island Spirit. She needs some work to keep her in mint condition and to prepare her for the return to the Caribbean Sea in Nov 2022. It is too wonderful there to not sail back. WE LOVE IT THERE……

We did it. We sailed our longest stretch at sea, 72 hours, 3 days from Puerto Real, Puerto Rico to Mayaguana, Bahamas. We have sailed 400+ miles before but faster due to the Gulf Stream.  I am so proud of Radeen who had zero fear of standing watches in the black of night with no moon and no horizon sailing at 6-7 knots of boat speed rocking and rolling side to side. We both were exhausted upon arrival. simply from maintaining balance and trying to move around the boat. We are not long-distance sailors and we can not imagine longer legs, but for now, we are happy and feeling successful. Here is a map of the run.

You can see our live sailing tracks and also VIEW ALL TRACKS here:
https://share.garmin.com/islandspirit

You can also see JUST THIS SEASON’s map of where we have sailed
https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/029c-222ed31e-ae72/view

Our watch schedule

We really tried to maintain the Captain Blaine Parks watch schedule for two. But it is difficult for me (Hayden) to sleep when Radeen is alone at night on watch. So, I never get enough sleep and that makes this process far more difficult. When we sail with three people, that changes the entire game. Here is the schedule we tried to maintain for 3 days:

• 0600-1200 Radeen
• 1200-1800 Hayden
• 1800-2100 Radeen
• 2100-2400 Hayden
• 0000-0300 Radeen
• 0300-0600 Hayden

Meals were at 0600, 1200, and 1800. Again, not easy cooking or getting even a one bowl meal together.  Radeen freezes the meals and they are then a warm-up and serve into one bowl. Here is our first dinner…Chicken Satay with peanut sauce, coconut rice, and peas.

The sailing winds

We waited for one week in Puerto Rico until all the squalls and rain and thunderstorms moved out of the area. This delay gave Cat and Bob of  IP 370 Sea Lyon time to catch up with us. Once the stationary TROF and squalls left, we both departed for sea. This worked out so well as we had a predicted wind of 13-18 knots from 090 with gusts to 20-25 and squalls to 25k. Then the winds were to move to NNE at 15-19 gusting 20-25. These numbers on a course of 300 to 320 degrees placed the winds on a beam reach to broad reach for three full days. Our motoring was about 2-3 hours for battery charging and hot water for showers. The sailing was amazing. So, 2.5 gallons of fuel for 425 nm. Not bad. Here are some sailing photos.

A Sun Halo

This was so amazing. On day 3 at noon just south of the Turks and Caicos bank, I looked up at the sails and noticed this sun halo.  From what I read,….. A halo is an optical phenomenon produced by light (typically from the Sun or Moon) interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere…….well now, that was really cool. So of course I shot about 50 photos, here are a few!

Flying Fish Below Deck….yup

Imagine the thoughts this poor flying fish had when he took off out of the water and caught a flight up and over our cockpit then into the companionway and directly down below to crash land, not back in the water, but onto a hard teak floor. Sailing on a hard starboard reach, he flopped downhill and came to rest against our port sofa bunk. We never discovered him until breakfast daylight, and there he was. We were like…..WHAT??? how did this flying fish fly into the below decks. The only way was via the port side cockpit rolled up the enclosure. He was the largest flying fish I have ever seen. Poor guy.

 

 

Arrival Mayaguana, Abraham’s Bay

After 3 days at sea, we arrived Mayaguana and thought we would just drop anchor off the lee shore and rest. We needed rest and we also heard that you can not check into the Bahamas here. So the plan was to drop anchor where the guides say to anchor and sleep. Well, we arrived at 6 am, and by 730 am I am fighting with my anchor chain and 55 lbs. Rocna anchor wrapped around rocks 30 feet down at Start Bay. I dropped in the sand but that must have been only 1 inch of sand and we dragged it right under and around large rocks nearly the size of the boat.

Once freed, we decided to try the west shore, Betsy Bay, only to find out that a north swell was running and 6-foot waves were crashing onto the beach making it impossible to anchor there. Now, we needed to bash back EAST into the 20-knot tradewinds to work our way into Abrahams Bay, a place we did not want to go due to tons of coral heads. With no other option other than to go back to sea and keep sailing, we decided to work our way into the reef area. Remember, we are exhausted and all we want to do is drop anchor and sleep. This all took us from 6 am arrival til 1130 when we dropped anchor. OMG, one shot of rum finally and we crashed!

The REWARD….the Bahamas Waters

After sleep and hot showers we awoke to this….look at this beautiful water. We had great news via VHF from the local ambassador, Scully, who informed us that we now can clear into the Bahamas here, saving us a long sail to Clarence Town. After completing the lengthy clearing-in process and paying for our cruising permit at the new online government website, we went ashore with Bob and Cat to complete clearing-in. The Island Administrator, Ms. Chatham, was very helpful and pleasant to talk to. It was still time-consuming for our paperwork to be sent to Matthew Town, Inguaga Customs officer and to be returned. We felt so welcome by everyone we met!

 

Next up….an Island Tour with SCULLY, the man of Mayaguana

Today, should be a fun day with Scully showing the flock of pink flamingos and taking us to shelling beaches and then a traditional Mac & Cheese and BBQ chicken lunch at his sister Vicki’s home. This is a unique place and so remote.