It’s almost 3AM Sunday morning, I’ve been on watch since 1AM. We have encountered patches of floating sea grass all along our route.. about once a shift we raise the motors to make sure they are free of debrisfinding and often find sea grass in front of the prop. About 20 minutes ago I litterally hit an island of sea grass that would fill most marinas in surface area. I actually saw it on radar but was confused about what it may be. As it got closer it appeared to be a calm spot of wind on the water…. Just before I got there I smelled it, not a sour smell.. but something different than sea air. The engines both choked down immediately but kept pushing thru it. After a couple cleanings SYL emerged unscathed but slower……. I knew the engines were clean, and I was doing about 6 knots when I hit the grass…. but now I’m down to 5.2 knots so I turned into the wind and reversed the engines until I was doing 3 knots backwards to clear the rudders. Resuming good progress, I found 6.3 knots immediately so the reversal was just the ticket.
When I took over from Russ at 1AM this Sunday morning we passed the half way mark, about 175 miles to go and the same amount travelled. Russ’ shift was a bit slow, the wind came right on the nose… he tried everything but it was best to roll up the jib and wait for a change. That change came about 1:30. I was able to redeploy the jib and push over 6 knots again.
The moon is full, making night work quite plesant. It hides the stars but reveals the water surface quite nicely. It’s 3AM… one more hour before I wake Jono for the next shift. The radar looks clear, we are holding over 6 and the boat sounds happy. I just checked and we have a 3/10ths following current so that’s good. I assume the sea grass island marked a major current change. The center of the gulf has a clockwise rotating current and our path brings us very close to that boundry. I bet that island was created by the central gulf currents.
The boys and I talked about our schedule… as it is now we are 2 or 3 hours ahead of expected arrival time. If it becomes apparent we will arrive before daylight we intend to go to sails only even if it’s 4 knots during the wee hours of Monday morning. My GPS doesnt calculate arrival time until its under 24 hours to go so when it does start calculating… we can adjust more accuratly to enter the pass to Venice during daylight hours. With the full moon it wouldnt be much of a problem either but I’ve never been in that cut so we will wait until daytime.
3:23 Sunday Morning I just noticed a change outside and went to look, the wind is not full abeam, but changed off the nose at 30 degrees to about 50. I let out the sails and we took off! I’m bumping 7 knots. 160 nautical miles to go. Yeah.. that 20 degree lift didn’t last long… about 10 minutes.. back to 35 degrees apparent but still at 6.8. Looking good.. nothing on radar.
The “spot” batteries ran down during Russ’ shift around midnight Saturday so there will probably be some missing dots on our digital track…. we changed them when I came on so it should be consistent again.
3:45 I walked up to the front of the boat and there was a dolphin playing between the bows. I watched for a minute then turned on my flashlight to see him better. He did not like that and sped away…. lol. Almost time to wake Jono for his shift. The wind is good right now… we are holding 7 to 7.5 knots. Just as I said that we slowed to 6.6 the wind is certainly variable if nothing else tonight… and on this trip as a whole. Jono will be jealous, I got a 7.9 knot run earlier… he’s been trying to match my speed but its all about the wind… when it decided to blow.
730AM Sunday morning: Near the end of Jono’s shift the sun was rising at the same time the full moon was setting. He said it was a really interesting scene and got a panorama photo of it.
10AM Sunday morning: Sad but true,,,, we have been bucking a full knot of current for 6 hours now. The waves have picked up to 1 to 2 footers so if we go to port any off rhumbline the boat rides hard into the waves, we tried going off the wind enough to sail by turning right, it worked but steadily got us 10 degrees off course and didn’t negate the bad current. Winds have been about 5 points off true West, our travel direction is 10 degrees the other way off true West. Forecasts showed SW winds so we will be glad when the South component joins us. Right now and for quite a while we are slogging along at 4.4 knots. Being its my shift… I took the main down to reduce drag and flogging. Unfortunately we have a full 10 knots of wind from the only direction we DON’T want. Hopefully the wind and currents will change in a while.
11:30 Sunday We still have a full knot of opposing current but our speed has picked up. We are holding 6.3 waterspeed and 5.3 groundspeed. I have been tacking and it’s breaking the spell of droning at 4.4 toward the target. We picked up a 3 foot swell lately, the wind has changed so many times the seas don’t know what to do. I belive we have a full 10 knots of wind now but we have to drive 15 degrees off course (and almost directly into the waves) to use it. What this does for us though is to position us more offshore. Predictions are for SW winds later so this will give us the best angle for progress.
WOW 1:30 Sunday evening Progress has gone from slow to painfully slow. I’ve tried tacking both directions several times. On starboard tack I can beat the heavy current but we are heading 30 degrees off target and not even that fast, on top of that on the return tack (toward land) we get 2 knots of opposing current….. so I just rolled up the jib and decided to bang directly into the 2 to 3 footers at 4 knots made good toward the target….. uuuugggh. When your best option is to motor directly into waves,,, your almost out of options.
My shift just ended and we woke Jono. I may take a quick shower and lay down a bit. Russ and I refilled the main tanks, running 22 hours it took almost exactly 20 galons. There was a one hour period Jono sailed without motors last night but today we have throttled the motors pretty heavily. Now I’m at 7/8 throttle at 5.7 knots of water speed and 4 knots over ground… sweet huh?
Jono made us a hot lunch earlier… chili dogs! We all have been catching a sandwich or whatever so far. The hot meal was nice.
5:30 Sunday evening: Still fighting a strong current but we just went thru a weed line that likely marks a tidal rip. The GPS is now sowing an arrival time of before 3PM Monday. I expect that to improve, but maybe not. Soon we will be out of the deep water that supports the CW current. We have 97 miles to go to enter the cut for Venice. We are at 4.7 knots groundspeed.. better but still sucky. The good part is we expect the current to subside… the bad part is there are probably 100 drilling rigs and small platforms to dodge between here and Venice Louisiana tonight.
4:30PM Sunday: I am pleased to report that the waves have subsided… we are only going headlong into 1 to 2 footers… nice. Jono is taking a nap, Russ is on now and I come on at 7PM. I took an hour nap after my shower when I got off duty at 1PM so I’m ready for the evening tour. I’ll steer from 7 to 10PM, then sleep 6 hours and come back on at 4AM for 3 hours. It’s 5:36 and all the sails are down, we are motoring directly into about 10 knots of wind and 1.5 knots of current.. life is good. I’m glad I bought and filled 4 extra cans of gas and didn’t make lunch reservations tomorrow in Venice….. lol.. The best thing is about this part of the trip is that the ice maker is working and we have plenty whiskey.
You know I counted on having some slow time.. some adverse conditons etc… but not 24 hours of adverse current. We will still get there in the daylight Monday…. but whodathoughtit being around 3 in the evening.
7:50 Sunday evening: The boys are in their bunks and I’m still facing the currents. I’m down to 1 knot against me but I’m having to head onshore to get it. The deeper water offshore is where the circular current lives… I’m heading for shallow water and millions of drilling rigs. Once I get North enough to head due West I should be in shallower water with less current. If I’m ever travelling East thru here… I know were to go! We have been in 1 to 2 knots of Easterly current for 12 hours.
Again, sorry for the sketchiness…. will clean it up later. SYL