Bermuda Run, Part 3

Our stay in Bermuda was really great, relaxing, totally enjoyable.  We walked practically everywhere.  People in Bermuda apparently don't walk around though.  They have this really great public transportation system that includes buses and ferries.  You can get a pass at the Post Office and travel anywhere on the island for one price.  We got a three day pass and I think we paid $35 for both of us.  You get a card full of passes and just tear one off each time you board the bus or ferry.  Scooters also seem to be a major form of transportation there.  Only tourists and the poorest locals actually walk to get around.  There are no sidewalks in St. George Parish and most property is lined with walls that go right out to the street.  When you walk you're in the road and passing traffic doesn't swerve out to go around you.  You are in their way.  Not only that but they drive on the wrong side of the road so you have to keep that in mind when you walk along those narrow, curvy, hilly roads.  Of course the people are so damned nice there if they actually ran you over they'd probably smile and laugh and be very friendly about it.

While we were there we walked into town to do our laundry.  We had three large sacks and it was a pretty good hike to the laundry-mat but we heard that they would do it for you for a pretty reasonable price.  We figured we could drop it off, wander around town for a few hours and pick it up on the way back to the marina.  Good plan.  Unfortunately there was no one there.  The sign on the wall said to call this number for the service so we did that.  The lady who answered said she had just left and didn't feel like coming back so we could do it ourselves.  OK.  That's pretty laid back service.  The only problem was that the machines all ran on time cards, not coins.  You had to buy a card for $5 (Bermuda cash only) and then put more money on it to buy time on the washers and dryers.  I had to hike into town to get some local dinero at the bank.  We got the washers going and walked back into town for lunch before returning to finish our three loads of laundry.  Total cost for the wash and dry was $30.  Yikes!

After we finished our laundry we bundled it up and left it in a corner.  We decided to take a hike up the hill to see some sights.  At the top of the hill is a church that was built in the late 1800's.  It was going to be pretty big, large enough to seat 650.  Unfortunately the church was never completed.  There was apparently some infighting between the parishioners and they split off and formed another church while it was still under construction.  Then the day before it was to be completed the steeple was struck by lightning.  This was considered to be some bad ju-ju and the church was left unfinished.  I'm not kidding.  It sits there on top of a hill overlooking the harbor, probably one of the best sites on the island.  Completely unused for over a hundred years.  It's located off of Church Folly Road.  Go figure.

We walked from there over the hill to get a view of one of the many forts on the island.  It's located next to a beautiful beach but when we got over the hill we decided it was too late in the day for a swim so we just continued hiking around.  We followed a path through an open gate and found the ruins of some colossal structure.  It had tunnels and underground rooms, stairs leading all over the place and one gigantic room that was as big as a football field.  We climbed all over this place but couldn't figure out what it had been.  When we returned to the marina one of the guys from Starshine said it had been a Club Med resort back in the 1960's.  It had been so poorly constructed that they eventually had to tear the building down and it's been sitting like that for thirty years now.  Wow!  This was a real day for follies!

Back at the boat we talked with Bob about when would be a good time to head home.  Never was my first thought.  We didn't get there until Tuesday the 4th and it was now only Thursday the 6th.  Bob wanted to leave the next day, Friday, because he had a conference scheduled for the next week.  We didn't have to be back at work until Monday, June 17th so I was thinking we could hang out until Monday or Tuesday, June 10th or 11th.  The thing is, you really need to take weather into account for that five day sail home.  Our weather routers said that leaving on Friday was a really bad idea because there was a Tropical Storm working it's way up the US coast.  Leaving that weekend was also not good because right behind that storm was a cold front coming in from the West that would make for really bad conditions on the Gulf Stream.  They recommended that we stay another week in Bermuda.  Uhm, that might not work for us.

Bob decided to leave Saturday afternoon and take a course that would keep them South of any bad weather and they'd have the option of ducking into the Intra-Coastal Waterway, ICW, and heading North from there.  We thought we might stay until Monday or Tuesday and get an update on the weather, hoping for better conditions.

Saturday afternoon, after saying our goodbyes to the Starshine crew, Cheri and I went to a formal tea at a perfume factory in St. George.  Beautiful old building, nice grounds.  The tea was outside in the rose garden and we had a very nice time.  Tea is something that Cheri is really into so this was a special event for her.  We also did some final gift shopping in town before heading back to the marina around 1630.  When we got to the boat we saw Starshine heading out of the harbor.  I decided to grab my iPad and head up to the bar to see if I could get an internet connection and an update on the weather.  When I got connected the forecast did not look good.  The following Thursday and Friday there was supposed to be some really bad weather, high winds and rain, and the rest of the weekend was not good either.  Our weather window was closing and it looked like we might be stranded in Bermuda for at least another week.  And this was the beginning of Hurricane season.  I decided on the spot that Bob had probably made the best decision and that we should head out as soon as possible.  We were on our way in two hours, about four hours behind Starshine.

I really wanted to beat the storm that was forecast for Thursday afternoon on the Chesapeake Bay.  It was supposed to be huge, another derecho.  On the weather maps it covered all of the Chesapeake Bay and most of it was dark purple, severe.  I calculated that if we averaged 6.5 knots for the entire voyage, 640 miles, we'd make it back before the storm hit.  OK, I think we can do that.  We could motor-sail to keep our speed up but we only had a little over half a tank of fuel, approximately 100 gallons, and the local fuel dock was now closed.  If we were conservative though, I was pretty sure we could make it.  No problem.

We officially checked out through Customs at 1930 and were on our way.  We had perfect sailing weather with 15 knot winds from the SE and we skirted the reef on the N side of the island and chose a course that would take us towards North Carolina to pick up the Gulf Stream.  We had gotten waypoints from Dane, the weather router, and had them programmed into our chartplotter.  Once outside the reef we tried calling Starshine on our VHF radio.  Around 2300 we picked up a very weak signal but managed to hear that they had chosen to bypass the first waypoint and were currently making about 6 knots.  We were making about 6.5 to 7 and I figured we could catch up to them in about twenty hours.  We didn't hear from them again until we were approaching the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel four days later.

All through Sunday and Monday we had beautiful weather.  Wind was a consistent 12 to 15 knots out of the SE and with the engine at low RPM's we maintained 6.5 to 7 knots the entire time.  Over the two days we covered 330 miles, pretty good for a sailboat.  Tuesday turned out to be a different story.  With the sunrise came higher winds, 18 to 25 knots, and larger waves, about 8' to 12'.  The wind had veered to the SSW and the waves were coming from the same direction so we were taking them at a 45 degree angle, which is good but required manual steering because it was too much work for the auto pilot.  You drive over the waves in an "S" pattern which gets you over the crest and down the other side and set up for the next one.  You don't want to take large waves on the side, on your beam, because the boat can get knocked down, called a broach.  Taking the waves at a 45 degree angle makes the line of travel over the wave longer and makes the wave appear broader.  If you take it head on, at a 90 degree angle, it appears steeper and going over the top can launch the boat into the air, causing it to come down hard on the other side.  This isn't a good thing and should be avoided.

So we did this all morning.  Around noon the wind died down to about 18 knots and we thought we were out of it.  Coming at us though was a long, skinny thunderhead, about 15 miles long and maybe 2 miles wide.  It had heavy rainfall beneath it and I felt this was probably a good one to avoid.  We managed to sail across it and down the West side as the storm went by.  Just near the end, when we thought we would get past it OK, the tail of the storm wrapped around us and enveloped us in 45 knot winds and heavy rain.  The wind was howling and the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see.  The wind knocked us over on our side almost completely and we only had the staysail and half the main up.  I was concerned the staysail would be shredded in this wind so we fought to get it in.  With only half the main out we had better control and after about twenty minutes more of that we were out of the storm.  Seemed like it took hours.

On the other side though we ran into some serious wind.  Still coming out of the SSW it was now up to 28 knots constant and gusting to over 40.  The waves increased in size to 12' to 15' and I'm pretty sure we saw some bigger than that.  Most of the waves came from the same direction but occasionally we had some sneak in from other angles.  One in particular rolled in at a 90 to the boat and we were launched off the other side into the air.  The boat came down so hard I asked Cheri to go below and look for water coming in, thinking we might have cracked the hull.  No damage but we were both pretty shaken.  About every 20 or 30 waves one would sneak up from behind and smack us on the aft port quarter.  I'd be concentrating on getting over the waves ahead of us and see out of the corner of my eye this gigantic wave come up from behind.  One of these was so big it broke over the top of our Bimini cover and water poured in through the zippers soaking everything.

I should mention here that we had a full enclosure on our cockpit with Eisenglass panels.  Cheri had insisted on this before we left because she wanted to keep warm and dry.  I didn't think it was a good idea because I thought breaking seas would destroy it.  It survived the storm just fine and kept us warm and dry for the most part.  Without it we would have been miserable.  Good call Cheri.

So, back to the story.  We fought these monstrous waves all afternoon.  As dark approached I began to worry about how we would handle it.  I thought we could maybe steer by feel alone but knew in my heart that was really asking for trouble.  I did try it though and for the most part it could be done.  In the end I decided it was better to turn downwind and run with the waves while it was dark.  I figured by the morning we'd be about 50 miles off course but at least we'd be safe.  That would probably kill our plan for beating the storm in the Bay but you do what ya gotta do.  Just as the sun went down and the time came to turn downwind everything calmed down.  The wind died down to 15 knots and the waves calmed to the point where we could bring on the auto-pilot.

Cheri and I were standing three hour watches between 1900 and 0700 (7pm and 7am).  During the day we just took turns at the helm whenever the other felt tired.  Tuesday night I had been at the wheel continuously for over 12 hours and Cheri took her first watch and stretched it out so I could get some real rest.  When I woke up it was just getting light and the wind had veered to the West.  The sea was calm and we were cruising along at about 4 knots.  The auto-pilot had given up during the night and we were back to manual steering but it was calm enough so that it wasn't too bad.  With the wind out of the West I decided to tack to the SSW for about 20 miles and then come around for a straight shot into the Chesapeake Bay, now about 45 miles away.  Our fuel was down to about 40 gallons but I figured we could drive at 6 or 7 knots with the wind assisting and still make it into the Bay with plenty of fuel left before that storm hit.  As we sailed along the wind eventually veered to the S again and gave us perfect conditions for sailing home to Hampton, VA.  Cheri pointed out that the sea was pretty much dead flat now and maybe we could reset the auto-pilot.  Hmmm, good idea.  We did a factory reset and then went through the whole calibration procedure again.  Worked like a charm and we were back on auto-pilot once more.

About twenty miles out from the bridge we heard from Starshine over the VHF radio.  They were now behind us by about 3 or 4 hours and coming up from the South.  We got into Salt Pond around 1100, added about 80 gallons of fuel to the tank and met with the Customs dudes at the marina.  Around 1430 Starshine cruised into her slip beside us.  Everyone made it this far safe and sound.  The storm, predicted to be the storm of the century, blew in around 1730 and lasted about half an hour.  Some wind, some rain.  No big deal.  We hunkered down and called it an early night.  Much sleep was in order, let me tell ya.  This picture is of part of the Starshine crew (five total) showing Jim (L) and Bob (R).

Friday we packed up and headed North for Herrington.  As soon as we got out of Salt Pond we were hit with 30 knot winds out of the NW and tall choppy seas.  I fought it for about two hours before turning back, returning to our slip around 1500.  We waited it out until 2000 before deciding to give it another try.  What a difference five hours can make.  It was now very calm, almost glassy with very light wind.  We motored up the Bay making 6.5 to 8 knots with the tide and arrived back at Herrington Harbour North around 1100 on Saturday morning.

We learned a lot from this trip, experienced a lot too.  We had never done any sailing overnight before.  Now it's no big deal.  In fact, we both enjoyed it and find it the best way to cover long distances in a short amount of time.  We'd never used an auto-pilot before and now we can't see doing without it.  Same with AIS and radar.  What great tools!  For sailing at night they're a must!  We had never had any real ocean sailing experience before.  I had some when I lived in California sailing out to the Channel Islands and Cheri had some sailing with her parents in Puerto Rico.  What we had here though was a real taste of what it's all about.  The beauty of the ocean is incredible.  It's wind and waves are to be respected and treated differently than inshore waters.  Way differently.  We both really enjoyed the total experience and feel like we've learned so much from it.  We can do this.  We will do this again.  October 2014 is our planned date of departure and we're thinking we'll probably go straight back to Bermuda and stay as long as we can, maybe a month or two.  From there we'll head out on our dream, either to the Caribbean or maybe over to Europe.  Time will tell.