Passage Log Archive
6 entries from this stretch of the passage.
On December 4th we pulled anchor at noon and made our way out of Port Royal heading for Florida. We started out with little to no wind so decided to motor. The wind started to build as the day went on but it was dead astern, along with a significant swell that was directly on the beam made for an awfully uncomfortable passage. Cadence was literally rolling on her beam ends the entire passage. To make matters worse, at around 10pm we ran into a fog bank that was very thick. The visibility was literally 50-100 feet max. We each took our watches of 4 hours each and pretty much hated every second of it. There was constantly things breaking free in the boat or coming off their shelves and landing everywhere. There was little to no sleep for either of us but its only a 150 mile trip so the misery was supposed to be short lived. Because St. Augustine inlet has significant shoaling that changes with each storm that hits the area, there are no published aids to navigation. There is an offshore buoy that is about 1 mile from the inlet and the recommendation is to go there and visually find the aids that the Coast Guard puts in place to mark the channel. These aids are small and don’t show up on radar or have any lights on them so the guide books say to arrive in daylight and use “local knowledge” to make your way in. Local knowledge means to ask another boat in the area that uses the channel to give you information, or to call one of the local St. Augustine tow boat companies and get their intel on the channel. We figured we would arrive at noon if we kept an average of 6 knots for the entire passage. We arrived at the STA buoy around 11am.
We had a nice stay in Portsmouth VA, just across the river from Norfolk. We were able to sneak into a town landing that had dock space open, and is FREE. First come first serve and we ended up getting a coveted spot. We sat out a nor’easter for two days that brought winds up to 45 knots.
We looked like a tiny little boat while docked next to TATS a 138 foot yacht owned by a young 30 something Arab man. Our NYC stay was fun but we were both really excited to get away from the mayhem. Our floating dock was constantly under attack from the ferries that ply the Hudson, we were continually bounced against the dock, there was a ton of construction noise, helicopters over head regularly etc. Fun to arrive, nice to leave. We did get to spend some time with Camille and her new baby boy Logan and with my good friend Ron and wife Liz and took a little harbor tour.
We finally got out of Wickford after a nice 3 week trip to Marthas Vineyard. We had to stop back “in the wick” as we like to say to have Jeff finish up some of his electronic work. Of course Jeff knew about the electronics job on Cadence last year at this time but logistics and prioritizing jobs is not his strong suit. So back to the Wick we went. We left Wickford at 6pm Sunday night and arrived Stonington Harbor around 11:30 and woke up at the crack to get moving to NYC. Our wind indicator is not working, our Furuno screen keeps freezing up, and our KVH satellite internet is not working already. Why again did we stop in the Wick?? Oh ya, to have Jeff finish our project that he has taken FOREVER to finish.
Its finally here. After counting the days for the past two and a half years since we set our move aboard date we are now on the cusp of realizing this dream. How did it get here so slowly but yet so quickly?!
July and August were extremely busy. So much so that I don’t remember summer even being a consideration as it always has every year of my life. In a nutshell, 61 Woodlands sold July 24 so it was high gear for the entire month of July moving everything out, sellingitems on ebay, packing keepsakes and opening up a storage unit.
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