Thursday-Friday May 12-13: May  Great Sale to Ft Pierce

     We made preparations for our overnite crossing most of the day. We set up ditch bags, things we would need if the unthinkable were to happen out in the straits during the night. We had one bag with first-aid kit, distress flag, signal mirror, flare gun, flashlites, another with our computers, double wrapped in waterproof bags, another with water and GORP, We also had at the ready in the cockpit, our survival-immersion suits, a five gallon jug of water, and our life vests, with waterproof lights attached.

     Our plan was to take it easy during the day, do all the prep work, go for another swim, then set off at 1800 for the 160 mile trip, that would bring us to Ft Pierce just after noontime Friday, to enter the FT Pierce cut on the incoming tide.

     We had a nice swim in the early afternoon, 30 laps total around the boat, 25 without flippers, 5 with. It was a little choppy and I for one drank more salt water in that one swim than I had had all winter. Not used to swimming without a snorkle!

     At 1700 we were ready, so we headed out an hour early. The plan for crossing the Gulf Stream is no light matter. Several factors have to be right or it is a No-Go situation. We had been watching the weather forecast for the last 10 days or so with this crossing in mind. There can be no North wind in the picture, as a North wind against the North Bound Gulf Stream spells tall, close-spaced waves. Ugly.

     We were hoping for light South East winds. At least 2 days worth and had been watching that closely. I mean, why not make the crossing as easy as it can possibly be?

     Another thing key to the plan is your destination, and when you need to arrive. Since all the destinations in Florida involve a  cut or Inlet there are certain times when you may or may not want to transit them. For example, I did not want to arrive at Ft. Pierce inlet with an outgoing current and an incoming wind, again, steep, close-set waves. So our arrival window on Friday was between noon and 6 PM.  We did the math and that gave us the departure time.

     So this means that you need to be at the proper place at the proper time to be ready to take advantage of the good weather window of opportunity.

     The other part of the plan is either having a buddy boat, or at least knowing who was going to be out there at the same time as us. We had made tentative plans for buddy boats, but they had fallen apart, so at the Great Sale anchorage I dinghied around and made radio calls and found out what the other boats plans were. None of them matched ours exactly, three boats were going to Ft Pierce, but none were going all night. Two were going to West End on Thursday, then departing there at Zero dark thirty for Ft. Pierce, the other was going as far as Mangrove Cay Thursday afternoon, then start very early Friday for FT P.. All three boats made speed better than ours, so we would all be arriving close to the same time.

     We were out of things to do at 1700, so we decided to get a 1 hour head start on our plan. Worst case was that we would get there too early and have to slow dawn.

     The wind was light and right behind us all of the fifty miles to Memory Rock. I had the first watch until 2000 (8 PM), when Kathy took over til midnite. Just before sunset we got our last look at the Bahama bottom thru the clear waters of the sandy Bahama Bank. Then early in her watch she saw the anchor lights of one of our friends from Great Sale, the Slack Tide anchored at Mangrove Cay. They would be catching up with us later.

Our last Bahamian sunset, somewhere between Great Sale Cay and Mangrove Cay.

     I got a couple hours of shut-eye and relieved her at midnite. We were just shy of Memory Rock, which is almost at the end of the Little Bahama Bank.

     The plan for the next leg was to keep a Westerly heading for about 25 miles until our course hit the Northbound Gulf Stream, where we would turn and take advantage of the 3 knot current for the next 7 or eight hours.

     About an hour and a half into my watch I spotted the lights of a ship on our port quarter. I flipped on our radar and eventually picked him up at 8 miles. I watched him go from 8 miles distance to 6 miles, to 4 miles, all on the same relative bearing. Well this situation is called “constant bearing, decreasing range” and you guessed it, if no one does anything the two vessels are going to collide. So I tried calling on the radio, over and over, no response. Finally after 2 minor course changes it still looked to me like it was going to be too close for comfort, and you never know if anyone is even looking out the ships windows, I made a major course change that headed us off their stern.

     In the end, we were never within a mile of each other, but it sure felt good to finally see hs stern lights.

     Kathy was up at 0400 to relieve me and she kept our Westerly course another hour or so and then turned to run NNE with the Gulf Stream. It was a calm night, 5 knots of wind or so, maybe a one foot sea, and we were motoring under full sail. The The quarter moon had set at 0200 and the stars were bright and distinct. The whole of the night we could see the glow of the city lights on the coast of Florida (from 56 miles away!).  And we were making 8 knots, 2 ½ knots better than our average 5.5.

     I got up at 0800 and made us a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs, and after breakfast Kathy hit the bunk, she deserved a good sleep, if even for just a few hours. She did a great job on her watches, never having a ship issue and taking full advantage of the Gulf Stream.

     We rode the Gulf Stream until we were almost as far North as Ft. Pierce as it comes within 10 or 12 miles of shore at that point. About 12 miles out we sheared off to the West and headed for the inlet, it was about 1200.

     We lowered our Bahamas courtesy flag, raised our Quarantine flag and ran the inlet, the current with us, calm as could be, up between the rock jetties, lined with fishermen. We anchored just to the South of the North bridge.

Ft. Pierce Inlet.

Q flag raised.

     Kathy had all our papers laid out for me so, as “Captain”, I could call customs and check in. We have a myriad of documents, ships document, passports, Nexus/Global Entry cards and numbers, the 2016 customs sticker for the boat and our BR numbers that we had obtained when we came into Maine from Canada in late August. Not to mention the fingerprints and iris scans, no joke!

     The whole idea is that we are considered "Trusted Travellers" so we should be able to check into the country with just a phone call. How slick is that?

     Well, the first several calls we could not get thru, then we found out that Kathy's phone wasn't working, later we found out that her speaker had gone bad.  People can hear you when you call them, but you can't hear them.

     So we went to my phone, which seldom works, what do I expect for $11 per month? And it worked fine.  But we got disconnected twice after we had gone thru all these confusing menus, where we fell into no clear category and didn't know which number to press.

     Finally I got thru to a guy, and he immediately put me on hold for about ten minutes. When he came back on the line he insisted that I “sounded a long way away" and that we couldn't possibly be anchored where I said we were.

     I finally convinced him we really were there, then proceeded to start giving him all the info that he asked for. After quite a lengthy discussion, where we seemed to be going nowhere, I volunteered that we each had these “BR” numbers, and he said, why didn't you say so. I said, you didn't ask.

     So I gave him my BR number and he said, that's an old number, how long ago did you get that? I said end of August 2015. He said can't be, that system has been out of date for years, are you sure? I said, yeah, we got those numbers from Customs in Eastport Maine in August. (Maybe the mail hasn't been getting thru to Eastport for a couple years.)

     So in the end, he gave us new “BR” numbers over the phone and authorized our entry. What a relief, as we were very close to having had to taxi to the Ft. Pierce airport to fulfill all the requirements.

     Doesn't all this make you feel secure and safe?

     So all was well that ended well, we had a near perfect crossing, all went as planned, our friends entered shortly after us, and we all got checked in. And in spite of the loud whir of tires on the nearby North Bridge, and the hourly freight trains blaring their horns, we slept very well that night.

Back in the USA.