SAILING ISLAND ZEPHYR

Corrie and I joined our friend Jesse Broome to help him bring his Island Packet 38 (called Contented Turtle) back north from the Bahamas. I helped him bring the boat south to Bahamas last November. Jesse’s friend Paul also joined us for the passage. They spent some time together around the Abacos in the days leading up to the passage. It was a brief stay in the Bahamas for Corrie and I. We landed at the airport in Marsh Harbor and were underway on the boat in less than 2 hours. Time and tide wait for no one, and we wanted to go through the Man-O-War cut at slack tide to minimize current. That, and the excellent weather window made for a hasty departure. We departed the dock from Conch Inn Marina on Thursday, May 2 at 2:30pm and exited the cut into open ocean an hour later at 3:30pm.

Navigation was straight forward. Just head north. We had good weather, with some winds at close reach, some at a reach and some at a broad reach. We had some pleasant light wind conditions with calm seas during the day time that we took advantage of by putting up the Code Zero for awhile.

We made excellent speed on this trip. While we were often over 6 knots, sometimes over 7 knots for awhile, other times over 8 knots for a bit and then we hit the Gulf Stream and had some sustained periods with over 10 knots speed over ground. We had southerly winds so we stayed in the Gulf stream for awhile and gradually crossed it from east to west. It was fairly lumpy for awhile with 5-6 ft seas and a period of 6 seconds.

After we crossed over the Gulf Stream we rounded Cape Hatteras overnight without any issues. At that point we were ready to get back so we motor sailed through the light winds for the final stretch north. We saw quite a bit of military activity including some helicopters that flew by very low in front of us. We rounded Cape Henry to go over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel at dusk. The seas on the Chesapeake were calm for our arrival. We arrived at Contented Turtles home slip at 8:30pm on Monday, May 6. Just after we arrived the rain started pouring down. We later found out from another Island Packet that was making a similar passage, but continuing north to Annapolis, that they experienced 48 knots in squalls in the area that we had just passed through. We were glad to be all tied up safe, and also glad everything turned out OK for them despite the wild winds. We were underway for a total of 4 days and 6 hours underway – quite a quick trip! This was Corrie’s first open ocean passage so we were glad it went well.

Our boat, Zephyr, is still in the midst of some major boat projects so it’s going to be a bit before we are out for more adventures on our own boat. However, I’ll soon be starting to teach classes on weekends through the local American Sailing Association school at our marina, so I’m excited for that. I’ll share more about that later.