We knew when we left Marathon we didn't have quite enough time to get here and we'd have to do something to pick up days in case we had bad weather or other issues. We went from Marathon to Tarpon Basin, Key Largo our first day. A little rough due to wind and sea direction but not terrible. You'd like your first day underway after a three month layoff to be a little nicer to get acclimated. Well, not this time.
We left the Keys and instead of stopping in Miami we went out Government Cut and kept going. All the way to Fort Pierce. I expected to go overnight and get to FT Pierce Inlet between 0900 and 1100 but we were on the edge of the Gulf Stream and sailed fast. Very fast. Even though it was a little choppy we were doing close to 10 knots. During the night I calculated (okay, the GPS calculated) we would get to Ft Pierce before 0300. Dark. I furled the genoa, shut off one engine and near idled the other one to slow us down to a first light arrival. This one overnight passage gave us more than three days in hand for the future. We visited our friends Mike and Carol, topped off fuel and groceries and moved on the next day in late morning. Even though we left three or four hours later than normal we went close to our normal anchorage and were caught up. The next day we pushed all the way to Daytona and so picked up another day. Then we visited St Augustine and had dinner with friends Bob and Jane and their guests from Conn. Things were going great.
In order to pick up one more day we went back into the ocean out of St Auggie. Things were not so great. It was very choppy, 2-3 ft just off the nose. Not a good direction for a catamaran. We could turn towards Europe or turn towards shore and hit land sooner. Neither option would work and we pounded on. Then the extension of our stern arch that holds up the dinghy and the wind generator broke. This dropped the dinghy down and almost caused us to lose the generator. I managed to secure both at great peril and we headed for the St Johns River and comfort and safety (relatively).
We hadn't wanted to go this way due to dredging and bridge construction but we managed those areas okay and ended up at Cumberland Island, GA. From here we had normal passage days until we got to Thunderbolt, GA, part of Savannah. We had our damaged arch evaluated and stayed two days for very expensive repairs. $100 for stainless steel and $1000 for labor. We have to consider ourselves lucky that they were willing to do this on short notice at any price. We were docked among multi, multi million dollar yachts who looked down at us in more ways than one. This two day delay was not an issue because we had picked up enough time earlier with our off shore passage and other long days on the ICW. Plus we only stayed one day in Ft Pierce.
We had good days from Georgia with mostly positive current until our last passage to here so we still got here a few days before Carol's flight. Pushing a bit and good weather made up for the bad scheduling. Cruisers are NOT supposed to have schedules and one day we could be bit on the
if we keep tempting fate.
Damaged stainless steel. Bottom middle pipe leads to the wind generator.
