After talking to my technicians on January 5, the decision was made that I needed to sail back to Florida immediately. Before I left, I gave the technicians videos of my exhaust system and was given the go-ahead to empty all the oil from the engine and fill with diesel to clean it. I was rafted up to Stephanie which was amazing; we had a great time catching up and it was so great having my support system around before this sail back. I watched the wind and talked to a few friends and lifelong sailors who told me the wind was perfect in 2 days and I needed to go for it on January 8. On January 6, my guest for the month landed and my friend Beijing came over to visit.
The day before we left was a beautiful day. We started by going out to some shallow, crystal clear water to do some fun pictures before I got my new dinghy engine. I did not want to leave for this 160 mile sail without at least an outboard engine if something were to happen. After we got the engine we took Steph’s boat out to do some spearfishing and shark diving. It felt so great to be out on the water. I was so stressed and nervous about the next day, but jumping in the water and being around great people was a nice break.
I planned to leave the bay when the wind shifted, which was predicted early morning. There was no wind the days before, so I didn’t want to risk getting out and having no wind and being stuck. The easterly was predicted to blow 15-20 knots for about 36 hours, with that night blowing 25-30 knots. My main concern was the wind being directly behind me as I crossed the bank and the gulf stream, but I know worst case scenario I could gybe a little bit through the gulf stream.
I was panning all this, trying to memorize the weather, and visualize every minute of this crossing the night before we left. We were all hanging out on Steph’s boat until about 8pm when she pulled away so I would be able to leave in the morning.
I didn’t sleep much that night; I was constantly waking up and checking if there was any wind in the bay. By 6am there was still no wind and it was supposed to have started by this point. Obviously we were protected, but we usually still feel some wind in this bay. Around 8am I decided to go for it because if I waited to long I would lose my wind would die down, and the next blow was a strong 30-35 knot blow from the north, which I really didn’t want to cross in.
Otto, my guest for the month, helped raise the anchor (manually as I had almost no battery power due to the mechanics in Puerto Rico incorrectly re-connecting my solar panels to my controller which caused the controller to break). I had the mainsail up, but I wasn’t too comfortable leaving and pulling up anchor under sail-only yet, so Stephanie and Laurent came over to bump me forward a little bit, then followed me out until I caught the wind. As soon as I got to the main channel, with corals on each side, I caught the wind and started going 6.5 knots immediately. It was bittersweet waving bye to Steph and Laurent, but my nerves went away pretty quickly and everything felt right again with the sails up and making way.
Mako hid the second we got to 6 knots and heeled over; he had never been heeled over like that and my heart sank for a few minutes… I had always tied him up with his harness at the beginning of a journey in the past, but I let him be since he was downstairs and all hatches were closed. I found him hiding under pillows in one of the stern cabins; he was not too happy with me.
The sun was shining and we were cruising at 7-8 knots. About 2 hours in the boat started swinging and making large heading changes. The autopilot didn’t have enough battery and it was time to start hand steering. I steered from 12pm-9pm. Everytime I would go downstairs, I would ask Otto to take the wheel for a second, but I hadn’t taught him yet and knew I was going to have to since we still had at least 16 hours left.
We approached the bank around 5pm and I reefed the mainsail before we made the turn as the wind was predicted to pick up any minute. After we made the turn and had a constant heading, I had Otto take the helm to get comfortable steering and learn how the boat maneuvers. As he was learning, I looked to our stern and saw a big storm headed our way, I knew this would also bring heavy winds that would probably last the whole night. I took the main all the way in and reefed the jib significantly. About 15 minutes later, the squall hit us. The rain came down hard, but thankfully, the wind wasn’t as strong as I expected it to be.
The squall passed, I changed into dry clothes, and steered until about 9pm. At that point my eyes were ‘seeing spots’ on the navigation screen in front of me and I could barely stay awake… being cold didn’t help. I laid down on my usual bed in the cockpit, but quickly asked Otto if he felt comfortable and to yell at me the second he needed me to steer, then I went downstairs. I curled up on the corner of a couch with Mako snuggled up next to me, I fell asleep quickly, happy to just be warm and dry for a second.
Every 30 minutes I asked Otto how he was doing, he steered most of the night with only a few shift changes; I was so grateful for this. I wasn’t going to do this crossing without a second hand to begin with, and this reconfirmed my decision. I couldn’t have imagined how exhausted I would be if I steered that whole crossing. Halfway through the bank there is a heading adjustment and this turn would put the wind more towards our back. It was going to be tight and I was praying that it would still be at my beam enough to keep the right heading. It was, but only by a few degrees.
After the turn, the night became a little harder. The wind picked up to 30 knots at times and it was a battle to keep the right heading without the sail flopping to the other side. It was exhausting. After switching on and off a few times, I took over steering permanently at 5am. We were almost out of the bank and getting closer to the gulf stream. The wind was directly east for a while now and I knew the gulf stream would be rough, but should be following seas and a comfortable ride. My prediction was right; although the seas were about 8-12 feet, they were behind me, along with the 20-25 knot wind that pushed us at 8-10 knots/hour through the stream towards Florida.
Around 8am my arm was killing me from steering and fighting to keep the right heading. I put on some music to pump me up a bit and decided to have fun with the following seas. I calculated every wave and was steering with the goal of surfing. This made time go by a bit quicker and I was having a blast. I got up to 10.8 knots (not the fastest I had surfed, but it was fun). By mid-afternoon we were getting closer and were in cell service range so I called towboat knowing they would take a while to get ready and get to me at the channel. An hour later, they called again and said they couldn’t take me to anchorage; only a dock or mooring ball. I called marinas to try to get approval for the mooring ball and no one answered.
Now, only miles from the channel entrance, I called Jay, the captain who trained me, and asked if he could get the dinghy off the sportfish and meet me at the channel. He brought the sportfish, its dinghy, and 4 others. I also called my friend Raff, who had been in Fort Lauderdale with his boat, and asked if he was by any chance around and would mind bringing his dinghy to help tow me. I sailed back and forth in front of Fort Lauderdale while I waited for them all to get ready.
Meanwhile I called the pilot boat and coast guard to find out when the cruise ships were going to leave (there were 7 in port and it was a Sunday afternoon), but never received an answer. Everyone that was coming to help me started coming out of the channel around 3:30pm and I got ready to sail in. The plan was for me to sail in (directly downwind) and get the dinghies attached to my stern once I was in the basin before the first bridge.
I was at the second marker when the coast guard told me I had to get out of the channel due to a cruise ship coming out. We turned to wait outside of the channel, meanwhile the wind dropped from 15 to 8 knots. After the first cruise ship got out (around 4pm), I decided we needed to go for it; there were still 6 more ships we would be waiting for, it was rough out, I was being towed, it was going to be dark soon, and I was going to an anchorage that can be fairly full.
I sailed downwind into the basin after contacting the pilot and coast guard, passing port to port with a cruise ship. As I was reaching the first turn, a coast guard boat approached me and told me to hug my starboard as much as possible; there was a cruise ship backing up right next to me. They started turning right when I needed to go into the basin, and it ended up working great. We tied the dinghies up and made it safely to anchorage.
My grandfather requested Mako’s presence immediately and I was dreaming of a hot shower, so we loaded up and headed to land for a few hours to relax before the boat work started the next day.
Again, I am so grateful for every person who helped me and dropped whatever they were doing to help. Feeling the anchor secure and being still was the best feeling; I had made it to Florida with no engine safely.
