General – Page 3 – Sailing Pearl: Travels on a Beneteau Oceanis 373

Adding Air Conditioning: A Helpful Digression

Lisa and I don’t do well together when it’s too hot to sleep. We bicker. Tempers fray. Harley the dog tries to find a place to hide. None of that works well on a small boat.

A couple of summers ago we solved this problem by jerry rigging a window-type AC on deck to keep us cool. While cost effective and functional, the jerry-rigged solution is (as a friend of mine put it) ghetto-fabulous. It also makes taking Pearl out sailing a major production causing us to stay in rather than go sailing.

Having turned 50, I relented. I decided that I should follow Lisa’s advice and we should bite the bullet and install an self contained reverse cycle air conditioning system. The upside is that we can have air conditioned (both heating and cooling) comfort wherever we go — particularly if we add a a generator. The downside is the expense, installation aggravation, and loss of storage space.

Having finally consumed most of the stuff we provisioned for going to the Bahamas last year we agreed we could use the lose the roughly 2 cubic feet of space the the air conditioner and 4 cubic feet the ducting would consume. Note to self: don’t over provision. Also, we’ve been freeing space by tossing out stuff we (mostly I) thought was essential.

One can spend truly egregious amounts of money on an ACs and installation. Yes. There are such things as “bespoke” air conditioners — custom made units to fit in specific places in a boat — and it’s really easy to get sucked into thinking you need one. Having looked at the options, however, and friends who’d done their own installs, Lisa and I decided that we would purchase a kit and do the installation ourselves. It’s not rocket surgery, after all.

What we learned from out experience:

Measure several times, cut once.
Lay out every component and ensure that you have the space to do what you need to — e.g. connect fittings, hoses, and hose clamps — and leave extra hose and wire so that you can do maintenance.
Ensure there is a constant upward. flow of water from the through-hull to the filter, then the pump, and air conditioner — if you do this, you don’t need to worry about priming the system.
You don’t need to install a sump and possibly separate thru hull for draining condensation. A couple of vendors (Marvair and Mermaid) offer venturi pumps that attach to the discharge hose.
Double the time you think it will take to get anything done.

Also, consider taking yoga classes to prepare yourself for the unique positions in which you will likely need to pose yourself to install some of the components.

Fortunately for us, Beneteau offers the 373 with a factory installed air conditioning as an option. Beneteau’s Customer Service very helpfully provided us with the schematics and a parts specifications for the ACs they install, as well as pictures of someone else’s installation. While we did purchase several parts from Beneteau for the installation, we didn’t get all of them — in some cases because they just weren’t available.

As it turns out, the Dometic Marine Air 16000 BTU Retrofit Kit fits perfectly in the space mapped out. We tried a Webasto 16k BTU but despite the specs indicating it would fit, we just couldn’t wrangle the unit into place. We bought our system from West Marine, and avoided getting the install kit in favor of buying individual components. This ended up being less expensive than buying the “kit” and had better components — e.g. brass rather than plastic fittings.

AC Installation Picture — The AC in place under the Port side settee. The grubby bilge is from the condensate buildup — which should be addressed by the Marvair Condensator.

The most demanding part of the installation was running the plumbing. While we had a “spare” through-hull fitting that we were able to use, getting the water filter, pressure pump, and air conditioner on a consistently increasing gradient was a bit of a challenge. We still need to fiddle around with this whenever the filter gets clogged.

Fortunately, Lisa is both small and flexible. Running the pipes and attaching the necessary hose clamps and fittings in tight spaces required some impressive contortions on her part. Regrettably, there is no photographic evidence of her feats as my picking up a camera would have resulted in “bad things” happening. I am not sure what the bad things are, but i prefer not to find out.

The most traumatic part of the install was cutting into Pearl’s cabinetry and drilling a hole in her hull. With the right tool, anything is possible. We ended up getting a Rigid Multi-Tool from Home Depot for cutting the holes for the return air vent, ducting, and the thermostat/control head. The multi-tool was far easier and more precise and manageable in the confined spaces we were working in than either a rotozip or a jig saw — we tried to use both. The mutl-tool was well worth the $65 cost. Prior to this, I thought they were completely pointless. For the vent into the salon, we needed a Milwaukee 5″ hole for which we used a hole saw. These tools, along with a nut drive for tightening the hose clams made the install quite manageable.

The other part of the story was hooking up the power. This wasn’t too bad. Instead of trying to patch into the existing wiring and adding a circuit breaker, we opted to run a completely seperate dedicated 30 amp circuit for the AC — complete with a Beneteau standard Merlin Gerin Circuit Breaker. There is nothing else on the circuit. This way, if we choose to run the AC while at anchor all we theoretically need to do is plug in the generator.

There is one other component we need to install. It’s a Venturi pump made by Dometic/Marvair that evacuates the condensation pan that currently drains into the bilge. While, once again, you can jerry rig a much less expensive solution using fish tank supplies, we figured the potential downsides out weighed the higher cost. Hopefully, once this is complete, we’ll be back to having a clean, dry bilge!

We love having our AC so far. It works much better than the ghetto fabulous cabin-top jerry rigged unit we had. It dries out the inside of the boat — which is nice — and keep the outside of the boat cleaner and less cluttered. Good call Lisa. Stay tuned for more.

Fishing the Flats and Blue Fish Channel

We went fishing once again with our friend Capt. Ruben Dias a couple of weeks ago. While we’ve been honing our fishing skills by going out every day, it’s a bit difficult to get to the places there are interesting sized fish in our Dinghy. This has prompted us to consider getting a little fishing boat that we can take out and even possibly do fishing charters, but that’s another story. Back to fishing with Ruben.

The fishing goal for the day was pretty interesting. There were still Tarpon rolling in the channel in front of our marina. Lisa and I had also noticed some Permit (Trachinotus falcatus) “tailing” around the same channel. Our plan for the day, therefore, was to try to catch Tarpon and Permit.

Permit are pretty interesting fish. They are broad and flat and look a bit like Jacks. They are also shy and pretty skittish, which makes them hard to catch. Permit feed on crabs, shrimp, and other stuff that you find on he bottom around mud flats. When they do so, they feed head down, with their tails stuck in the air — hence the term tailing — generally facing up-current. To catch them, ideally you present them with a live crab floated down to them with the current.

Fortunately for us, Ruben had been out the day before and had a couple of live crabs saved. We did, however, have a couple of different types of fake crabs as well. While crabs will work for Tarpon as well, what we really needed fro them were Pin Fish (aka Sand Perch).

Previously, Lisa and I had set out Pin Fish traps. These are mesh boxes that you bait with chum (ground up fish waste). They have with a couple of entrances through which the Pin Fish enter and then … it’s Hotel California. Anyway, this time, instead of setting out a trap, we had to catch our Pin Fish as we had lost two traps over the previous couple of days.

Juvenile Pin Fish hang around grassy flats, so out first order of business was to head to one and catch a bunch. To do this, we used what’s called a Sabiki rig, essentially a bunch of tiny hooks attached to dropper lines that are baited with slivers of squid, and chummed up a bunch of Pin Fish. Catching the pinfish was surprisingly easy. The Sabiki rigs allow you to pull in several at the same time. Since it was the crack of dawn and my coffee hadn’t kicked in, Lisa and Ruben did the honors.

After we’d got a decent stock of Pin Fish we headed back in the direction of the Marina and what we hoped was Tarpon having their breakfast.

When we got to the channel, there were a couple of Tarpon rolling every so often. That meant they were feeding, but there were only a couple of them instead of the decent number we’d seen the previous time we were out. I wanted to head in, gas up the boat, and go chase Permit. Ruben, however, wanted to try his luck.

The tide was still coming in. We decided to set up and drift in with the current along the path that the Tarpon would be feeding. On the first try, we got pushed to leeward by the wind faster than we expected. On the second try, Ruben adjusted for the wind and we drifted down nicely along the channel. We all cast out. I was on the bow of the boat and cast downwind. Lisa was in the middle and cast out in the same direction. Ruben cast upwind. Just about the time we got to the leeward side fo the channel, Ruben got a strike and hooked up.

This time, when Ruben tried to hand over his rod, both Lisa and I declined. It was a good thing we did because Ruben had hooked an 80-90 lb fish. The fight was on! The Tarpon stripped Ruben’s line. As it tired, it came close to surface, it jumped. Ruben reeled in. As the fish got close to the boat it stripped his line again. While we got the fish close to the boat on several occasions, we didn’t get a chance to grab the leader and call the fish “landed.” Finally, after about an hour, the Tarpon manage to break the leader and was free.

While the broken leader was unfortunate, it wasn’t really surprising. Ruben was using a 50 lb fluorocarbon (monofilament) leader that pretty much disappears in the water. While Tarpon don’t have sharp teeth that will slice a plastic leader like Sharks or Barracuda, they have a hard mouth with very abrasive lips. Eventually, their lips wear through the leader — if they don’t spit the hook out when the jump. I think even though Ruben was disappointed, he was also a bit relieved. The fish worked him pretty well. The next day, he had bruises on his fore arms from fighting it.

Unfortunately, I have to take a some of the credit for Ruben’s lost fish. Fishing for Tarpon on light tackle is not just about the guy on the rod landing the fish. The person driving the boat plays a part by herding the fish in helpful directions, letting the fish run and tire itself without stripping all the line, and bringing in close when necessary. There’s a magic balance here. Ruben did a great job with this when Lisa had a Tarpon on line previously — myself, not so much.

After the Tarpon, we headed into the marina to gas up the boat and head out to the flats to the South of the Marina looking for Permit and perhaps Redfish (Red Drum). Flats fishing is different. Essentially, you’re fishing in a couple of feet of water. The fish you’re hunting are “bottom feeders,” that are typically foraging for small fish, crabs, and shrimp that live around the sea grass and outcroppings. This style of fishing involves spotting the fish and then casting at them with an appropriate bait. The fish are pretty skittish, so ideally, you cast ahead of the fish and drift your bait towards it. This is not a sport for the impatient.

Fortunately, Ruben has a “flats boat” that’s designed to run in shallow water. Typically, a flats boat will run in less than a foot of water, with most of them needing about 8 inches to float. Running in very shallow water is a problem with a regular outboard because the prop wash churns up sand and silt that can get drawn into the engine. Therefore, when on the flats, these boats are poled by the guide who stands on an elevated platform on the stern — or an electric trolling motor. The platform serves three functions. The first is that it offers an elevated view from when to spot fish. The second is that it allows a longer pole to be used for poling, and third it’s a handy cutting table for prepping bait. The downside to a flats boat is that it becomes really bouncy if there is any chop — it doesn’t have enough of a ‘V’ in the hull to cut through waves.

I was convinced that the flats onto which we were headed were full of Permit and Redfish, and Ruben dutifully obliged by poling Lisa and myself across it trying to find fish. We were sadly disappointed. There were no Permit or Redfish to be seen. All we saw were a couple of Spotted Eagle Rays cruising along.

Having given up on the flats, we decided to head North to a popular fishing location: the Blue Fish Channel. Lisa at this point was eager to catch something that she could sink her teeth into at dinner. So off we went fishing for the ubiquitous Snapper.

The Bluefish Channel lies to the North of Key West and more or less parallels the Calda Channel which is a secondary entrance into the Key West harbor. It’s interesting because it drains the grat bank to the north of Key West. What this means is it’s a majot “highway” for fish that come onto the bank (flats) to hunt. The tricky bit with the Blue Fish Channel is that the Southern end it’s only a couple of feet deep. Ruben who’s pretty familiar with fishing it had no problem getting us in.

I love this area of the flats. It’s a quick ride from Key West, but makes you feel like you are lot further out than you really are. It’s also picturesque, you have water in various shades of blue punctuated by little green islands. Anyway, we headed up Blue Fish Channel, dropped anchor and started chumming.

It didn’t take long for Lisa to start hooking snapper and Blue Runners. She was hoping for some large Mutton Snapper, but all we got were Mangrove Snappers and Grunts. Having gotten bored with what we were catching, I decided to use a Shark Rig (wire + fluorocarbon leader) with a small Grunt to see what I could catch. Unfortunately for me, having got a decent strike and a short run, my line broke. As Ruben Determined later, my line (mono-filament in this case) had got dried and/or worn out by the tropical sun.

This was fun mixed bag fishing. You get what you get. Our fun, however, was cut short by a thunder storm that closed in from the North prompting us to head back to the harbor and the safety and warmth of Pearl.

Tarpon and Flats fishing with Reuben

Last Sunday Lisa and I went fishing with Reuben, a friend of ours who is a local fishing guide and Captain. I’d been quizzing Reuben for a while about fishing spots around Key West and techniques for catching the various species around here so he decided to take us out on his flats boat to show us how it was done.

The morning started out with fishing for Tarpon just off the marina where we are based. Tarpon, are super-fun-to-catch game fish that live around the Florida keys. They are pretty easy to spot as they roll at the surface, particularly when they are feeding. They are notoriously acrobatic like sail fish and marlin, and put up a really good fight. Large Tarpon can get up to 8 ft long and 350 lbs. They really are pretty spectacular.

While Lisa and I had hooked Tarpon previously, neither of us had “landed” one. Landing Tarpon entails bringing the fish into the boat and grabbing the leader. You aren’t allowed to actually take them out of the water as they are a protected species.

Anyway, after loading up the boat for a mornings fishing and collecting the bait fish we had in our trap, (see story about the eel) we set the boat up so that it would drift in the current through where the tarpon were feeding. We baited our hooks by hooking some of the live pin fish we had collected through the upper lip, and cast them out. The point of hooking the fish through the upper lip is so that they can open their mouths, letting water through their gills and last longer.

We didn’t hook anything on either our first or second drifts. On our third drift, I thought I had a strike but really managed to foul-hook something on the bottom. Usually, if someone has a fish on, everyone else brings their lines in, which Lisa and Reuben did.

This time, once I cleared my line Reuben cast out and immediately got a strike. Realizing that Lisa had never LANDED a Tarpon, he passed his rod over to her so that she could fight the fish. Being a guide, getting a Tarpon online was no big deal for Reuben. Amusingly Lisa thought he was just handing her a rod to hold before she noticed a the reel whining as the fish ran with the line and grabbed on.

And then, the fight was on. The Tarpon Lisa had was pretty large. When they run, the run pretty hard. They also breach, jumping out of the water trying to break the line or shake it loose. As I’ve heard it, most fish are either marathoners (like tuna) that keep running, and running, and running, or sprinters (like Barracuda) that strip your line and jump a bit and are done. Tarpon do both — it’s one of their features as they have a swim bladder through which they absorb oxygen, giving them tremendous stamina. Lisa’s Tarpon kept running and rolling, flashing his colors in the clear Florida water. He also breached thrice, and I manged to snap a pic of him on one of his jumps.

It took about 30 mins for her to reel the Tarpon in. When she got it to the boat, Reuben grabbed the leader, making the “landing” official. His guess at the weight was 50-60 lbs. Good job Lisa!

When Reuben tried to lift the Tarpon so that I could get a picture, the fish pulled gain, snapping the leader. While Tarpon don’t have large sharp teeth like sharks and barracuda, the have very rough lips that wear through line and leaders.

After that we did another drift but that was pretty much the end of the Tarpon’s breakfast time so we packed up and headed off into “the Back Country” for some flats fishing.

The back country of Key West is a series of uninhabited keys to the North (mostly) of Key West. The waters around them are pretty shallow, probably a couple of feet on average, hence the term “flats.” There are several different species of fish that inhabit the flats hunting around for various critters that live there. We headed out there looking for shark, red fish, and maybe some snapper. The picture below is from a different trip.

Our first stop there was around Snipes Key. The water there was pretty cloudy and tannic from fermenting (dead) sea grass. Apparently, this is something that Redfish (Red Drum) like so we decided to try our luck. The water there is too shallow to use an outboard, so Reuben graciously poled us around, standing on the platform you see behind him trying to spot fish at which to cast top water lures (poppers). I half expected Reuben to break into song while poling, but he didn’t oblige on that one.

We didn’t have much luck until we got into a deeper channel where I managed to hook a small Black Tip shark. He was maybe 3 ft long and weighed about 20 lbs?

After the shark, we decided to head back with a brief stop in one of the channels for some snapper action. This was a completely different style of fishing than what we had been doing before. This time, instead of using plugs or lures, we chummed the water and used squid on weighted lines, bottom fishing, sort of.

We caught a whole bunch of fish here, snappers and blue runners. Reuben managed to catch the smallest fish of the day, but then he really wasn’t trying to catch anything. He was very kindly showing us how and where to fish.

After that, we headed back in. The entire trip lasted about four hours, and it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of laughing. As far as guides go, if you ever need one Reuben’s a great guy to get. He has a quiet sense of humor and doesn’t take himself very seriously unlike many of the other guides in Key West. He is, however, a great teacher. Both Lisa and I learned a lot from him.

If you are wondering whether this was all sport, just catch and release, it wasn’t. We kept several of the snapper that we caught. There is nothing quite like fresh unrefrigerated fish that you’ve caught — for dinner. Here’s Lisa’s soon to be world famous Snapper Veracruz.

Stay tuned for more adventures from Key West.

Lisa’s “Deadliest Catch”

For those of you who missed intermediate episodes, Lisa and I DID NOT off to the Bahamas as advertised. We had problems with our refrigeration system that eventually took about six weeks to resolve. Besides, we really weren’t interested in wandering too far from “home” during hurricane season.

Since we weren’t off exploring foreign lands, Lisa and I decided to explore where we are more thoroughly. By and by this evolved into getting more serious about catching fish — rather than fishing which is one of my more favored pass times.

As luck would have it, a friend of ours at the Marina who is a charter boat captain and an experienced fishing guide took us his wing and is teaching us how to hunt (and catch) the different species of fish around the keys — which gets me to to the point of this story.

By the way, the Florida Keys and Key West (in particular) are one of the most varied and productive fishing grounds on the planet. There are a variety of environments raging from deep sea (1000+ ft) fishing for Marlin and Sail Fish to bottom fishing for giant (500+ lb) grouper and sharks, to flats (very shallow) fishing for Tarpon, Bone Fish, and Permit. All of this is available within about 10 miles of Key West.

In order to CATCH fish here, however, it helps to have live bait. Yeah, I have learned to throw a cast net, but there are easier ways to catch bait fish — namely use a fish trap. So … our friend Capt. Bill generously loaned us a fish trap that he wasn’t using as well as a pen to hold the fish we trapped. We were ecstatic!

Lisa and I duly loaded the trap with chum (a disgusting fish-oliy goo) that attracts fish and laid it out on a nice patch of sand for our prospective. The first time we did this, we got a nice haul of bait fish, and had a great day hooking (but not landing) tarpon on light spinning tackle.

The following day when we checked our trap, it contained a whole bunch of the little gray faces of the grunts and snappers we were becoming accustomed. It also had a mean, green, rather annoyed looking … eel. Besides our bait fish, we had managed to catch a four foot green moray eel. You can see his face at the bottom left corner of the picture above.

Fortunately we spotted the eel before we up-ended the trap into out bait bucket on the dinghy. If we had, the very-irritated-by-this-point moray would have got loose in the dinghy which would not have been fun, to say the least. Discretion being the better part of valor, we decided to open the trap, let bait fish escape, and the eel depart without further ado. Even though they aren’t venomous, tangling with a 4 ft angry eel wasn’t either Lisa or my idea of fun.

Fun would be catching a 50 lb Tarpon or Tuna on 10 – 20 lb test. Stay tuned for more fishing adventures.

Crossing to the Bahamas: Take “35”

If you are reading this post, Lisa and I have left for the Bahamas. We are en route, and I no longer have the ability to change the publish date on the post.

The last couple of weeks since Lisa’s kids were visiting have been excruciating. We took a brief break and did a shakedown cruise following the kids visit for Lisa’s birthday. After that, we’ve been getting the boat prepped to depart.

Something we decided after we took the kids and Pearl out to the Marquesas was that we needed solar panels. This had to do with draining the batteries completely and having to use the generator to recharge them.

The solar panels have been ordered and installed. All the fuel cans have been filled. Provisions have been purchased and vacuum sealed. Except for some minor tidying up, we are ready to go.

Our original plan was to leave Key West, hop up the coast, and make landfall in the Bahamas at Bimini. I wanted to do this to avoid sailing at night. We may harbor hop up the Florida keys, or we may hop out into the Gulf Stream. You will have to read our next post to find that out.

In the mean time, the winds and swells look fair, so we plan to go for it. Stay tuned for more, ideally from the Bahamas!

Crossing to the Bahama: Cabin Fever

For those of you who have been reading these posts, Lisa and I keep threatening to cross to the Bahamas and then back off. The dock-itis we were experiencing earlier is now working itself into full blown cabin fever.

The fact that I’ve been out of commission for most of a month is not helping the cause. I am now back to about 90% — the pain in my leg from a bad case of Sciatica is mostly gone.

There’s a weather window coming up at the end of this week and we should be in position to leave BUT Lisa wanted her family to come visit in June. The only way we can have them visit without paying an egregious amount in airfare is to stay put in Key West for another month until they leave.

All our departure prep has stopped and in many cases is being reversed to accommodate our guest. Perhaps we will go sailing locally in the interim, or perhaps we’ll figure out an alternative to Lisa’s family visiting us on the boat. Regardless, something needs to give. Trying to cruise based on someone else’s schedule tends to end badly, and that is where we seem to be headed right now.

A Bad Case of Dock-itis!

Yesterday, excitement began early in the am. I thought we were going to have a very busy day readying Pearl for finally pulling away from the dock, hoisting her sails and launching our adventure. All mechanical equipment is working well, spares have been vacuum sealed to keep watertight, main food supplies are on board. And then…… the weather turned and we do not have enough time to depart Key West and make it safely across the Gulf Stream to Bimini. So …. for now, we remain tied at the dock! We are waiting for our next weather window which now appears to be early next week. Meanwhile, HARLEY is depressed and acting annoyed with his Parents.

//WL2K Testing the radio link

This is our first post using an email over a radio link to update our blog. If this works, this will enable us to let you know what’s going on while we are under way, or from remote locations. Sometimes, the Internet and technology can be very cool. For me, this is one of those examples.

Starting to Get Our Feet Wet: Off to the Bahamas Soon?

Okay!?! Lisa and I are ready to try heading to the Bahamas again. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of commission for the last two weeks with serious Sciatica. The seems to be clearing up, and there’s a nice weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream later this week.

Since I’ve been out of commission for the past two weeks, we are planning to take it easy by doing two approximately 50mi hops on the first two days from Key West to Marathon and then from Marathon to Rodriguez Key off Key Largo. From there, we are expecting a 90mi hop to Bimini. The following graphic shows our planned route with the stops in pink place marks.

When most non-boaters hear this their response tends to be “Huh? Why so slow?” The answer is that Pearl moves at an average of 5 knots, or about 5.7 mph. Yup. That’s a leisurely pace. This can be further slowed by an unfavorable winds and current. The current in the Hawk Channel that we will be heading up is estimated at about 0.5 kt against us. Hmmm.

On the other hand, crossing from Rodiguez Key to Bimini, we should get about a 3kt lift to the north as the Gulf Stream seems to be ripping at the moment. What this means is we’ll be steering a course that’s about ENE to compensate.

As an aside, given that we will be using our trusty Auto Pilot (a.k.a. Otto von Helmsmann) he will likely be steering a heading rather than towards a waypoint. Why is that you ask? Steering a compass course or heading will minimize the course corrections required on a continuous basis. Yes, that’s geeky, but perhaps useful to someone.

Our current plan is to leave Key West on Wednesday and possibly cross the Stream on Friday, or perhaps Saturday depending on how things go. We expect to update our location at least daily if you want to follow along. If you decide you need to panic about our whereabouts at any time, call Jaywant, Brenda, or Chris, and then wait for about 24 hrs before you actually freak out. Note that we do have an EPIRB and Brenda and Chris are our contacts.

Let us know if you have questions, and we hope you have fun following along.

A Spitting Baby Sunfish

Living on the water, every so often you see really curious things. This is a video we took a while ago of a little sunfish that was hanging out around the docks, spitting … It’s cute. It’s kinda funny. I think he was just having fun.

Sunfish are really cool. They grow to be about 1000kg or 2200lbs. This one’s just a tiny baby. Check out the wikipedia link about them.

Here’s a little video clip of all the action.

[jwplayer mediaid=”1627″]

A Quick Shakedown Trip to Boca Grande

Having finally got the boat together, on May 02, Lisa and I decided to take Pearl down to Boca Grande, a local island about 15 mi to the west of Key West. The weather was perfect, sunny, and 85 with the wind from the SE/SSE at 17 – 22 kts which gave us a nice beam reach all the way.

We anchored about a mile north of up the channel by Boca Grande in about 20 ft of calm water. Since the wind was clocking around to the south, we wanted to be as protected as possible from the swells.

This was the first time Lisa and I had taken Pearl out just by ourselves with Harley. It was a great time, as you can see from the look on Lisa’s face despite my having back issues. One of the things we learned on this trip was that Lisa can handle most things on the boat very well, without a lot of interference from me.

The trip back to Key West was the same. A nice beam reach with the winds from the SSW this time. The boat performed flawlessly both outbound and returning to base. The davits (over which I had a mild concern re the dingy swinging around) were unnoticeable for the most part after I added an aft breast line.

Here a quick video of the trip.

[jwplayer mediaid=”1618″]

Getting to the Bahamas fom Key West

For the past 3 months or so, Lisa and I have advertized that we are in imminent “danger” of heading to the Bahamas. This tends to peak at the end of every month. We have, however, kept suffering all kinds of setbacks: the engine raw water cooling system on Pearl glitched; the dinghy started coming unglued; we needed to install davits; we were missing parts; the list goes on.

At this point, both Lisa and I have given up on “trying” to leave. Perhaps we will just … leave.

For those of you who are interested, we are considering three different “landfalls” in the Bahamas, and there are a couple of different ways to handle the trip. There is an added question of where to check in and clear customs, etc. More on that later.

Option #1 (Green): “Landfall at South Riding Rock, check in at Chub Key in the Berry Islands. This is the most aggressive approach to getting to the Bahamas, but also likely the fastest. The idea here is that one heads more or less due East out of Key West, catch the Gulf Stream off Sombrero Key Light, and ride the gulf stream all the way, get on the Bahama Bank at South Riding Rock. We’d spend the night anchored in the middle of nowhere on the Bank, and then head for Chub Key in the Berry Island Group to check in. This would be 18 – 24 hours to make landfall on the bank, and then another 10 to 16 hours to get to the Berrys depending on the current on the bank.

There are a number of people who’ve recommended this option to us, and it’s a popular route with lots of traffic (particularly on the Bahama bank). The great thing about this option is that it’s two days (roughly) to get to the crusing grounds. The downside is that if we read the weather wrong, we’re pretty exposed.

Option #2 (Red-Pink-Cyan-Orange): “Hop up the Hawk Channel to Marathon and Key Largo/Rodriguez Key, making landfall and check in in at Bimini. This option takes the longest time and is the most conservative way to make the trip. It also gives us the option of joining up with other boats making the crossing, which given our lack of experience with the Bahamas would be welcome company. This option would still require us to spend a night on the Bank getting to the Berrys, but the pace we’d be at gives us many more “fall back” options.

Option #3 (Yellow-Orange): Catch the gulf stream off of the Sombrero Key Light to Cat Cay (or Bimini), and stage there for a banks crossing. This option has the benefit of using the Gulf Stream current as it rips though the Florida Straights to accelerate our passage up the Florida Keys and onto the Bahama Bank. It also allows us to to rest up at a secure location at the end of a long transit. The time frame for this trip is the same as option #1, with the difference is that the first night stopped would be at a marina rather than on the hook, and during the first two thirds of the trip we can duck back into the Hawk Channel if necessary.

We are still figuring out which option to take, but will most likely take the third option. If you’ve done this trip, we’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions!