March 22 and 23 Crossing the Gulf Stream

Three years ago we were lucky to ride the Gulf Stream for three or four days and nights straight to Beaufort, North Carolina.  This time we could not find a weather window big enough to do that much sailing in the Gulf Stream, so on March 22 we sailed west (northwest) from Bimini to St. Augustine, Florida.  So far we had been able to sail every day of our trip home and we were hopeful that this passage would be all sailing too.  However, sometime during the night of March 22 the winds died and we had to turn on the engine.  In the morning we tried launching the spinnaker in the light air, but the sail went crazy wrapping around itself such that it was quite a challenge to get the thing unwrapped from the furled jib and down on the deck.  After that we resigned ourselves to motoring on to St. Augustine.

At one point we were moving long with about 20 dolphins--all of us going about 7 or 8 knots!  After it got dark the dolphins beside our boat kicked up an impressive light show with the phosphorescence in the water.  Here they are:

Our original calculations had us arriving in St. Augustine sometime in the daylight of March 24; however, things got confusing and we found ourselves facing a night time arrival at St. Augustine.  Entering any harbor--even ones you know well--is tricky business and really should be done during daylight hours.  But it was 2AM in the morning of March 24 with no moonlight when we arrived.  Captain John said we could sail up and down in the ocean until the sun came up, but we were so very tired he decided to try picking our way into the harbor.  It was going well until we came upon a huge dredge barge with tentacles of pipes all over the inlet channel--yikes!  We got the dredge boat on the VHF radio and he told us to keep the barge and all its tentacles to our starboard.  Of course it wasn't quite that simple, but John did a terrific job of getting us safely into the harbor.

We found a vacant mooring ball at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina and tied up and slept like dead people.  The next day we started working on clearing through US Customs.