A Season of Firsts

I had no idea how many " First Time for That" this trip would involve and it has just begun. We floated off Cumberland Island around 9 pm and proceeded to exit through the channel. We have been in and out of that channel many times but this was the FIRST time in darkness. (notice I did not say total darkness. that comes later) The dark was slightly disorienting but the channel is well marked. We did go out much further than necessary . we usually cut out after marker 16 but the fact that we weren't sure which marker was which until we actually used our heads and a flashlight we exited at marker 12 and headed south.

Bottom exposed the cheap way

Freddie working on the zincs

Beautiful view off Cumberland

It started raining on my Monday early morning, 5 am watch. I was thoroughly soaked but collected enough rain water to rinse a small load of laundry. Cruisers will usually wash their clothes in sea water and rinse them in fresh as long as there is a sufficient supply. Fresh water is one of those things that is always conserved on board. The wind was blowing from the north so we attempted to actually travel by sail power alone for the FIRST time. Success! We are Sailing! We actually got up to 6 mph and sailed a true course all afternoon.I can't express the joy we both felt in that accomplishment. Later in the afternoon we tried to reset the reefing points. Our main is a hefty fully battened mainsail which is a real bear to hoist up. Since we had to take the mast down during our repairs, we needed to reset the reefing points another FIRST. Note to would be cruisers, if you never enjoyed a hobby horse you will not like sailing, at least on a catamaran. Everything you do will have to be accomplished while balancing during that motion. It can provide quite the comic relief from time to time. I would provide videos but it would look like I closed the bar last night and promptly have everyone seasick. Never the less balancing on top of the cabin that is moving like a hobby horse and threading a line (sailor talk, rope) through the sail was quite an accomplishment. Unfortunately it was done backwards and had to be repeated.  More comic relief. At almost sundown things took a turn for the worse. Our beautiful weather turned nasty big time. All the forecasts had very light seas for the duration of our trip south. The highest forecast ed seas were 4 feet during the week. We were just getting to Cape Canaveral around sunset and were around 20 miles out from land, when I looked ahead and the only thing I could see was blackness. Seriously it looked like a curtain of black velvet. The wind , now blowing directly on our nose, picked up and the seas kicked up as we were swallowed by the black velvet. Sailing in total darkness (another FIRST) . No moon, stars or  any lights from land. We could not tell where the sea ended and the sky began and our rocking horse was kicking as if he had been injected with steroids and drank a case of Red Bull! We took turns donning our foul weather gear and sitting at the helm and being thankful for an AIS which would hopefully alert us if we were about to run into something or vice verso. We slowed the boat down to try to make the ride a little more comfortable but it still shuttered with each wave that would pick us up and drop us down. When the sun came up the next morning The sea still looked like a washing machine, the wind was still on our nose but what was disheartening was we were right where we were at sunset. Tacking in and out in our giant washing machine, we spent all day just to  make it around the point of Cape Canaveral and go into the Port there, refuel and head back out late Tuesday afternoon.  Ok by now the seas had died down and the sun was shining, A Record 91 degrees, and we headed South with winds forecast ed to clock around to the west and then the northeast. An hour later the weather forecast changed with the storms we had thought we had left behind us to the north are now popping us where we were. In fact they were advising boaters to seek safe harbor (no where to be found) Oh well another bouncing night of little sleep to look forward to. I was taking the first night watch so I decided to take a short nap before going on watch when around 8 pm, I was suddenly awakened by Freddie heading down to the nav station saying we had just lost our electronics! In my sleep deprived stupor I donned my gear and after bumping into everything possible I went up to take the helm while Freddie worked on the C80. The C80 is our chart plotter, radar, AIS (target spotter and alert er) tells us where we are, how fast we are going , how deep it is and pretty much everything and it wasn't talking. Note to self, and any other first time cruiser, always take periodic location readings. We have paper charts, a must, but we had no idea where we were to know which chart to use. Another possible black velvet washing machine night for two exhausted newbie sailors and this time now electronic help. Again, not good. At the helm I was praying a true foxhole prayer. I begged God to please divide the storms I saw ahead and let the moon and stars shine that night. Well He did more than that, He also calmed the seas. We found a little handheld GPS that a friend had picked up from a flea market (THANK YOU STEVIE!) and located our coordinates to match them on the map and plotted our night. Around 2 am we were comfortable enough with our navigational engineering to start taking shifts at the helm and getting a little rest. The helmsman/helms-woman was treated to a watch that included the moon shining on calm seas, and a brilliant array of stars  as we made our way to Fort Pierce at dawn to regroup and repair. That is where we are now. Snug in the Harbortown Marina exhausted but grateful and still looking forward to continue the adventure. The pictures are of the easy stuff. No time for photography during the challenges.

4.5 mph under sail!

The main takes a lot of muscle

more sails, what can I say we were stoked!

Freddie isn't always at the helm.

This was before we put up the sails

Sun just starting to peek over the horizon after a long night without instruments.Happy to be able to see to enter Ft. Pierce and make repairs and rest!