This post is out of order, and we still have plenty more to share about or trip back north in the Bahamas, but WildHorse is now back in the USA and I wanted to post this now.

After our wonderful, sometimes difficult, fun, and adventurous winter in the Bahamas, it was time to bring WildHorse towards home.  We had just had a great week with our good friends Mark & Elaine, exploring the Abacos.  Elaine and Lucie flew home from Marsh Harbour, Mark stayed, and another friend, Luke, joined us for our planned trip north.

We met up on Green Turtle Cay, and Luke moved aboard the night before departure. I had rented a golf cart there and we went provisioning (boater-speak for grocery shopping).  Unfortunately, the choices on Green Turtle were very limited since the mail boat hadn’t arrived that week, and we got what we could, but there were basically no fresh vegetables to be found on the island.  However, we knew that we wouldn’t starve on the trip.

This would be my longest ocean passage on my own boat and as captain, so I was a bit nervous being responsible for my friends and the boat. We would be hundreds of miles offshore and totally on our own. Before leaving I had gone over everything to make sure that it was ready to go and in good shape, so I felt confident in the boat.

We had to wait for the tide to rise, and left White Sound the next day around noon.  We had good sailing that day and left the banks at about 6pm via the Moraine Cay Cut, and pointed WildHorse north!

The water quickly dropped off to thousands of feet deep and we got into the offshore sailing routine.  We decided to have 4-hour watches, from 6-10, 10-2, and 2-6.  Luke was up first, and since we were all up together throughout the day, he was familiar with the boat by then. Jack took 10-2, and Mark 2-6.  In general it worked out that we would have our 8-hour off shift time and would sleep as much as possible at night, then nap on and off during the day but were often all up together and would have at least supper all together.  It felt very sustainable.

Deep ocean water in the sun has an amazing rich indigo color, and we certainly enjoyed seeing that.

Luke at the bow, nice sailing on a broad reach.

As we passed north, we had mostly light winds. WildHorse does well in light winds so we were able to sail most of the time, but at times the winds got so light that we had to switch on the motor to keep moving.  Not counting motoring in and out of harbors and charging the batteries, we ran the motor about 20 hours over the course of 5 days.

Spinnaker up in light wind

We also tried fishing pretty much all the daylight hours of the passage but my cold streak continued. We had one bite the whole way and didn’t catch anything.

The part of the Atlantic that we were sailing in was quite empty in general. We would go up to a whole day without seeing any ships or other vessels, although we did see some wildlife. Flying fish were all around and we found small ones on the boat in the mornings when the sun came up a few times.  White-legged tropicbirds joined us for a bit, one landing on the boat.  We also had multiple tiny cliff swallows join us.  I had no idea, but they migrate yearly between South America and North America, following summer weather it seems.  They started going by on the 2nd day and stayed with us until we got closer to the coast.   Such tiny birds undoubtedly get tired flying for days over the ocean and we had a few hitch a ride.

Sleepy hitchhiker in the middle of the ocean

One in particular stayed with us most of a day, eventually losing all fear of us. He kept flying into the boat and trying to take naps there.  I put our curtain up again to try to keep him out, but being a swallow he had no problem just flying in through the open windows.  Eventually we made a little nest for him in a coiled up rope and he fell asleep until dusk, then flew off again.  I wish him luck on his return to North America too!

We also had a pod of about 6 dolphins who came and played in our bow wave for at least 45 minutes or so.

Friendly tired birdy

Overall the passage was easy and pleasant with light winds and very calm seas. I woke up multiple times and couldn’t remember if we were under way in the ocean or at a dock, it was so smooth.  We did enter the gulf stream off the coast of the Carolinas, and since it also flows north, it gave us quite a boost in speed.

Our trip timer. You can see our max speed of 11.6 knots on the upper right. Thanks, Gulf Stream!

All that smooth sailing came to an end when we rounded Cape Hatteras.  Cape Hatteras has a fearsome reputation as “The Graveyard of the Atlantic”.  While thousands of vessels round it every year, there are still some that come to woe and wreck there as well every year. It the wrong conditions, it can be quite dangerous.

We knew that there would be what the forecasters were calling a “backdoor cold front” coming at some point, but the timing was uncertain.  The difference with this cold front is that not only was it not particularly strong, but instead of the usual wind veer to the north, the wind was supposed to stay in the SE to E.  Northerly winds against the strong Gulf Stream Current can cause huge breaking waves, and when combined with the Cape effect of rounding a prominent cape, can be quite hazardous.

We had a backup bailout plan to go to Beaufort, NC in case of the wrong weather, but it was looking like we would be able to round Hatteras so we went for it.

The timing of the front just happened to coincide with our arrival at the Cape at around 2AM, so we ended up with winds in the mid to high 20-knot range and very choppy confused seas bouncing from every direction, about 6-8 feet.  They were also quite short, almost square waves, so it was rough.  This was even though we stayed well offshore, at least 25 miles or so.  We went from full sails to double-reefed main and staysail only and kept moving along nicely.

Luckily, WildHorse and the crew made it through just fine, although nobody slept very much.  The rough conditions only lasted about 6 hours, and then the seas calmed down again and the winds relaxed a bit to the high teens to low 20’s.  The temperature also dropped dramatically and I had to break out foul weather gear and long johns again for the first time since December!

We had a brisk sail the rest of the way into the Chesapeake Bay.  Norfolk and the Hampton roads are the main US Navy base on the E coast as well as a very busy commercial port.

On the way in, we were passed by a hovercraft, 3 submarines with their gunboat escorts, a helicopter carrier, besides various and sundry tugs, barges, and big cargo ships.  It was quite busy! We entered under sail upwind. All the traffic in and out of the Chesapeake has a bottleneck at the “tunnel bridge” which has about a 2000 yard gap. We were as close to the wind as we could get when going through the gap, at the exact same time as one of the subs.  The escort was firm but polite and allowed for us being under sail and didn’t open fire on us! They called us on the radio and let us know that they would stay 500 yards clear of us.

Submarine and escort in the background…

Hovercraft

We tacked immediately to get out of the way of all the traffic and had a relatively relaxing sail the rest of the way in to the Rebel Marina in Norfolk.  After checking in to US customs and immigration we had a good seafood lunch and a well-deserved long uninterrupted sleep!

Back in the USA after 5 days at sea!

Mark had to leave early the next day back to California, Luke stayed another day, and we celebrated my birthday with our friends from Phocea who also were in Hampton Roads on their way back north.

All in all, a successful and fun passage!

Birthday in Norfolk!