APRIL 27, 2008 NOT ACROSS THE GULFSTREAM by Jack
Okay, first, we traveled hundreds of miles to be here, at Bimini so that we could leave at the opportune weather moment. We only go 6 or 7 mph do that, so it's a lot. Once here, we waited, and watched for the weather to be exactly right. We skipped Saturday because Sunday would be slightly better. 8 or so boats were doing likewise. We all left together. We got halfway across the Gulf Stream, with the wind at our backs, the wave at our backs, the current at our backs.
We heard the Coast Guard pulling over boats. Figures. I guess they don't even patrol when it's stormy, cold, windy, or rough. But when the seas are nice, they're out there keeping you “safe.” We hear people getting boarded on VHF.
Sure enough, then they come after us. We wait and wait, as they stalk us. They drove next to us for half an hour or something, before I got on the radio and asked if we they neede our sails down or anything (like, in case they wanted to board us). They said no.
They grill us for info, and then finally, say they're boarding. Another half an hour goes by while we putt along. They come up to get on, and ram their boat into ours (with the soft nose, of course), swinging us off course, now instead of oriented right to the waves, we're pointed at a funny angle, surfing down waves, trying to avoid a wild broach which would steer us further into them as they plow ahead with mega horsepower. The wind is no longer filling the sail, the sail hestitates, then catches the wind and swings wildly to the other side, almost clocking one of their guys on the head. I tell him hold on, get the boat under control, and we resume our conversation, with them in our tiny boat, with their pistols, tasers, etc.
They say they need to check the holds for water. “WHAT?” If we were sinking, we would know it. It was clearly a thinly veiled chance to search our boat, which they did. Then they had to look for flares. Ours are expired. Apparently, this is worth a ticket, even by their own admission later, you don't need to carry them in the daytime. We still got a ticket, though. Our fire extinguisher is low on juice. We told them we tried to buy one in Nassau, Eleuthera, and Bimini (true), but they were not available where we looked (marine and hardware stores). After calling in to Miami, they told us that the boat can't sail further without one, and they would not share. They also said they recommended that Miami let us just sail on, and get one once we landed, but Miami said “negative.”
They wrote us our tickets, told us to turn our boat around and sail to Bimini. Ruth and I pointed out that we were halfway across the Gulf Stream. They said that it was just too dangerous for us to continue on without a fire extinguisher on board that had a new date on it. We pointed out that 99% of the casualties, if not more, on this dangerous body of water appear to be weather, not fire related, and that sailing halfway across, back to Bimini, where you probably can't even find a fire extinguisher, let alone buy one, and then crossing again (like crossing twice, the second time in much more inclement weather) was more dangerous than just getting there and buying a fire extinguisher where we know they are available.
They didn't seem to agree, or rather “Miami” didn't, according to them, despite their “recommendations to the contrary.” We asked that they call Miami to reconsider, and they refused. They left, circled us (“escorted”) for a long time, vulturelike (“for our safety”), and then demanded that we hail them on the radio when we are moored in Bimini.
Chuckleheaded bastards. That's our government at work again. Tax dollars well spent. I asked the second chucklehead if they would be monitoring our progress across, and would they note if someone like us happened to stop in the Stream and drift endlessly. They said not to worry “you'd hit land eventually.” Wow, thanks! I feel secure.
Great to know that these idiots are safely monitoring the one vessel in the Gulf Stream that we KNOW is NOT sinking for hours at a time, and then following it further into the Stream, and then turning around and forcing us to go AWAY from our own country, away from the place where the fire extinguishers are sold, INTO the waves, wind and current, to go on a wild goose chase to find fire extinguishers that they recommend we “have shipped to us” in Bimini, only to be forced to wait for another window of weather that MIGHT be as safe as the one we were almost done sailing through. RIGHT ON.
Long story slightly longer: we spent four hours or more going back to Bimini, where we had a hell of a time docking in wind that was exactly terrible to dock in, but thanks to new friends we landed safely and tied the boat with out incident other than excitement. Of course, all the stores are closed, since it was Sunday. After that, we decided to try one local guy I had met the other day for a fire extinguisher, and who I remembered had said he was “open 7 days” in the bait shop that's about as big as your front hall. He pulled a fire extinguisher from the shelf in a ripped box, with about a half inch of dust on it. $25 bucks. We felt like it might be our lucky day after all. We checked the weather online (the marina never did change their password, and I happened to figure it out, heh heh heh), and the strong front that was coming Monday morning is now coming Tuesday night. That means we sail tomorrow if all goes well. We leave at 6ish. So, I go to bed now, but now you know why we're not there, and where we are. We hope to be online in a few days to confirm to you, but if we land near a town, we'll find a phone and give Mary Lee a shout, and she can relay to everyone that we made it.
Oh, and don't worry. The Coast Guard is watching the Stream for immigrants, drugs, and justify their own existence, and they gave us their assurance that if something were to happen to us, that if our boat broke down, caught fire, or got hit by a cruise ship, whale, or whatever, that “we'd hit land eventually.”
Take care,
And as Jim Morrison or someone once said, we'll see you on the other side.
Jack (and Tater, Sparkle, Speck, Spud, Stumpy, or Rudy, as you know her)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
One more thing...
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that we don't even NEED fire extinguishers. As our friend John Samford pointed out-
"Why would you need fire extinguishers? Just ask Ruth. If something's
burning, you just throw it in the water."
Take care y'all (and thanks for the laugh, John)
Jack
"Why would you need fire extinguishers? Just ask Ruth. If something's
burning, you just throw it in the water."
Take care y'all (and thanks for the laugh, John)
Jack
Photos that go with the entry below
Here's a pic of the boat to point out the size of the wave that's breaking over the bow, up the base of the mast
And here's a pic of the side of the boat so that you can see how far you have to tip it to put the side rail under water... basically just under the windows. What's crazy is that in the video below, the wave that tipped us over that far wasn't even big...
We had a much bigger wave today, it came over the bow and broke and rolled along the deck and pushed under the soft top, where we put a towel across for just such an occasion. I was taking a quick nap below, and was dreaming of a giant fudge sale, where the price was zero cents for all you can carry, when the water poured in, pushing the towel out of the way, and drenched me. What you call a rude awakening... Just like that... a snap of the fingers... all of that fudge... swept away from my conscousness. Sigh.
Leaving tomorrow for the States
APRIL 27, 2008 NOT ACROSS THE GULFSTREAM by Jack
Okay, first, we traveled hundreds of miles to be here, at Bimini so that we could leave at the opportune weather moment. We only go 6 or 7 mph do that, so it's a lot. Once here, we waited, and watched for the weather to be exactly right. We skipped Saturday because Sunday would be slightly better. 8 or so boats were doing likewise. We all left together. We got halfway across the Gulf Stream, with the wind at our backs, the wave at our backs, the current at our backs.
We heard the Coast Guard pulling over boats. Figures. I guess they don't even patrol when it's stormy, cold, windy, or rough. But when the seas are nice, they're out there keeping you “safe.” We hear people getting boarded on VHF.
Sure enough, then they come after us. We wait and wait, as they stalk us. They drove next to us for half an hour or something, before I got on the radio and asked if we they neede our sails down or anything (like, in case they wanted to board us). They said no.
They grill us for info, and then finally, say they're boarding. Another half an hour goes by while we putt along. They come up to get on, and ram their boat into ours (with the soft nose, of course), swinging us off course, now instead of oriented right to the waves, we're pointed at a funny angle, surfing down waves, trying to avoid a wild broach which would steer us further into them as they plow ahead with mega horsepower. The wind is no longer filling the sail, the sail hestitates, then catches the wind and swings wildly to the other side, almost clocking one of their guys on the head. I tell him hold on, get the boat under control, and we resume our conversation, with them in our tiny boat, with their pistols, tasers, etc.
They say they need to check the holds for water. “WHAT?” If we were sinking, we would know it. It was clearly a thinly veiled chance to search our boat, which they did. Then they had to look for flares. Ours are expired. Apparently, this is worth a ticket, even by their own admission later, you don't need to carry them in the daytime. We still got a ticket, though. Our fire extinguisher is low on juice. We told them we tried to buy one in Nassau, Eleuthera, and Bimini (true), but they were not available where we looked (marine and hardware stores). After calling in to Miami, they told us that the boat can't sail further without one, and they would not share. They also said they recommended that Miami let us just sail on, and get one once we landed, but Miami said “negative.”
They wrote us our tickets, told us to turn our boat around and sail to Bimini. Ruth and I pointed out that we were halfway across the Gulf Stream. They said that it was just too dangerous for us to continue on without a fire extinguisher on board that had a new date on it. We pointed out that 99% of the casualties, if not more, on this dangerous body of water appear to be weather, not fire related, and that sailing halfway across, back to Bimini, where you probably can't even find a fire extinguisher, let alone buy one, and then crossing again (like crossing twice, the second time in much more inclement weather) was more dangerous than just getting there and buying a fire extinguisher where we know they are available.
They didn't seem to agree, or rather “Miami” didn't, according to them, despite their “recommendations to the contrary.” We asked that they call Miami to reconsider, and they refused. They left, circled us (“escorted”) for a long time, vulturelike (“for our safety”), and then demanded that we hail them on the radio when we are moored in Bimini.
Chuckleheaded bastards. That's our government at work again. Tax dollars well spent. I asked the second chucklehead if they would be monitoring our progress across, and would they note if someone like us happened to stop in the Stream and drift endlessly. They said not to worry “you'd hit land eventually.” Wow, thanks! I feel secure.
Great to know that these idiots are safely monitoring the one vessel in the Gulf Stream that we KNOW is NOT sinking for hours at a time, and then following it further into the Stream, and then turning around and forcing us to go AWAY from our own country, away from the place where the fire extinguishers are sold, INTO the waves, wind and current, to go on a wild goose chase to find fire extinguishers that they recommend we “have shipped to us” in Bimini, only to be forced to wait for another window of weather that MIGHT be as safe as the one we were almost done sailing through. RIGHT ON.
Long story slightly longer: we spent four hours or more going back to Bimini, where we had a hell of a time docking in wind that was exactly terrible to dock in, but thanks to new friends we landed safely and tied the boat with out incident other than excitement. Of course, all the stores are closed, since it was Sunday. After that, we decided to try one local guy I had met the other day for a fire extinguisher, and who I remembered had said he was “open 7 days” in the bait shop that's about as big as your front hall. He pulled a fire extinguisher from the shelf in a ripped box, with about a half inch of dust on it. $25 bucks. We felt like it might be our lucky day after all. We checked the weather online (the marina never did change their password, and I happened to figure it out, heh heh heh), and the strong front that was coming Monday morning is now coming Tuesday night. That means we sail tomorrow if all goes well. We leave at 6ish. So, I go to bed now, but now you know why we're not there, and where we are. We hope to be online in a few days to confirm to you, but if we land near a town, we'll find a phone and give Mary Lee a shout, and she can relay to everyone that we made it.
Oh, and don't worry. The Coast Guard is watching the Stream for immigrants, drugs, and justify their own existence, and they gave us their assurance that if something were to happen to us, that if our boat broke down, caught fire, or got hit by a cruise ship, whale, or whatever, that “we'd hit land eventually.”
We were going to take advantage of the direction of the stream and land at our destination 110 miles from here, but we think we'll just shoot across and take the Inter Coastal Waterway part of the way. Or maybe we'll sail the florida coast as long as the weather is good. Then we put in at St. Lucie Inlet. Then we go west as I mentioned.
Take care,
And as Jim Morrison or someone once said, we'll see you on the other side.
Jack (and Tater, Sparkle, Speck, Spud, Stumpy, or Rudy, as you know her)
Okay, first, we traveled hundreds of miles to be here, at Bimini so that we could leave at the opportune weather moment. We only go 6 or 7 mph do that, so it's a lot. Once here, we waited, and watched for the weather to be exactly right. We skipped Saturday because Sunday would be slightly better. 8 or so boats were doing likewise. We all left together. We got halfway across the Gulf Stream, with the wind at our backs, the wave at our backs, the current at our backs.
We heard the Coast Guard pulling over boats. Figures. I guess they don't even patrol when it's stormy, cold, windy, or rough. But when the seas are nice, they're out there keeping you “safe.” We hear people getting boarded on VHF.
Sure enough, then they come after us. We wait and wait, as they stalk us. They drove next to us for half an hour or something, before I got on the radio and asked if we they neede our sails down or anything (like, in case they wanted to board us). They said no.
They grill us for info, and then finally, say they're boarding. Another half an hour goes by while we putt along. They come up to get on, and ram their boat into ours (with the soft nose, of course), swinging us off course, now instead of oriented right to the waves, we're pointed at a funny angle, surfing down waves, trying to avoid a wild broach which would steer us further into them as they plow ahead with mega horsepower. The wind is no longer filling the sail, the sail hestitates, then catches the wind and swings wildly to the other side, almost clocking one of their guys on the head. I tell him hold on, get the boat under control, and we resume our conversation, with them in our tiny boat, with their pistols, tasers, etc.
They say they need to check the holds for water. “WHAT?” If we were sinking, we would know it. It was clearly a thinly veiled chance to search our boat, which they did. Then they had to look for flares. Ours are expired. Apparently, this is worth a ticket, even by their own admission later, you don't need to carry them in the daytime. We still got a ticket, though. Our fire extinguisher is low on juice. We told them we tried to buy one in Nassau, Eleuthera, and Bimini (true), but they were not available where we looked (marine and hardware stores). After calling in to Miami, they told us that the boat can't sail further without one, and they would not share. They also said they recommended that Miami let us just sail on, and get one once we landed, but Miami said “negative.”
They wrote us our tickets, told us to turn our boat around and sail to Bimini. Ruth and I pointed out that we were halfway across the Gulf Stream. They said that it was just too dangerous for us to continue on without a fire extinguisher on board that had a new date on it. We pointed out that 99% of the casualties, if not more, on this dangerous body of water appear to be weather, not fire related, and that sailing halfway across, back to Bimini, where you probably can't even find a fire extinguisher, let alone buy one, and then crossing again (like crossing twice, the second time in much more inclement weather) was more dangerous than just getting there and buying a fire extinguisher where we know they are available.
They didn't seem to agree, or rather “Miami” didn't, according to them, despite their “recommendations to the contrary.” We asked that they call Miami to reconsider, and they refused. They left, circled us (“escorted”) for a long time, vulturelike (“for our safety”), and then demanded that we hail them on the radio when we are moored in Bimini.
Chuckleheaded bastards. That's our government at work again. Tax dollars well spent. I asked the second chucklehead if they would be monitoring our progress across, and would they note if someone like us happened to stop in the Stream and drift endlessly. They said not to worry “you'd hit land eventually.” Wow, thanks! I feel secure.
Great to know that these idiots are safely monitoring the one vessel in the Gulf Stream that we KNOW is NOT sinking for hours at a time, and then following it further into the Stream, and then turning around and forcing us to go AWAY from our own country, away from the place where the fire extinguishers are sold, INTO the waves, wind and current, to go on a wild goose chase to find fire extinguishers that they recommend we “have shipped to us” in Bimini, only to be forced to wait for another window of weather that MIGHT be as safe as the one we were almost done sailing through. RIGHT ON.
Long story slightly longer: we spent four hours or more going back to Bimini, where we had a hell of a time docking in wind that was exactly terrible to dock in, but thanks to new friends we landed safely and tied the boat with out incident other than excitement. Of course, all the stores are closed, since it was Sunday. After that, we decided to try one local guy I had met the other day for a fire extinguisher, and who I remembered had said he was “open 7 days” in the bait shop that's about as big as your front hall. He pulled a fire extinguisher from the shelf in a ripped box, with about a half inch of dust on it. $25 bucks. We felt like it might be our lucky day after all. We checked the weather online (the marina never did change their password, and I happened to figure it out, heh heh heh), and the strong front that was coming Monday morning is now coming Tuesday night. That means we sail tomorrow if all goes well. We leave at 6ish. So, I go to bed now, but now you know why we're not there, and where we are. We hope to be online in a few days to confirm to you, but if we land near a town, we'll find a phone and give Mary Lee a shout, and she can relay to everyone that we made it.
Oh, and don't worry. The Coast Guard is watching the Stream for immigrants, drugs, and justify their own existence, and they gave us their assurance that if something were to happen to us, that if our boat broke down, caught fire, or got hit by a cruise ship, whale, or whatever, that “we'd hit land eventually.”
We were going to take advantage of the direction of the stream and land at our destination 110 miles from here, but we think we'll just shoot across and take the Inter Coastal Waterway part of the way. Or maybe we'll sail the florida coast as long as the weather is good. Then we put in at St. Lucie Inlet. Then we go west as I mentioned.
Take care,
And as Jim Morrison or someone once said, we'll see you on the other side.
Jack (and Tater, Sparkle, Speck, Spud, Stumpy, or Rudy, as you know her)
Blog about the Gulf Stream, by Shaft Dynamo April 27, 2008
Friday, April 25, leaving Bimini for the States by Jack
The view from the rainbow beach lot
http://www.youtube.com/v/YNNtsXicT0k
If clicking on the blue text above doesn't work, copy and post it in the destination tab at the top of your browser.
If you see a picture above the link in blue, then the two are duplicates of each other, and you probably need to double click on the picture, or click a button that indicates “play” or somesuch. So, there's that.
There's a video for you guys. Here's another one of us almost rolling the boat on the way into Bimini this time. The waves were about 3-4 feet, from the Northwest, a little joke compared to when we came in the first time, when they were ten or more, steeper than hell, close together, and coming from all directions. When the waves from one direction would cross another, they would stack up, and be twice as tall for just a second. When the boat was on top of that double wave, and one would go one way and one another, the boat would fall just like it was dropped out of the air, luckily usually horizontally, and fall several feet with a huge splash. Once landed, the next wave would be so steep it would be disintegrating under it's own speed, rolling over, and breaking over the bow, sometimes, as I mentioned, breaking as high as the base of the mast. That's a huge wave, and a crazy situation to be in. James was telling us later that he could see our keel when we were coming off the top of one of those huge waves, the whole boat flying through the air. Many times, the waves hit the bow so hard, it would take the 13 pound anchor right out of its bracket, and I would have to crawl up there and grab the chain as it swung on the side of the boat and put it back. I did fasten it eventually so it came out less easily, but the times when we've had this occur were always surprises, so it really is never initially fastened down.
In any event, the seas this time were nothing compared to that when we came in that day. This time they were a few feet, but still very steep, which is what happens when the wind blows opposite of the current, which is so common in the Gulf Stream, which is what makes it so dangerous. There are tons of shipwrecks on either side of it, and I'm sure a ton in the middle too as a result. The other thing about it is that when it gets crazy, it gets crazy suddenly, or it can anyway. All it takes is for that wind to oppose the current, which it does 90% of the time, or more. So when you get a moment of south wind, or west wind, hurry across, because what that means is it's a momentary change due to a cold front passing through, which is, more than a lasting condition, just momentary indicator that it's about to clock around to the North, which is its return to a kind of normalcy. In any event, it's probably the most dangerous part of this trip, and when we did it last time, we did it in very poor conditions, which, it turns out, was really ill advised. The weather report called for 5-10 knots (=6-12 m.p.h.) out of the North, but clocking to the east before building to 15-20. James said he thought this would probably be our last and best opportunity to cross without something stronger going on, which is what it had been since we started waiting to cross, almost two weeks before. James had crossed before, so we just went with his opinion as the expert on hand. We realized having crossed before was not exactly knowing what it would do in any and every condition, but it was better than what we knew, which is only what we'd read. So we decided to go for it. In retrospect, that was not necessarily the case. And not only that, we found that strong winds from the East (which many people say is no problem, as long as it's not North) are not necessarily conducive to flat water either. Well, live and learn.
Last night, this guy Kevin we were talking to just couldn't stop saying how his hat was off to us for crossing in our little boat. He must have said it fifteen times. Anyway, I'm rambling about it, but it's pretty fascinating to me, this crazy beast, and how we were struggling so much at its mercy. Ruth and I were recalling how when we got to Bimini, and got into the really shallow water, maybe less than fifteen feet, where the water runs through the bank into the Gulf Stream, opposing the current, while the wind was going a third direction, and the water was standing on end, like huge steep triangles and pyramids, twice or more as tall as wide sometimes, moving through one another, colliding, and sometimes converging under the boat, behind or in front of it, or suddenly right next to it, lifting the one side of the boat four feet in the air higher than the other side, and then reversing the situation within two seconds, and then the water just disappearing out from under it altogether, dropping us through the air to splash again, while we hung on tightly. Anyway, Ruth and I were remembering entering that shallow water, where the water had all the energy it had in the deeper water, and now, with the bottom so close, nowhere to go but up. And we were in that, in the thick of it, trying like hell to stay bow in to the biggest wave that was appearing at that moment while hopefully making our way to the land that was within a few miles, while we made a snail's pace closer to the land. It's important to be bow to the waves for a simple reason: if the boat takes a wave that's 10 feet high, and 20 feet from crest to crest, and you go to it bow first, the boat has a tendency to straddle a large section of the wave, or sometimes more than one at a time, and since it can be only in one position at once, it sits on the average of all the forces acting on it. So in the other scenario, where the boat gets hit by a wave that's from the side, for a moment you are on whatever angle that part of the wave shape takes as it passes under you.
If, in fact, it does go under you. The problem is that if the wave is too tall, or too steep, the energy from the wind is too much pushing on the top of the wave, and makes the top part push over on itself, which starts it rolling. When it rolls over, part of actually goes upside down of course, just like the pipeline that some guy's surfing in. Well, if that wave is big, that's one thing. It's another thing when they're close together, because the side of the wave might go from a small angle if they're far apart, to a very steep angle, and that's the angle your boat will be in when it's on it. It's a third problem if they're breaking waves, and the problem is compounded again when you take the wave on the beam, which means on the side. When the sea is confused, and the waves are going in all directions, you are taking waves on the side whether you like it or not. So, in this situation, all of the above were occurring, and it was really hectic. The thing that kept running through my mind was how hard the wind was blowing too.
Now that in itself is nothing. The problem is that when the wind blows hard, the waves get bigger, and the bigger they get, the more surface area that each wave shows to the wind, and so the more energy the wind imparts to the wave, making it grow further. So, in essence, the bigger the waves, the bigger they will grow to be, until finally, they collapse and roll. If they collapse and roll, they might be rolling you with them. If you take a breaking wave on the beam, very likely the wave will crash into the boat. At that point, the boat will become way heavier since it's filled with water and not air, and then it will sit that much lower in the water, become impossible to maneuver, probably stall out the engine, and then pretty much just do whatever the water does, including rolling over with the breaking waves, rather than floating on top. So that's the detailed version of why it's important to face the waves, and keep the boat oriented to them.
Running the engine full tilt, and pointing this way and that, powering up and over waves, and as we raced down the back side of the wave with so much engine power added to the speed from gravity, sliding down this steep, steep hill, trying to keep the boat from spinning at a right angle when it hit bottom and has to go to one side or another. We were doing this, white knuckling it, and just at that perfect moment, guess what? We ran out of gas. Or rather, the gas in the tank moving around wasn't enough to constantly be on the bottom of the tank. Great timing. So here we are, now very fearful of being capsized, sliding down these steep waves sideways, with no engine power, while we pour gas in the tank, spilling it all over as we're tossed about like beads in a baby rattle. We pour gas in, holding the hatch open with one hand, pouring with two more (the five gallon can weighs forty pounds or so), and holding the funnel in the tank with another, and holding on while we're rolling around like we're walking across the Tilt-A-Whirl while it's full on. So you can imagine how effective we are at this task. We're trying to put in as much as possible, enough to get us to land and safety, and so we won't have to run out of gas a second time in this mess, but at the same time, realizing there are limited amount of seconds to luxuriate in this endeavor, before another very dangerous wave will appear out of nowhere and hit us on the beam. So we put in gas, but are trying to put in the bare minimum so we won't have this Achilles heel exposed for any longer than absolutely necessary. We're doing this while shouting back and forth in the loud wind, and then, with gas mixed with oil under our feet, sliding around like we're on a greased skillet.
Let me tell you, it was very exciting.
Clearly we made it, we got the gas in, we kept bow to the waves as best we could, which at that point required one hand steering hard and fast with the tiller handle, and the other duplicating the same thing with the engine, pointing it this way and that. Most of the energy that the engine put out was wasted pointing in all of these directions, and going up and down waves. We pulled out of Miami at four in the morning that day, and arrived in Bimini twelve hours later. For fifty five miles, that's about four and a half miles per hour, but for most of the trip we had done about six and a half m.p.h., right up until the last few miles. Once we spotted land, maybe ten miles away, it took maybe five hours to get there, with the engine on full tilt. So instead of 8 m.p.h that we go at full tilt, we were going about two. In retrospect too, I realize it was a MAJOR mistake to come in as we did south of Bimini, instead of straight in from the deep water. The reasons being that first, we came onto the shallow bank way earlier than we had to, where the water had way more energy and motion comparatively than in the deeper water, and secondly, because south of Bimini is between the two islands, which is essentially the only route for the tidal current to run through as it lifts and rises 3 feet every six hours. That means all that rushing water is swirling around as it conflicts with the wind and the Gulf Stream.
So we're a bit wiser now, and this is why we're sitting here waiting for the wind to be in our favor for the return trip to Florida. We pulled into Bimini the other day, and I videotaped a bit of the chop outside the harbor as we pulled in. Right as I turned on the camera though for one last bit of video, I saw a wave coming at our beam. So when you watch the video below, you'll see what happened. You'll see the wave, maybe three feet, not big at all, but very steep, come rolling over right at us, and as it gets to us, I'm holding on like crazy, one handed to the boom with the camera in the other hand while Ruth steered. You don't see how far this wave knocked us over, or anything like that, you just see the camera go all over the place, and we couldn't even yell out as it happened, we were just holding on. The rail of the boat on the starboard side actually dipped below the water, though. What this means is that this little wave put us almost totally sideways for a second, enough for that rail to be submerged. The force of the wave hit the boat so hard, my hat flew off my head, in fact. It had stayed on even in 20 mph winds, which is faster than when the air whistles in the telephone wires. That thing hit us pretty hard. It doesn't look like much on a video, I don't think, but I guess it illustrates how the steepness of the wave is much more important than the size. And it's hard to get a feeling of the intensity of these waves from the video too, so that's why I go ino all this detail. But whatever. Here it is. Only about the first 20 seconds of it is even worthwhile, so don't bother watching the rest. It's really long.
http://www.youtube.com/v/ng88YFKlxR8
Oh yeah. So the reason I'm posting tonight is that we'll probably be crossing the Gulf Stream tomorrow, since it's supposed to be good weather. Wish us luck. We should be in the states by tomorrow night, if all goes well, but won't be near a phone for a bit. So don't worry. We'll be going up to Port St. Lucie inlet, across Lake Okeechobee, across Florida, then sailing along the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. We hope to arrive in ten days or more.
I guess that's it. I could write more, about how we're in Bimini, how it's awesome, etc. but I gotta go. There's hardly time to post this even.
I guess while I'm at it, I'll put a video up of us racing in the Class C regatta sail races in Staniel Cay. The video barely shows me for one second, but you get the feel for what was going on. It's a montage of short clips, and shows the one boat sinking when that happened. That was pretty cool.
www.youtube.com/v/UVgikm3obVo
Take care,
Shaft Dynamo
The view from the rainbow beach lot
http://www.youtube.com/v/YNNtsXicT0k
If clicking on the blue text above doesn't work, copy and post it in the destination tab at the top of your browser.
If you see a picture above the link in blue, then the two are duplicates of each other, and you probably need to double click on the picture, or click a button that indicates “play” or somesuch. So, there's that.
There's a video for you guys. Here's another one of us almost rolling the boat on the way into Bimini this time. The waves were about 3-4 feet, from the Northwest, a little joke compared to when we came in the first time, when they were ten or more, steeper than hell, close together, and coming from all directions. When the waves from one direction would cross another, they would stack up, and be twice as tall for just a second. When the boat was on top of that double wave, and one would go one way and one another, the boat would fall just like it was dropped out of the air, luckily usually horizontally, and fall several feet with a huge splash. Once landed, the next wave would be so steep it would be disintegrating under it's own speed, rolling over, and breaking over the bow, sometimes, as I mentioned, breaking as high as the base of the mast. That's a huge wave, and a crazy situation to be in. James was telling us later that he could see our keel when we were coming off the top of one of those huge waves, the whole boat flying through the air. Many times, the waves hit the bow so hard, it would take the 13 pound anchor right out of its bracket, and I would have to crawl up there and grab the chain as it swung on the side of the boat and put it back. I did fasten it eventually so it came out less easily, but the times when we've had this occur were always surprises, so it really is never initially fastened down.
In any event, the seas this time were nothing compared to that when we came in that day. This time they were a few feet, but still very steep, which is what happens when the wind blows opposite of the current, which is so common in the Gulf Stream, which is what makes it so dangerous. There are tons of shipwrecks on either side of it, and I'm sure a ton in the middle too as a result. The other thing about it is that when it gets crazy, it gets crazy suddenly, or it can anyway. All it takes is for that wind to oppose the current, which it does 90% of the time, or more. So when you get a moment of south wind, or west wind, hurry across, because what that means is it's a momentary change due to a cold front passing through, which is, more than a lasting condition, just momentary indicator that it's about to clock around to the North, which is its return to a kind of normalcy. In any event, it's probably the most dangerous part of this trip, and when we did it last time, we did it in very poor conditions, which, it turns out, was really ill advised. The weather report called for 5-10 knots (=6-12 m.p.h.) out of the North, but clocking to the east before building to 15-20. James said he thought this would probably be our last and best opportunity to cross without something stronger going on, which is what it had been since we started waiting to cross, almost two weeks before. James had crossed before, so we just went with his opinion as the expert on hand. We realized having crossed before was not exactly knowing what it would do in any and every condition, but it was better than what we knew, which is only what we'd read. So we decided to go for it. In retrospect, that was not necessarily the case. And not only that, we found that strong winds from the East (which many people say is no problem, as long as it's not North) are not necessarily conducive to flat water either. Well, live and learn.
Last night, this guy Kevin we were talking to just couldn't stop saying how his hat was off to us for crossing in our little boat. He must have said it fifteen times. Anyway, I'm rambling about it, but it's pretty fascinating to me, this crazy beast, and how we were struggling so much at its mercy. Ruth and I were recalling how when we got to Bimini, and got into the really shallow water, maybe less than fifteen feet, where the water runs through the bank into the Gulf Stream, opposing the current, while the wind was going a third direction, and the water was standing on end, like huge steep triangles and pyramids, twice or more as tall as wide sometimes, moving through one another, colliding, and sometimes converging under the boat, behind or in front of it, or suddenly right next to it, lifting the one side of the boat four feet in the air higher than the other side, and then reversing the situation within two seconds, and then the water just disappearing out from under it altogether, dropping us through the air to splash again, while we hung on tightly. Anyway, Ruth and I were remembering entering that shallow water, where the water had all the energy it had in the deeper water, and now, with the bottom so close, nowhere to go but up. And we were in that, in the thick of it, trying like hell to stay bow in to the biggest wave that was appearing at that moment while hopefully making our way to the land that was within a few miles, while we made a snail's pace closer to the land. It's important to be bow to the waves for a simple reason: if the boat takes a wave that's 10 feet high, and 20 feet from crest to crest, and you go to it bow first, the boat has a tendency to straddle a large section of the wave, or sometimes more than one at a time, and since it can be only in one position at once, it sits on the average of all the forces acting on it. So in the other scenario, where the boat gets hit by a wave that's from the side, for a moment you are on whatever angle that part of the wave shape takes as it passes under you.
If, in fact, it does go under you. The problem is that if the wave is too tall, or too steep, the energy from the wind is too much pushing on the top of the wave, and makes the top part push over on itself, which starts it rolling. When it rolls over, part of actually goes upside down of course, just like the pipeline that some guy's surfing in. Well, if that wave is big, that's one thing. It's another thing when they're close together, because the side of the wave might go from a small angle if they're far apart, to a very steep angle, and that's the angle your boat will be in when it's on it. It's a third problem if they're breaking waves, and the problem is compounded again when you take the wave on the beam, which means on the side. When the sea is confused, and the waves are going in all directions, you are taking waves on the side whether you like it or not. So, in this situation, all of the above were occurring, and it was really hectic. The thing that kept running through my mind was how hard the wind was blowing too.
Now that in itself is nothing. The problem is that when the wind blows hard, the waves get bigger, and the bigger they get, the more surface area that each wave shows to the wind, and so the more energy the wind imparts to the wave, making it grow further. So, in essence, the bigger the waves, the bigger they will grow to be, until finally, they collapse and roll. If they collapse and roll, they might be rolling you with them. If you take a breaking wave on the beam, very likely the wave will crash into the boat. At that point, the boat will become way heavier since it's filled with water and not air, and then it will sit that much lower in the water, become impossible to maneuver, probably stall out the engine, and then pretty much just do whatever the water does, including rolling over with the breaking waves, rather than floating on top. So that's the detailed version of why it's important to face the waves, and keep the boat oriented to them.
Running the engine full tilt, and pointing this way and that, powering up and over waves, and as we raced down the back side of the wave with so much engine power added to the speed from gravity, sliding down this steep, steep hill, trying to keep the boat from spinning at a right angle when it hit bottom and has to go to one side or another. We were doing this, white knuckling it, and just at that perfect moment, guess what? We ran out of gas. Or rather, the gas in the tank moving around wasn't enough to constantly be on the bottom of the tank. Great timing. So here we are, now very fearful of being capsized, sliding down these steep waves sideways, with no engine power, while we pour gas in the tank, spilling it all over as we're tossed about like beads in a baby rattle. We pour gas in, holding the hatch open with one hand, pouring with two more (the five gallon can weighs forty pounds or so), and holding the funnel in the tank with another, and holding on while we're rolling around like we're walking across the Tilt-A-Whirl while it's full on. So you can imagine how effective we are at this task. We're trying to put in as much as possible, enough to get us to land and safety, and so we won't have to run out of gas a second time in this mess, but at the same time, realizing there are limited amount of seconds to luxuriate in this endeavor, before another very dangerous wave will appear out of nowhere and hit us on the beam. So we put in gas, but are trying to put in the bare minimum so we won't have this Achilles heel exposed for any longer than absolutely necessary. We're doing this while shouting back and forth in the loud wind, and then, with gas mixed with oil under our feet, sliding around like we're on a greased skillet.
Let me tell you, it was very exciting.
Clearly we made it, we got the gas in, we kept bow to the waves as best we could, which at that point required one hand steering hard and fast with the tiller handle, and the other duplicating the same thing with the engine, pointing it this way and that. Most of the energy that the engine put out was wasted pointing in all of these directions, and going up and down waves. We pulled out of Miami at four in the morning that day, and arrived in Bimini twelve hours later. For fifty five miles, that's about four and a half miles per hour, but for most of the trip we had done about six and a half m.p.h., right up until the last few miles. Once we spotted land, maybe ten miles away, it took maybe five hours to get there, with the engine on full tilt. So instead of 8 m.p.h that we go at full tilt, we were going about two. In retrospect too, I realize it was a MAJOR mistake to come in as we did south of Bimini, instead of straight in from the deep water. The reasons being that first, we came onto the shallow bank way earlier than we had to, where the water had way more energy and motion comparatively than in the deeper water, and secondly, because south of Bimini is between the two islands, which is essentially the only route for the tidal current to run through as it lifts and rises 3 feet every six hours. That means all that rushing water is swirling around as it conflicts with the wind and the Gulf Stream.
So we're a bit wiser now, and this is why we're sitting here waiting for the wind to be in our favor for the return trip to Florida. We pulled into Bimini the other day, and I videotaped a bit of the chop outside the harbor as we pulled in. Right as I turned on the camera though for one last bit of video, I saw a wave coming at our beam. So when you watch the video below, you'll see what happened. You'll see the wave, maybe three feet, not big at all, but very steep, come rolling over right at us, and as it gets to us, I'm holding on like crazy, one handed to the boom with the camera in the other hand while Ruth steered. You don't see how far this wave knocked us over, or anything like that, you just see the camera go all over the place, and we couldn't even yell out as it happened, we were just holding on. The rail of the boat on the starboard side actually dipped below the water, though. What this means is that this little wave put us almost totally sideways for a second, enough for that rail to be submerged. The force of the wave hit the boat so hard, my hat flew off my head, in fact. It had stayed on even in 20 mph winds, which is faster than when the air whistles in the telephone wires. That thing hit us pretty hard. It doesn't look like much on a video, I don't think, but I guess it illustrates how the steepness of the wave is much more important than the size. And it's hard to get a feeling of the intensity of these waves from the video too, so that's why I go ino all this detail. But whatever. Here it is. Only about the first 20 seconds of it is even worthwhile, so don't bother watching the rest. It's really long.
http://www.youtube.com/v/ng88YFKlxR8
Oh yeah. So the reason I'm posting tonight is that we'll probably be crossing the Gulf Stream tomorrow, since it's supposed to be good weather. Wish us luck. We should be in the states by tomorrow night, if all goes well, but won't be near a phone for a bit. So don't worry. We'll be going up to Port St. Lucie inlet, across Lake Okeechobee, across Florida, then sailing along the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. We hope to arrive in ten days or more.
I guess that's it. I could write more, about how we're in Bimini, how it's awesome, etc. but I gotta go. There's hardly time to post this even.
I guess while I'm at it, I'll put a video up of us racing in the Class C regatta sail races in Staniel Cay. The video barely shows me for one second, but you get the feel for what was going on. It's a montage of short clips, and shows the one boat sinking when that happened. That was pretty cool.
www.youtube.com/v/UVgikm3obVo
Take care,
Shaft Dynamo
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