It's been 3 years since BlueJacket has been in US waters and I'm very happy to report that we made it in safe and sound. That's not to say that this trip didn't have its share of excitement. When I last reported we were about 220 miles away from Key West and were having a good sail, albeit a bit rough. The seas calmed down once we got further into the lee of Cuba and we began to have a very nice sail. The winds were varying from 15 to 30 kts, so there were lots of reefing changes as we went along. The winds kept clocking more southerly, which meant that the winds were on our beam or slightly behind, which let us sail more upright. The seas were about 3-5' and were a bit lumpy, but not bad at all.
One thing that amazed me was the currents along our path. I hadn't studied the charts in detail before departing, but once we were underway it became apparent that there are lots of HUGE currents that move through the area, and typically not the direction that you want to go. We encountered north bound currents that were 3.5 kts, east bound currents, west bound currents, you name it! It seemed that it was rare to actually sail the actual course. There were times that we were sailing 40 degrees to our planned course and we still weren't holding our course. I had expected to have 1.5-2.4 kts helping us, but that never materialized.
As we were sailing along yesterday afternoon the sky picked up a milky look. I commented that it looked like thunderstorm weather. At about 2 PM we were about 13 miles away from the Key West sea buoy when the wind suddenly switched from the south to the east. I felt cool air descending, which is the typical precursor of a squall. We had just pulled down the sails when the winds picked up to about 35 kts out of the north, which was opposite of what the winds had been blowing. This caused the existing waves to become very square and we'd pound over them, with the bow literally dropping 8 to 10 feet into the trough of an oncoming wave. Very rapidly we developed waves out of the north, making for very confused and rough seas. This lasted for about an hour and then the winds dropped to into the mid-20s. We had about a 15 minute break and then the real storm descended upon us.
The winds rapidly grew into the mid-30s to low 40s and rain began lashing us. The skies darkened and the winds increased to 45-50 kts (50-58 mph) and the seas grew to 8-10', right on the nose. We were only making 2+ kts towards the entrance and I was having a very hard time keeping BlueJacket on course. Many of the waves were breaking on the top and the wind would just whip the water off and drench the boat. The worst was when we'd crash over a wave and the next one would get blown over the top of us. The entire boat would be drenched in a foot of water.
I had assumed that this was just going to be a passing squall and hadn't put on any foul weather gear. The temperature had dropped rapidly and the rain was icy cold. I was shivering big time, but there was no way to leave the wheel to change into dry clothes. Sue got my rain coat, which helped a lot, but I was still very cold.
I had assumed that this was just going to be a short lived squall as there was nothing in any forecast the even hinted of thunderstorms let alone a storm like this. There was no frontal line or anything, it just formed around us. As a result I hadn't pulled the bimini (cloth cover over the cockpit) down and the wind, which was between 45 and 50 kts at the time, was doing a number on it. At one point we got turned 90 degrees to the wind and the bimini pulled the stainless tubing out of their fitting and the whole structure looked like it was about to get blown off the boat. Sue grabbed a tie-down line and pulled it behind the dodger (windshield) where it was out of the wind. She was held it down like that for probably half an hour while I wrestled the boat. For a short period the winds dropped into the 30s and I had a chance to deal with this problem. I was able to unzip the cloth from the stainless tubing and Sue secured the cloth and stainless.
We slowly worked our way towards the main ship channel as I knew that it was well marked and deep. It took us from 2:30 until 7:15 to go 12 miles with the storm blowing all of the time. As we got closer, the seas dropped as we were getting protection from the lee of Key West. At 7:00 we had an SSB radio contact with other boats that were all headed this way. They were far enough away to avoid the storm or were at anchor when it hit. Sue did manage to raise Margaritaville, who was on a mooring in Key West. Art gave us anchoring information and was standing by on the VHF in case we needed help. It took us until 9 PM to work through the channels and find a spot to drop anchor. I can't tell you how good that felt!
I was cold and soaked through and through. After a hot shower, reheated left-overs, and a bottle of wine we crashed hard for the night. Today a survey of the boat revealed no real problems. Lots of salt water everywhere, but not much else. I never felt scared. It was just uncomfortable and something that needed to be dealt with. This was Sue's first big storm and she learned that BlueJacket is very seaworthy and will get us through just about anything. As the old saying goes, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." For me, and I think for Sue, this was a good experience as it helps you become more prepared for worse situations.
Now we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor and will be in Key West for a week or so. We'll start moving to Ft. Lauderdale where lots of work planned for BlueJacket.
- Geoff & Sue
[edited to set correct date]
Log ID: 365
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