Fort Pierce, FL Again
Tuesday, April 7
We are back in the USA! Fort Pierce, FL. Got in at 2:00 am. Long trip. Tired. Will fill in the details later today.
1). Wow! What a day yesterday was! Sunday night we looked at a lot of websites to see if the weather window to cross had stayed the same. It was 111 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Bahamas weather looked good-finally. Florida's weather showed storms coming in early Wednesday morning but we still had Tuesday as a buffer day. We looked at the tides leaving Bell Channel and entering Fort Pierce Inlet. The currents looked in our favor. The winds (ESE) and waves (1-2 feet) were low but we knew the Gulf Stream would give us a push with 3.5 knots of current behind us. I sent our Float Plan to the kids and we took off at 8:30 am.
3). And about 45 minutes of the spinnaker flying a pop up shower settles over us. Rain! Down came the sail and up went the main sail. The winds increased slightly as did the waves. Kim could see the storm on the charts so knew we would travel out of it soon. And we did. More pop up showers were expected so Kim put the wet spinnaker back in it's bag and pulled the now heavy sail to the cockpit.
5). Now it's dark and we still have 5 hours to go. We start to see lighting in the distance. We both are listening to audible books to distract us. We are moving good but at 8 knots it is just a crawl. It gets down to the last 10 miles. Two storms are on either side of us but still staying away from us. Waves start to build. We see the red light of the buoy that marks the channel. The winds pick up slightly but still manageable. 10 miles at 6 knots still will take us about an hour and a half. Again with the lightening and thunder. Let me tell you, I have prayed more on the journey then I ever have! Prayers answered and we enter the channel with the current pushing us in. They are dredging the channel so we had to squeak by the barges to make our way to the marina. Rain started but it was just a drizzle. Back into our slip and tied up. 2:00 am. We zipped the enclosure up and the heavy rain started. (I took this picture in the morning :) Slip C-6 right by the Tiki Taxi and restaurant. We are hear for a month to get some boat work done before we go to Jacksonville to haul Dorothy's Gale 2 out of the water for Hurricane Season.
4). Eventually the weather cleared up and we entered the Gulf Stream. It was great. We had a southeast wind and a strong current pushing us north towards Fort Pierce. We had hoped to get in to the marina around midnight. We knew our slip assignment and have been to this marina 2 other times. So coming in at dark was not a big deal. However, the Coast Guard comes on the VHF radio and is taking about gale force winds, water spouts, building waves between the Bahamas and Florida. We finally heard that Miami was getting nailed with storms and the storms was headed to the Bahamas.
2). We traveled along the coast of the island for about 3 hours. Saw 10-15 freighters outside the Freeport Harbor. And there was about 3 cruise ships in port. Kim decided to throw up the Spinnaker (Go Eagles!) due to the light winds.
Tuesday & Wednesday, April 7-8
We are taking care of things that needed to get done. Kim a much needed haircut. Laundry.
We took down our tattered Bahamas flag. It definitely shows how much wind we had. We went to Skipper's Cove for dinner Tuesday night and listened to music before we crashed early.
Today it is "monsooning" and windy. Good day to stay inside and veg.
