A night full of mistakes while crossing the Gulf Stream – Ron's View

Lake Worth – December 6, 2021

As the alarm went off at 11 pm, we knew it was time to cross. On deck the wind was 10-15 from the northwest, which was not great but doable. It would not be the flat Gulf stream crossing we were hoping for. That might also explain why were were the only ones up.

The anchor came up clean and no issue! Bonus, since I spent much of the evening wonder what “obstruction” I anchored over accidently. Another rookie mistake! Next up it was pitch black, no moon, no stars nothing, no city lights, nothing however the instrument panel and chart plotter glowed like the sun in the pitch black. So much for night vision. Another rookie mistake that made navigating out of the anchorage a bit stressful. Then to add to the pitch black navigational issues, my chart plotted orientation on the iPad reversed, and I did not catch it. This orientation is all too important when you are using it to navigate a set channel full of ships and barges and basically all things you want to stay away from. It all came to a critical moment as we were heading for a large barge in the dead of night! I somehow spotted it and reversed before we slammed straight into it. OOPS! We were perhaps 20 feet away which is um, TOO CLOSE.

Finding the flashing green and red lights, which lit our path to the open ocean was a huge relief. Confidence was however at a low point in this critical stage of the crossing. Do we go back and anchor or suck it up and continue? This would be the first time we had our new boat, out in the open ocean, and well the first time out of the Lake Worth inlet all in absolute darkness. Seems reasonable, so lets go. As each minute went by, I watched our path on the TWO chart plotters, verified with the blinking range lights and the sound of the crashing waves on the inlet. It was hard to not think this was completely nuts doing this blindly. Minute after minute, light after light,wave crash after wave crash when would it all just fall apart? Then finally the last range marker and GPS showed that I made it to open water and out of the dangers that lurked in the darkness of that inlet. I am sure the dangers were all in my mind, but those are the demons we all tend to fight.

The next 7 hours of complete darkness was an exercise of watching the GPS, radar, and AIS. The lights on the horizon I would assume were another cruiser making the jump, but was wrong, they were still safely in the harbor waiting for a better weather window, instethe lights were cargo ships running the channels delivering whatever filled the containers. Sally slept in the kitchen berth, since she wanted to be close in case I needed something, and I wanted her close in case we needed to jump from a sinking ship. Funny how each of our priorities were so different. Sally has no fear, she has complete faith in me, which is well, is great and also stressful, There is no phone a friend in the middle of the ocean so if I screwed it up I needed to be able to fix whatever we had to deal with.

We had to deal with two things, first the northwest winds against the north running gulf stream made for an choppy crossing, and then the lightning storms that lit the sky in front of me. I envisioned sailing right into one of these storms, but thankfully that never happened. Sally slept most of the crossing and I played tricks to stay awake until daylight. At this point I had been awake for 36 hours, it was an interesting night, but each mile a bit more confidence in myself, and our boat. To be honest I loved every second of that long night, I finally felt alive and that was something that growing older tends to supress. The sunrise was incredible and in a sense a rebirth to a new life, one that I have dreamt about for most of my life.

As we hit the Bahama bank at first light, we had another 8 hours to the Great Sail Cay which was to be our first anchorage. The water was crystal clear and the most beautiful blue you have ever seen. Hour after hour, the engines sang along with a bit of sail out to help make our way there. Great Sale Cay is usually the first spot to stop for cruisers so I was certain it would be packed much like Lake Worth, however when we arrive not a soul to be seen. I guess no one else made the jump that night, so we had it to ourselves and it was a perfect way to end our first crossing!