Another Day, Another Crossing – St. Augustine, Florida, USA, May 17, 2026

Mariposa is back where she started.  So, how’d our crossing go from the Bahamas you ask?  Well, not great.  Don’t get me wrong, I am glad to be alive but…it was interesting if not a little scary that this where we have set the bar.  Last night when we arrived, we spent two beers decompressing, whilst discussing selling the boat.  Let’s discuss the list of events.  Sadly, this isn’t even our worst crossing since this time the sail drives weren’t leaking.  First off, we had moved from Green Turtle Cay to Great Sail Cay, which was a long 8-hour sailing day and not really all that smooth.  This means I was a bit seasick even after taking Bonine.  After a day of recovery making some passage food (including pepperoni rolls, bacon, and brownies), we thought we had this nailed and ready to go.  Full of fuel, except the part that leaked out, food made, calm weather forecast, and a day of rest.  What more could you ask for right?

Our journey started at 3:30am where we moved from the south side of Great Sail Cay, Tom Johnson Harbour around the island and out to sea.  Our anchorage was completely calm and since we had zero wind, our boat was completely infested with mosquitoes when we awoke.  I quickly got dressed while Ron spent these 15 minutes killing as many as he could inside and at the helm.  I never thought I would ask myself how fast can you get dressed in a mosquito infestation?   Let me assure you, it’s fast!  I haven’t had to wear bug spray inside before even though we do have screens but there is a first for everything. 

Now let’s talk about the weather.  Somehow, we have this romantic notion that the weather is going to end up being as forecasted.  Ha!  Yeah right.  Winds were forecasted to be a consistent 15 knots.  By the time we were off the Bahama Bank they were close to 25 knots.  One gentleman who was travelling alongside us had his main sail rip in half!  The seas were predicted to be 3-foot waves and instead they were at least 6-9 feet!  This kind of roughness means when you are on watch at the helm it is necessary to hold on to stand up.  Yeah, trying going to the bathroom in that.  It was not fun.  It was one of our rougher passes reminding me of our passage to Luperon from Mariposa 1.0.  So, needless to say I was seasick again even after taking Bonine for two days prior.  The only thing that didn’t happen were squalls, which I am grateful for, and strangely the thing we worried about the most.  Something happens in the Bahamas this time of year and a switch flips, making the weather 75 degrees and only 50% humidity to 85 degrees and 100% humidity.  This makes the storms much stronger and less predictable (think 50-70 knot winds and potential lightning strike).  We were at least prepared with our electronics in a Faraday Cage to protect from electromagnetic pulses and our go bag was packed!

Ron had several routes planned and we were letting the weather and our speed in the gulf stream determine which one we would take.  Since we had skillfully ripped off our wind sensor on the intercoastal in our way south last time, we decided to try a new way home which didn’t involve the intercoastal.  This made our time in open ocean longer, but we would not have to deal with the bridge issue and currents on the way north this round.  The hope was to maintain a speed of 6-10 knots in milder 10-15 knot winds with the help of the gulf stream and make it all the way up to St. Mary’s.  Our reality check was after a few hours of the 25 by knot winds the seas turned really ugly. Like a switch the wind dropped to nothing and we had to drop the sails to keep them from self destructing from the rocking of the boat in the large swells. With no wind our speed dropped to 6-6.5 knots. We didn’t want to go into any of the inlets in the dark, so this limited our options.  Our route planner told us we would get to sail most of the way without the need for our engines.  Reality was we hardly sailed and ran both engines at top speed the whole last half of the trip.  We ended up making it to St. Augustine one hour before sunset.   Our mooring assignment was ball number 1, which meant we had to wait for the opening of the Bridge of Lions and go in circles in a very crowded space killing 20 minutes til it opened on the hour.  The kick in the pants was when we needed to pick up a mooring ball, there were 20 knot winds and significant currents.  To say it was challenging was the least of it, but we did manage to pick it up.  It is bad when Ron apologizes to me before we even try to pick up the ball in case he yells at me while we do this stressful tactic.

This was how we ended up on the discussion of why do we do this again?  Oh yeah, because it “fun!”  I have to say we have stayed true to our initial tag line of “Don’t let your comfort stand in your way.”  Oh, and here’s the topper…the cheese rolls Ron and I had been eating all trip had molded after one day on the counter.  This was new.  Perhaps a few days of rest will let us continue our travels north but for now we are going to get some good Osprey Tacos and a beer!