After much prep and weather watching, we were finally leaving the Bahamas. I liked the idea of jumping into the gulf stream and sailing it north, so we did some research and it seemed like something we could handle. We did a lot of predict wind weather routing and found a good window for us to take. The route is a bit funny, as we kind of do an S route, over to the gulf stream, then ride it up, before exiting the stream and going due north to Beaufort NC.
There is always a lot of uncertainty with a route this long, so we had a few options to exit early if we were getting defeated out there. Charleston being a good stop about half way, and a place we heard a lot of good things about as well. But if all went well we planned to make it to Beaufort. We also flirted with the idea of going all the way up to Norfolk, but that would require some lucky weather and going around Hatteras, so was much less likely. So with Beaufort in our sights we headed out.
Slack tide at Moraine Cay Channel was around 17:30 on the 16th, so we sailed off anchor and started heading out of the channel. A couple of tacks up through the channel and then we turned northwest and settled in for a starboard tack for the next 3 days... Winds were nice for full sails, and the sea state was pretty good (considering it's the ocean). Pretty uneventful start (in a good way), and we sailed through the night along the bank of the Bahamas towards the gulf stream.
The next day was also very easy, we all got pretty good rest as the conditions were mostly calm. I should mention we had hoped to sail on the inside bank towards the gulf stream, but we don't like sailing at night on the shallow bank side. It probably would have been fine, but the ocean (although much less comfortable), is a lot safer in terms of not having to worry about shoals and everything else. And the other issue was that we'd not be far enough north coming off the bank near the gulf stream, so the route was a bit longer, and not ideal with the timing we had.
We saw some whales (we think) or very large dolphins in the afternoon. Our wind also died out for a short period and we ended up motoring for about an hour and a half. But it filled back in again and we were able to sail the rest of the way. That evening we started coming into the gulf stream and we also had the winds building. We were considering swapping our large genoa for the jib before dark, but decided against it as the winds were still light. This was a mistake and we ended up swapping the sail out in the dark in a lot more wind. This is a fair bit of work to do, but we knew the winds were likely to stay strong, and having the smaller jib was ideal. It was a lot of rocking about when we raised the jib, and with some forethought I decided to test furling the jib to make sure everything was correct. We quickly found that it wasn't and the halyard must have gotten wrapped around the forestay before we raised the sail. So we pulled the sail down again and corrected the halyard issue, re-raised it, and made sure it furled correctly which it then did. It was a tiring ordeal but we running along much more comfortably with the double reefed main and smaller jib. This is also where we started coming into the gulf stream and started picking up speed with the current.
The night was long, especially during the dark hours after sunset until 02:00 before the moon would rise. We had a nearly full moon, and so once it came up there was enough light to really see everything going on. We were getting a bit more tied at this point, and the seas were building so it was much harder sailing. But things were still going well.
The next morning the winds were stronger yet again, and we reefed up the jib to just a tiny sliver. The conditions got even more uncomfortable and we did spend some time considering bailing for Charleston at this point. We did some re-checking of the weather via starlink and the winds weren't expected to get any worse than they were, and so we made the choice to continue on.
The winds did calm a bit overnight and we rolled back out the jib. Sea state was pretty weird through this time, it would get quite confused and then fine for a bit, then very confused again. Not sure if this was wind against current or weird swell coming in from further out, etc. It was not much fun, but it wasn't horrible either. We ended up having to hand steer through most of this though as the autopilot would slip while slopping around in the bigger chop. Lack of sleep was starting to catch up with us here too, as you get tired out and you can't get any good sleep while sloshing around like that.
The third day was a lot of hand steering and surfing down waves. We also started to see some other (much bigger, 50+ foot boats) catch up to us and pass us. I think they were probably taking the same weather window we were but with a bit more boat speed they could leave later than we did. It was comforting to have a few other boats out there with us, as we hadn't seen any for the first few days (beyond cargo ships and one 96 foot sailboat that crossed straight out ot sea).
As we came into the last night, we were exiting the gulf stream and heading straight towards Beaufort. It was still 80NM from the gulf stream to Beaufort so a long ways to go yet, but it felt like we were turning into port at that point. The winds were lighter and we decided to put the genoa back up so we'd have more sail available overnight, so we had all three of us up on deck for an evening sail change. After some futzing about we had the big genoa back up and running nicely much further downwind now. At some point in the evening our autopilot belt broke as well. I can't remember exactly when, but it finally threw in the towel and snapped (after 5 years of service, so not too surprising). I have a spare on the boat, but changing it underway would be tricky, and we were just coming into port in our minds, so it didn't seem worth the hassle.
So that last night was really long. We were both exhausted and traded off shorter shifts at this point doing everything we could to stay awake. Conditions did ease up throughout the night though, and things got easier and easier as we got closer to Beaufort. By the morning Theone had even unreefed the main and we were going along under full sails again. We both remembered just how much we love the auto pilot during this time as well. We don't use it all the time, but being able to engage it while you do some sail trimming, or grab a snack, or just rest for a minute is very nice. It's not something you must have, but is sure is nice. Probably especially so considering how tired we were!
To cheer everyone up we were greeted by a very large pod of dolphins that joined us under sail in the morning. They cruised along with us for nearly half an hour jumping across our bow, and circling back and racing up ahead again and again. It was really fantastic to watch while sailing along.
And then quickly it seemed we were at the entrance to the channel. We started up the engine, and got our sails put away , and made our way in. We didn't have much of a plan past getting to Beaufort, and as we came in decided to stop at the first anchorage right inside the channel before going into Beaufort or Morehead City. This ended up being a fantastic spot as the winds were still pretty strong from the south and there was great protection there just off the channel.
And with that we were anchored up again at 12:30 on the 20th. This was our longest ever passage at 91 hours and by far our furthest as well at 590NM. That is an average speed of 6.5 knots too, very much thanks to the Gulf Stream. We had some long stretches of just over 10 knots speed over ground and it was pretty easy to consistently be doing 8 knots through most of the gulf stream part. That might not be super fast for everyone, but it's amazingly fast for our 30 footer!
Our last bit of business before sleep was checking back into the US. We'd heard a few crazy stories about trouble checking in, but thankfully it was all super simple. We still had approved traveler permits from when we came down in the fall, and it was only a matter of clicking a few buttons in the CPB Roam app (that didn't crash this time) and then waiting about 15 minutes before we were all approved and checked back in. Wonderfully simple. We do apparently have to apply for some other forms because we'll be in the country for more than 30 days, which are now a requirement under the new regime, but that only has to be done within 30 days (we think). We'll deal with that after some sleep.
And that is about it. We'll catch up on some sleep, I want to replace that belt on the auto pilot, and then we'll start our way back up the ICW to Norfolk. We are leaning towards another outside jump from Norfolk to New York (with some stops in between probably) but we'll decide that for sure once we get up there. But now that we are this far back up the coast we are in no rush and can take our time north from here.
