Bahamas to Beaufort!

Chris Hannant

Let’s just get right to it - this passage was frustrating! Instead of leaving in the morning to catch the wind, I decided it would probably be too light and behind us to sail anyway, so pulled the anchor up at midnight to have about 6 hours of wiggle room on our arrival with heavy winds that forecast to build the day of our arrival. Motored across the bank for about 8 hours until the sun rose on us in the Atlantic. Winds were still light and there was this weird west swell coming from Florida and mixing with the NE swell making a pretty confused and uncomfortable sea state. Once in the stream and the wind came up from the S we were able to sail under code 0 and things started to smooth out. At some point we put up main and jib, got the lines out, and started having a pretty lovely sail. Talon was napping and Janie and I both dozed off as well. I was abruptly awoken by BOTH lines ripping. Double mahi in the boat while a pod of pilot whales came in to watch! Wind died again, back to motoring. Later that night I was able to put out the jib for slow sailing, but with the boost from the stream we still were making time. I was intentionally keeping us going a little slow so we could arrive with an incoming current with building S forecast. Friday sucked. Forecast showed SUPER light and variable winds so I was already anticipating a lot of motoring but at least was expecting it to be flat. What I didn’t anticipate was the wind actually building to 15g18 out of the N while we were still in the thick of the Gulf Stream. It got very unpleasant very fast. Instead of bashing Cloud into pieces continuing into it, I turned her around, put her ass to the wind and swell, and motored gently into the current. The opposing forces put us making about 2kn W. Definitely off course but at least not southbound and at least out of the strongest part of the stream. After about 5 hours of this everything finally relaxed until the wind backed off to almost nothing. The seas settled and we were able to continue, but now we were pushed pretty far out of the stream where we were getting the best speed. Models showed a good southerly building through the night so I took comfort in knowing we’d be sailing again soon. Well, that wind didn’t show and it turned into another night of motoring, and then a morning of motoring too. Turns out we got stuck in a wind hole, with the wind building miles behind us but never catching us. The NAM model actually showed this happening but I was going by the Euro which had served us well in the Bahamas all season! Ironically the wind finally started to show up as we approached the inlet so we got to sail into protected waters and upriver a bit. Janie and I were VERY proud of completing our longest passage together to date, and Talon was AMAZING the entire Time. But we were still feeling let down since a lot of motoring never really makes it feel like a passage. We were bummed to have left the Bahamas and bummed to know we won’t be returning for a couple seasons. BUT that all changed as soon as we got Talon to shore. He LIT UP and was losing his mind, riding his bike along all the sidewalks and going nuts on the big downtown playground. This turned our moods around real fast!

Boat & Crew

Cloud II

Lagoon, 40

Janie Munsey

First Mate

Talon

Child, Male

Chris Hannant

Owner