Travels: Sailing to Miami

Background: The goal is to move Priority, our Island Packet 380 sailboat to Miami for the winter (November to May). A sub-goal (one might even say the primary goal) is to fulfill a long term fantasy of sailing from the Northeast (either Philadelphia, Boston or Baltimore) to Miami – partly along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and partly off-shore in the Atlantic Ocean. This trip will fulfill both goals.

Plan: The trip is in two parts. The first part takes place on the ICW. The first phase is to sail from Baltimore to Norfolk via the Chesapeake. This should take ~25 hours (in fact it took 23 hours) The second part (which should take 4 days) is to travel from Norfolk to Beaufort, NC. It is a trip of ~200 miles but the ICW can only be transited in daylight and at best a sailboat can travel 6 miles/hour, but there must be time to wait for bridges to open and such so we estimate 50 miles/day, so…4 days.

At Beaufort, weather permitting, we head offshore for the ~600 mile trip to Miami. Again, assuming 6 miles/hour it will take 100 hours, but we travel 24 hours/day so it should take ~4 days.

A major issue is “weather permitting”. I have hired a private marine weather service who will advise us once we get to Beaufort if it is safe to leave (or whether we should wait a few days) and will give us daily updates as we travel. There are numerous inlets along the east coast of the US into which we can (and will) turn in case the weather turns bad. The point is…we can’t be sure when we will arrive in Miami, but this is the nature of sailing….you shouldn’t make hard schedules.

The crew:

Bobby Ward, a friend since we first purchased Priority in 2000. He had his boat, an Island Packet 350 (same boat, 3 feet shorter) in the slip next to ours in Rock Hall. He sailed with me on one of our trips to Boston. He retired from the Pentagon several years ago and he and his wife Lesley spend the winters sailing the Caribbean and the summer at their house in Punta Gorda.

Alan Huffman is also an Island Packet owner (his is a 420, same boat as mine but 4 feet longer). His boat is in Punta Gorda but he currently lives in Wichita Kansas. He is in the process of retiring to Punta Gorda. He has extensive sailing ability, including participation in the Chicago-Makinaw island race!

Art Firester is a friend (with his wife Lynn) for over 40 years, when our sons , both named Jon, went to nursery school together in Rock Hall. We have sailed together in the Caribbean many times over the years.

The first day:

We cast off at 11am on Thursday, Oct 27. Our first stop was a fuel dock 1 mile away to top off. 16 gallons and ½ hour later we were off.

The winds were calm so we motored and didn’t raise a sail till south of the Bay Bridge. We were travelling south and the wind, such as it was from the south. We were making good time (~6knots) till ~7pm when suddenly the wind shifted to the north (i.e. now it was behind us) and increased in intensity to 35 knots. We were suddenly traveling nearly 8 knots. I lowered the motor speed and on the staysail and a little bit of engine we travelled the rest of the night at 6 – 7 knots.

The wind change brought a sudden drop in temperature and an impressive change in wave height. Mountains of water would rise up behind the boat and cause the boat to slew left or right and roll side to side as they passed under. Happily the autopilot maintained our heading and no one touched the wheel as we sailed through the night…People on watch just watched. Between being very cold (I put on my long underwear, two polartecs, foul weather gear, a polartec hat and thick mittens) and being bounced around it was a boisterous night. We decided to have two people stand watch together, in two hour shifts and did this from 7pm to 9am.

We pulled into the Old Point Comfort Marina in Fort Monroe (Bobby used to work for the DoD and so has priveleges) and immediately plugged in and started the heater.

There was not much to see on the trip down. We saw the “Pride of Baltimore” with full sails just south of the Annapolis Bay Bridge – beautiful. We passed a few tugs late at night, some of whom talked with us on the VHF radio to confirm we were staying out of their way. Remarkably few boats of any kind out on the water…probably a testament to their intelligence (and our lack of any)!

The next few days should be much better (albeit it will be cold for the next two day). We will be well inland and well protected from waves and such. We will spend most nights at marinas, especially if it is cold, so we can plug in and run the heater.

More to follow