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Cruising Tales From The Log of Nilaya
by Jim and Mary Gienko
August, 2004 -
Part 2
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Jim and Mary purchased Nilaya, a 36’ Bayfield |
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cutter-rigged sailboat, in 1986, with the express
purpose of someday sailing her in the Bahamas and
perhaps, even |
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further south into the Caribbean. This is the story of that first saltwater voyage, a three month
cruise to the Exumas in the
Bahamas. |
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Cruising Tales From The Log of Nilaya
by Jim Gienko
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Part 2
After successfully floating
free of our grounding and re-anchoring in the pitch
dark of the night at Little Shark River, we awoke
to a bright, sunny day. Earlier the previous
evening, as we sat on the bottom, we received a
surprise visit from a friend in our cruising club by
dinghy and suggested we come up river and anchor by
them. Jim sheepishly had to tell him we were
aground. Several other boats from our cruising
club, The PGI Seafarers, had left 2 days before us
and we caught up to them in the anchorage. They
were on an extended trip to the Florida keys. By
the time we had rolled out of our bunks the next
morning, the last of the group was leaving. After
having a leisurely breakfast, we raised anchor and
off we went headed for Marathon, in the Florida
Keys.
Our course put us almost due
south out of Little Shark River, and for Mary, we
could not leave the anchorage quickly enough. The
amount of mosquitoes we encountered the evening
before was incredible, and they were served a rare
gourmet meal, Mary. She hates them with a passion.
Nothing puts Mary in a foul mood like mosquitoes.
Apparently she has some type of blood that acts as a
mosquito magnet.
Early in the morning winds are
generally calm, and they pick up during the day.
This day was no exception. Originally winds were
out of the east/northeast running about 7 knots.
With all sails up and flying, NILAYA was not exactly
a speed demon. Our friends sail a Hunter 42 (named
HALCYON) which makes NILAYA look like a snail in
light air and we had to run Yanni (our 44 horse
Yanmar diesel) just to keep up with them.
Fortunately, NILAYA struts her stuff under heavier
wind conditions which makes it easier for her to
keep up under the more sprightly winds. Eventually
the winds began to approach the 18-22 knot range
which was to be a precursor for the entire trip.
NILAYA will sail 8+ knots on a broad reach in these
conditions and that is what we now had. The sail
was magnificent. This is what we came to Florida
for. Unlike, Lake Michigan, with fluky, gusty
winds, these winds were constant in both speed and
direction. These conditions are perfect for Linn
(our autopilot) to take over, which she eagerly
did. However, after about 5 hours of work, she got
tired and decided to take a rest. The rest of the
trip required us to hand steer thru all the numerous
“mine fields” but otherwise was an uneventful
glorious sail into Marathon and Boot Key Harbor.
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Arriving at approximately 5
pm., with the winds gusting to 20/25 knots,
we proceeded to pick out our spot and
anchor. Mary is our helmsperson for
anchoring and little things like 25 knot
winds spook her. We managed to get one
anchor set but we ended up too close to
another boat. Jim practically had to
force her to re-anchor let alone put down 2
anchors. However, eventually we
managed to do just that and were finally
able to relax. Little did we realize
that we would spend 10 days waiting in
Marathon for a |
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weather window to cross
to the Bahamas. We leaned that several boats
had been waiting weeks to cross the gulf stream but
the weather continued to blow hard out of the
north/northeast, not the conditions you want to
challenge in the gulf stream. Jim always said you
can avoid bad weather and problems with a little
patience, however, this trip would require a great
deal of patience.
Prior to leaving, Jim had hurt
his shoulder but decided it was not bad enough to
cancel the trip. A few aspirins and it would be
fine. Wrong. By the time we got to Marathon the
shoulder hurt so badly it was difficult to use. We
decided Jim should go to the emergency room at
Fisherman’s Hospital in Marathon. The diagnosis was
extreme tendonitis. Take ibuprofen for 10 days and
it should be fine. That shoulder continued to hurt
the entire trip and still bothers Jim. It
prevented us from doing a lot of sailing during the
trip especially in heavy weather because raising and
lowering the main was difficult for him. It was bad
enough he had to lower and raise the anchor by
hand.
One evening we decided to go
into the local waterfront restaurant for their
special cheap evening meal and listen to the Jimmy
Buffet wanabees with our Punta Gorda friends we
caught up with in Little Shark River and our friends
from Halcyon. After dark, on our way back to the
boat in the dinghy, the clouds opened up with a
torrential downpour. Winds were blowing 45 knots
and rain came down in buckets. It was difficult to
see much of anything let alone find our boat. After
getting totally soaked, even with our rain gear, we
managed to find the boat and get in out of the fury
of the storm.
After 10 days of waiting in
Marathon for the weather to change, we were getting
rather impatient and believing that if we didn’t get
going soon, we would have to scrub our trip
completely. Our Punta Gorda friends had left and
gone to Key West. We had visited several of the
local restaurants, saw the movie “Starsky & Hutch”,
had a visit from our friends who live on Sombrero
Key, went to the beach for a picnic, did all our
laundry, filled the water tank, gas tank and fuel
tank, then refilled the extra water jugs, gas jugs
and fuel jugs. We were ready.
We arranged a meeting of the
“buddy boats” over the Marathon Cruisers Net for 1
pm on the 10th day of our stay in
Marathon for all boats planning to cross to the
Bahamas . Approximately 15 boats came to the
meeting at the marina office. The discussion ran,
of course to weather, including the review of
several weather web site pages, weather faxes and
NOAA predictions. All the boats thought the window
was going to be in 2 days. Our traveling friends
and us looked at the info and said tonight is the
time to cross the gulf stream. So at 3 pm that day,
we hurried back to our boats, readied them for
travel and at 5pm raised our anchors for the trip to
Nassau in the Bahamas. We were finally on our way
to a destination outside the US on our own bottom.
We later learned that only 4 other boats eventually
made it to the Bahamas with one boat having to turn
back after hitting heavy weather on the banks and
breaking a bowsprit.
Next: Marathon to Nassau
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"If you are really living... you are enjoying the Punta Gorda
Life"
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