'Jemm of the Sea II' Sailing Blog

After a long year without much sailing due to the Covid-19 virus, we decided it was time to look ahead to the next sailing season. My hope was to be somewhere else other than Annapolis before the next hurricane season. After looking at various options, I decided the best route was to take the boat south to the Bahamas and continue on from there once I decided on a more concrete plan. My daughter Eva decided to come along to help me with the tough journey.

We wanted to avoid flying due to the virus so we rented a car from Dallas and started our journey northward to Annapolis on November 21st. After a two day drive, we arrived at the Bert Jabin Marina in Annapolis.

 

The boat had previously been on the hard storage while we were gone, but the marina had placed it in the water for our return. The first few days involved me checking out the boat and taking note of anything that needed to be replaced/fixed, including the below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving arrived while we were in Annapolis, and since Eva loves the holiday, we wanted to find a way to celebrate. Unfortunately, a lot of the restaurants in the area were all sold out of their catered Thanksgiving meals. We were luckily able to find a local Whole Foods and purchased a mix of Thanksgiving food – turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, cornbread, and of course – pie!

 

Another thing that delayed our departure was the weather. We kept checking PredictWind throughout our time in Annapolis and kept having to postpone due to storms along our path. What made it trickier is that the forecast was constantly changing so it was hard to find a reliable window to leave. After countless days of monitoring, we finally decided to leave on December 1st. It looked as if the storm has almost dissolved. Boy, were we in for a surprise.

 

Our first few days sailing down Chesapeake Bay were quiet. The weather was rather mild, and there wasn’t much wind. Despite the shining sun, it was still rather cold, hovering around 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Eva was so cold, she would bundle up in three layers to keep warm especially during watch. Though there were a few days with not much wind, requiring us to motor, we had a few hours of solid sailing with about 5 knots/hour speeds. On December 3rd in the late afternoon, I noticed a storm forming directly south of us in our line of passage. Because we were making good time, I decided it would be better for us to stop for a few days to let the storm dissolve. We were close to Southport, NC which is just south of Wilmington and where Joanna and I had stopped on our way up to Annapolis. I decided we would stop there for a day or more until the storm passed. 

 

 

During our sail into Southport, we had multiple odd occurrences. The first was seeing random flares coming up a few miles northwest from us. We heard multiple other boats call into the Coast Guard to report the sighting but no one was able to identify what it was. There was even a boat who went to the location to see if there was a boat in peril but there was nothing there. After about two hours, the Coast Guard rang back and reported that the Navy had been doing some exercises. It was very odd that it took so long to resolve and figure out what it was! The second occurrence was that another sailboat rang in to report that one of their winches had torn from their deck and the line had gotten tangled in their rudder. We heard later on that it took them almost all night to remove the line and get back. Their son even called into the Coast Guard because he was worried. We were happy they were alright!

 

We anchored in Southport around 10PM on December 3rd. There was no one else at the anchorage so it was fairly easy to find a spot. However, about a half hour after our arrival, the wind really started blowing with gusts up to 42 knots. This caused us to worry that our anchor was going to drag a bit overnight. Luckily, we didn’t need to reposition but by the time we woke up, the chain had stretched the whole length under the wind. We stayed one more day in Southport to wait out the storm south of us and left on December 5th.

 

The next three days had some really rough sailing. The PredictWind forecast showed that the winds wouldn’t be stronger than 25 knots with small swells. We had stronger winds with gusts closer to 35 knots and horrible waves going in all different directions. The waves leftover from the storm were clashing with the waves from the wind. It really felt like a washing machine out there, and both Eva and I were truly miserable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were visited by a small sparrow which seemed to have been blown far from land and gotten lost. It sat calmly on our compass and seemed very tired. We tried to give it some food and water before it flew off in search of land.

 

 

On the last day of the trip, we finally got some respite. We had beautiful weather and smooth sailing the rest of the trip to Freeport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the morning of Wednesday, December 9th, we reached the Bahamas and docked at Bradford Marine Boatyard in Freeport. I had previously spoken to the general manager of the marina, Dan Romence, to coordinate our arrival particularly with the country’s strict COVID restrictions. In order to be allowed into the Bahamas, you need to receive a negative PCR test no more than 3 days before arrival. Because the sail itself is more than three days (close to a week), the manager was working with Customs & Immigration to get us an exception. That way, we only needed a negative COVID test and the 3 day rule didn’t apply. Everything seemed to be good to go when we left. However, as we were being checked in at the marina, the Customs & Immigration agent informed us that apparently there was some issue with the paperwork, and we hadn’t received the exception. Because of this, we needed to have a doctor come to do a COVID test and couldn’t leave the marina until we received a negative result. Dan Romence and the entire team at the marina were super accommodating with our situation, helping us get food delivered to the boat, going to get us cash, and making sure we had everything we needed to have a comfortable stay on the boat. It was definitely an anxious waiting game while awaited our negative results especially since our flight was booked for Saturday morning. Finally, on Friday afternoon, we received our negative result and were finally allowed to leave the marina for our flight the next day. That evening, we celebrated by going to a local haunt with delicious local food.