"The best laid plans of mice and men..."

"often go awry."

It started so well.  I would take two and a half weeks and sail down to St. Augustine and back with my girlfriend Gabrielle, her two boys Malo and liam, and of course, Chili.  We would do some offshore sailing and some ICW motoring.  I wanted to try to get down to St. Augustine quickly and then take some time coming back up to Charleston, with stops at Fernandina Beach, Cumberland Island and River Street in Savannah.  Like the title of this post says, though....

The first day was great.  We sailed out of Charleston Harbor in the late afternoon on Friday, June 21.  We were beating into a 10-12kt wind, slowly tacking our way Southward.  We had a nice dinner at sea, and the kids watched a movie in their cabin before drifting off to sleep.  Early in the morning the wind died, so we motorsailed.  By daybreak we were off of Tybee Roads, Savannah.  The water output from the diesel was less than it should have been and I needed rest, so we ducked into the Savannah River and anchored.  Although I didn't know it at the time, the engine's waterpump was failing.  It was the first of many problems that would arise on this trip. 

The next couple of days saw us motoring down the ICW towards St. Augustine.  We soon found ourselves completely socked in with nasty weather.  It wasn't a typical June rainstorm.  No, this was tropical storm Debbie.  Great!  Well, it wasn't as bad as you might think.  We saw winds of up to about 30kts and a lot of rain, but other than that we were just fine.  By the time we got down to St. Simons, the waterpump was on its last legs.   It had developed a leak at the shaft seal, and would slowly fill the engine bilge with sea water when the seacock for the water intake was open and the engine was running.  It was during this time that I discovered my automatic bilge pump wasn't working.  The water from the leaky pump would fill the engine bilge and run over into Tranquility's main bilge.  The float switch for the automatic bilge pump would cause the pump to turn itself on, but there was a tear in the pump's diaphragm and it wouldn't pump water.  Clearly these two issues had to be addressed, so we stopped at Golden Isles Marina to get some work done.  While docked there, the weather finally cleared.  With a new waterpump and bilge pump, we were ready to continue our trip.

Thursday, June 28 saw us heading offshore from St. Simons.  Winds were forecast to be 10-15kts from the SSE, with seas at 2-3 feet.  Although the wind direction wasn't great, the windspeed and sea-state was good, so offshore we went.  Again we had a great dinner at sea before everyone drifted off to sleep, with me manning the helm.  As the night wore on, the winds shifted further south and intensified in speed.  The waves also got steeper and closer together.  I was seeing winds of 17-20kts, with gusts up to 22-24kts on occasion.  I was really close-hauled and clawing to windward.  Tranquility would sail along at about five knots, but every third wave or so would rob her of momentum and knock our speed down to two knots.  Although she would slowly regain it, we clearly weren't making good enough time, so I fired up the diesel and we began motorsailing at low RPM.  This resolved the problem of losing momentum, and Tranquility kept her speed up around five knots again as we clawed our way on down towards St. Augustine.

At 0145 Friday morning, we were 12.2 miles East of Fernandina beach.  I tacked Tranquility over onto a starboard tack to head back offshore.  We would ride this tack out about 20 miles before making the final tack that would take us into St. Augustine inlet.  Windspeed was 20kts, and the seas were three to six feet.  I sheeted in and trimmed the headsail, and sat back down at the helm to check the instruments.  I suddenly heard a tremendously loud bang and felt the boat shudder violently.  I could not believe what I saw.  Tranquility's mast had sheared off about three feet above the coachroof and fallen over the port side!  Although I was completely stunned and shocked, I instantly turned off the engine to prevent the prop shaft from getting fouled by the rigging which lay all over the house and decks and spilled over into the water.  How could this have happened?  What would have caused the rig of this strong cruising boat to collapse in 20kts of wind?  It turned out to be crevice corrosion on the forward-most starboard side chainplate.  It simply broke in half and ripped itself out of the deck, leading to catastrophic rig failure.

So there we were, dismasted and lying beam-to the seas, slowly drifting Northward at two in the morning, 12 miles offshore.  I called Sea Tow (with whom I've had a membership for four years), who informed me that since I was dismasted they would consider any assistance they gave me to be a salvage operation, and that my policy didn't cover salvages.  WTF??  They couldn't even give me a price for the operation "until our boat gets there in a couple of hours."  Thanks for nothing, Sea Tow.  With this in mind, I clipped into the jacklines and went on deck with a knife and bolt-cutters and cut my rig away.  I lost everything; sails, mast, boom, furlers...  everything went to the bottom of the Atlantic.  With Tranquility free of that spider web of destroyed rigging, I again fired up the diesel and motored into Fernandina, docking by myself at six in the morning.  I immediately collapsed and went to sleep.

It's really beyond my ability to describe to you how I felt then, and how I still feel now about losing the rig.  Suffice it to say that it was traumatic and heart-breaking.  I will leave it at that.  I thank my lucky stars that nobody on board got so much as a scratch.

With the rig gone, all of our plans were changed.  The priority became getting the boat home with everyone safe.  The next day we began our slow trip home, motoring up the ICW.  Two days later, we were anchored behind Blackbeard Island, in Sapelo Sound.  A massive thunderstorm blew down on us from the North, with winds at 50kts+, and tremendous amounts of rain and lightening.  This was much more disturbing than being dismasted, as the storm raged for four hours.  At one point, the violent winds cruelly ripped my solar panels from the top of the bimini and flung them over the side, still attached by their power cable.  Because of the wicked rolling of the boat and the weight of the panels, I was unable to save them and had to cut them away, too.  As that storm raged on, we were powerless to do anything except pray that Tranquility's anchor would hold.  Well, not only did it hold, it didn't budge an inch.  I will include a picture of the breadcrumbs that the chartplotter laid during the storm.  Tranquility was battered and beaten, but like she has always done in the four years and thousands of miles that I've sailed her, she took care of her passengers.  Bless her heart, she is a fantastic cruising boat.

Next day, we slowly continued up the ICW.  We eventually made it back to Charleston on July 4th.  Two days later, we hauled Tranquility out at Ross Marine to have her rebuilt.  Although six weeks have gone by since the dismasting, it still breaks my heart to think about it.  The tears I cried for her could fill up a bucket.  Despite the hard luck on the trip, we did have moments of fun.  There will be memories from this trip, both good and bad for everyone onboard, that will last for a lifetime.

    

"I'm goin' way down south, way down to Mexico way..."

"Hey, hey, hey Joe, better run on down..."
-Jimi Hendrix

Mexico!  Where to begin?  I had never been before, but had frequently entertained ideas of cruising there.  I thought that at some point I would sail down around the keys and across the Gulf to Isla Mujeres, which is only about 400nm from Key West.  Little did I know that I would be in Mexico sooner than I thought, or that I would be on the Pacific coast of Baja California instead of the Yucatan Peninsula.
It all started about a year ago, when a friend of a friend bought a 46' Hallberg-Rassy up in Seattle.  The new boat owner, Steve, decided to take his boat, "Liberation II," down the Pacific coast this winter, going through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean.  This intrigued me, and I suggested to our mutual friend John that I would love to help Steve move the boat down on any leg of that cruise.  Turns out that Steve did indeed need some crew, so we formulated a plan that would see me joining the captain and crew of Liberation II in San Diego, and sailing her in the Baja Ha Ha cruisers' rally down to Cabo San Lucas over the course of two weeks.
The Baja Ha Ha is a good-natured, liesurely milk-run of about 750 miles down the coast of Baja California.  This year's rally was the 18th such race, and saw a fleet of 172 boats register to participate.  Although a number of vessels that registered did not end up sailing in the race, there were still about 140 boats that put to sea and turned left, headed for warmer latitudes.  I flew out to San Diego on October 22, and took a comfortable bunk in Liberation II's roomy aft cabin.  The crew consisted of the boat's owner, Steve, our mutual friend John, and one of Steve's friends from San Francisco named Mike.  The chemistry was good from the get-go, with lots of joking and laughing.
Monday the 24th saw us starting the rally under full sail, but with little wind.  The organizer of the race determined that a rolling start was in order, so it was decided that all boats would motorsail at speeds not surpassing 6kts in order to make some headway towards our first stop.  We motorsailed through the first day and night.  At 6am the next morning, the wind had built to the point that we turned off the motor and began sailing.  Over the next 48 hours, we had winds anywhere from 5kts to22kts.  There were times that Liberation II cracked 9kts of boatspeed.  The sailing during this time was absolutely fabulous, and would be the best sailing of the entire trip.  We ran a 110% jib with full main, sometimes on the same side together, other times we were wing-and-wing with the jib poled out.  Sometimes we struck the jib and ran with the beautiful blue asymmetrical spinnaker and main.  Sometimes we were 10 miles off of the Baja's rugged coastline, other times we were 30, 40, 50 miles out.  Liberation II is a fast boat, and we were among the first 20 boats to reach the first planned anchorage at Bahia de Tortugas, pulling in and dropping anchor at about 10:00 at night.  I was at the helm at that time, and believe me when I tell you that it was nerve-wracking entering a foreign port I had never seen before at night with zero navigational lights/buoys to guide us in.
The next two days saw us participating in activities shore-side.  We ate authentic Mexican food and drank many beers in seaside bars.  We roamed the dusty, unpaved streets of the town.  We took some cuts at softballs with local kids at the baseball diamond.  We also dinghy'ed ashore to a deserted beach with the rest of the Ha Ha fleet for the annual cruisers' beach party.  This party was a blast!  While there, I had the best carne asada tacos I have ever had.  I bought them from a little old lady who was preparing them on a beat up charcoal grill, right there on the beach.  I also witnessed a 42' Lagoon catamaran get beached by the outgoing tide, with her beam to the incoming waves.  Everyone tried to help her get free, including three or four pangas that hooked up to the cat with tow lines.  The rescue attempt was unsuccessful, however, and the skipper of that boat had to finally kedge off when the tide came back in, many hours later.  This was the one day that I had forgotten to bring my camera, so I don't have pictures of any of this!
The next morning at sunrise, we put out to sea again with the rest of the fleet.  The sailing on this leg was not good, and we were motorsailing most of the time.  We would be two days and nights offshore, before dropping anchor in Bahia Santa Maria.  Bahia Santa Maria was essentially uninhabited.  There were two or three shacks on the beach that were occupied by fishermen, and that was it.  We were also here for two days.  The first day we mainly relaxed and did a bit of exploring.  The second day saw another beach party/cook-out, featuring a live band that had driven 12 hours across the desert to come play for tips (or so went the story, anyway).  These guys were good, and played music ranging from Otis Redding to Jimi Hendrix, with lots of different stuff in between.  I had some fabulous tamales at this party that I bought out of a kettle down under a rocky cliff on the beach.  We ended the day back on the boat playing poker and hitting the sack early.
Sunrise the next morning saw us raising anchor and putting to sea for the final leg down to Cabo San Lucas.  Winds were light again, and the majority of the fleet motorsailed the entire distance.  The last several hours of this leg, we were in close to the shore and were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the coastline.  We steamed into the cape at about noon and dropped anchor in 30' of clear water, not 100 yards off the beach.  It was glorious!  From the deck of Liberation II, you could see the white sandy bottom of the bay.  The air temperature was 95 degrees, and the water was a fabulous 85 degrees.  I spent two days roaming the town, eating, drinking, and lounging on the beach and in the sea.  It was sad for me to have to pack it up and fly home, but real life was calling and I had to go.  I spent a wonderful two weeks sailing and partying with LibII's owner and crew.  The Baja Ha Ha was a great rally, despite the light winds.
The time I spent on this trip really helped to scratch my cruising itch.  Sure, it was different to be on someone else's boat, and to only be at it for two weeks, but it was more than worth it to go.  The boat was great, the people were even better, and the food and scenery were nearly impossible to beat.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.  Special thanks to Steve, John, Mike and Liberation II for showing me such a great time.
Stay tuned in 2012, as I plan to sail back down to the Bahamas with an all-new cast of characters!  More posts to follow.