Making the turn - into the Gulf Stream!!
Big day, turning into the Gulf Stream
We overnighted through Key Largo and turned the corner at Miami the next morning 5/2. The shot of Miami below was about 3 miles out. Finally heading North!!! The overnight through Key Largo was smooth, calm seas, almost no wind. It's a big day - turning into the Gulf Stream that will carry us up the coast. Finally heading North!!! IG posts were made to show the beautiful sunrise and the Miami skyline. The mainsail is up the jib is out. Motors are low. Predict wind says 10 knots directly behind us, but we don’t feel it yet. It's 7am Carlos would like to just keep sailing. One week to get to Annapolis.
No help, no reason to stop
We haven't heard back from any of our call aheads or from forward Marina ports and today is Sunday. There were no call backs for help in Key Largo nor Ft. Lauderdale, so no real point to stopping. Starting to see large ship traffic around us, so paying attention to surroundings and radar is becoming more critical.
MIAMI
Important and busy ship channel
New month, new strategy
After extensive discussion on what we should do and what we can do, we opted for our next strategy. Raymarine tech discussion led us down the path that the EV-1 is okay and back to the seatalk cabling. Also, we had purchased an EV-1 unit that actually worked at West marine and then returned. The last component are the five way T's - two of them are in the circuit. Carlos is swapping them out to see if the problem follows; here’s a clue - the EV-1 connected without the five way T’s works properly. In other words, it powers up, but the EV-1 must be part of the full system in order to provide the Autopilot information. David is drawing a schematic so that we can work from a common picture. We'll look for an anchorage area after Fort Lauderdale. Our friend Dane, in Ft. Lauderdale is looking around for us.
The fear and the faith
With no stopping, full sails are in order today. Still need on-going tweaks to keep the mainsail from slamming the boom. Wind is still weak, but coming steady from the rear. The sailing was marvelous up until it wasn't. There is a need for putting up the main sail to save fuel and make time. The problem is with only one experienced sailor understanding how to tend to sails, repairing things, getting out of jams, etc, all falls all to Carlos. Anxiety and tension are beyond reason as David tries to handle the vessel, but this is his first time actually maneuvering a sailboat. The end result of all these things have me frozen with fear. Getting the ship repaired is a high priority, the Captain has fuel savings as his priority. Besides the dangerous slamming of the mainsail, other instrumentation is suspect,, one engine overheats and the autopilot is out. Question of what an experienced captain would do, there are so many stories about perseverance through all difficulties at sea. The Captain is in charge, and we must have faith in his leadership. Although the vessel is not totally up to snuff, it is a solid vessel and has pulled through this far. Living by faith requires pushing the fear and the anxiety way down inside and responding to the best of your ability. Although the feeling is that safety may be compromised, the trust and faith in God and the skill of the captain is what will pull us through.
