Monday, January 3, 2011

4:00am Location: N26 17.210 W79 29.253


Azaya's prominent blip on the radar



My turn at watch. Wayne’s turn for sleep. It’s still calm out and I’m enjoying some coffee and looking around. It’s dark and there’s really no sign of lights anywhere except for one freighter on the horizon heading for an unknown destination, and I can see the steaming/running lights of Azaya a half mile back and Aurora a mile back. Both show one white light up the mast over a red light (their port side). I can verify their distance from us with our radar. Azaya has a very strong radar signature and Aurora’s is faint but always there – a little green blip on the mile line of our radar. It’s nice to see both of their lights out here. It breaks up the darkness.



After scanning the GPS, the Radar and doing a visual check along the horizon, I finally look down in the water. I love to see the wake we generate glow from all the little phosphorescing critters. An unexpected treasure of little diamond lights sparkle much more brightly than the glowing waves we generate. Little bioluminescent creatures emit their sparks of high intensity light. They truly sparkle like diamonds then disappear. It makes me grin broadly watching their 4th of July fireworks in the water. I have a magnificent view of the stars overhead and the brilliance of my little sea creatures just below my fingertips reach.

As I scan the horizon I can see the glow of light, ever so faintly of the Florida coast off in the distance behind Azaya and Aurora. Ahead, I can see a smaller glow of light. While I know that if it were daylight, I wouldn’t see any land, the light from the cities manage to let me know that there are still cities, active with people, by the slight glow that I see on the horizon. The small glow ahead is probably Freeport, a bustling seaport of cruise ships and freighters. We’re hoping to NOT see a lot of freighter traffic until daylight.

5:00am at: N26 16.975 W79 23.097

In the dark, I can see a cloudbank rolling in. It starts to block my view of the stars. It looks like it’s about 42 ½ miles to Lucaya. I zip the insert between the dodger and the bimini – just in case it wants to rain. Since I can no longer see the stars, I figure it’s better safe than sorry. I really love having the autopilot. It’s like having another crew member and frees up my hands. With nothing much to look at except our two companion boats, I find I’m starting to become mesmerized with the little blips on the radar screen. The green lights and blips on the screen along with our position on the GPS become my entertainment. Aurora’s steaming light has disappeared behind their sail and I’m not sure whether they’re totally under sail now or still motor sailing. I’d hail them on the radio, but don’t want to wake whoever is not on watch.
6:00am N26 18.706 W79 16.653

Azaya is ¾ mile back and Aurora is a little over 2 miles back. Twilight is beginning as I can make out the horizon. There’s a faint light. No stars, we’re running along steadily 6.2 knots at 2000 rpms.
7:00am N26 20.363 W79 10.630


Here comes the sun...

 I turned the radar/running/steaming lights off after grabbing my camera for sunrise shots. We’re only moving at 4.9 to 5.03 knots now and as sunrise approaches, it’s misting and sprinkling on and off. I’m glad I put the insert up so I don’t get as wet.


Here it comes....



Morning has broken...

 10:00am N26 24.944 W78 58.860


Azaya to the left and Aurora to the right - going behind the freigher

The skies are clearing and our speed is a little over 5 knots – 5.07 to 5.25. Freeport is quite visible now and I watch the freighters line up and wait for a pilot to accompany them in. I’d forgotten how large the anchors are on these behemoths. We’d passed one at anchorage that had decided to move as we got in front of him and Aurora had to go around him. They definitely have the right of way in any place they want to go!


Afraid of big boats with big anchors? Nahhhh... We're a sailboat we have the right of way - not LOL It's not as it seems.

At around 12:00 noon we passed by Xanadu and I immediately thought of last year with Guinevere, Blue Pearl, and Azaya and our 70-knot winds! Maggie if you’re reading this you were thought of fondly by us (smiling). At 1:00 we started circling outside of the channel to Lucaya. We arrived at low-low tide and with 6 ft and 6.5 ft drafts, there’s no way we’d try to make it in during a new moon. The tides are at their highest and lowest depths at that time. We finally went in a little after 2pm and called off depths for Azaya along the way. I get nervous hearing Wayne call off 7 feet and my hands grip the steering wheel tighter and I throttle back further and only do 3.5 knots entering the channel. It probably pissed of the cigarette boat that was barreling past us earlier but hey, he doesn’t have a 6 ft or 6.5 ft draft and didn’t need to cut in-between Azaya and us.

We pulled into our slip, on a concrete pier, at 2:30pm then diligently prepared our customs forms. We were then were ferried over to the customs office with Azaya to check into the Bahamas. The people there were very nice and we enjoyed chatting and bantering with Mr. Benjamin Stubbs (the Customs Officer). Our Customs agents could take some pointers from him. He was thorough and quite friendly and professional and made check-in a very pleasant experience. The man has a signature that is gorgeous. I thought – I should change mine! But when I tried to sign my name like he does, mine just looks like a mess. I traded emails with his daughter and nephew (they were sitting there working on computers). They were so cute – makes me miss teaching and working with kids!

By the time we got back to the boat, I was thoroughly tired. A 7:00pm bed time is not out of order…