April – May 2010

With the decision finally made to take Free Radical monohull north to Canada, we started making preparations for the upcoming trip. Because the boat really hadn’t sailed anywhere in the last 4 years, all kinds of things had to be done.

Luckily the boat itself was in pretty good shape cosmetically, having been re-varnished inside, the deck painted and the salon and aft cabin upholstery recently redone. However, just about two weeks before we were ready to leave, I discovered that all the zippers on the dodger/bimini were shot, and had to be replaced! So a total of 49 zippers – over $250 worth - were ordered from Sailrite – this time we ordered the kind called RiRi, which are supposed to last 15 years in the sun. I worked for 6 entire 8 hour days removing and replacing all the zippers in the bimini, windshield, dodger and enclosure. What a job.

In the meantime, Ed removed and Baja filtered all of the diesel in the fuel tanks and got both refrigeration systems working. Gear that had been removed for the painting and interior renovation was put back on the boat.

Then there was the problem of a dinghy. We still hadn’t really decided how we would get around once we were living aboard and at anchor again since we had two boats and only one dinghy. The solution presented itself just days before our departure, with Doug (who was substituting for us at the resort) offering to sell us his dinghy with a 5hp Nissan motor. It suited our budget and was readily available…so we bought it.

I moved all our perishable food off the cat, cleaned out the fridges, and moved most of the non-perishable food too, anticipating the necessity of carrying heavy canned and dry goods on our backpacks. We helped get Doug moved into the resort. Several trips down island in the truck completed the provisioning.

During this time, also, Peter, the owner of the resort we are managing, was on Roatan. He was accompanied by two families, each with three teenagers. They spent their time relaxing, playing around on the kayaks and swimming, diving and sightseeing. Our role necessitated preparing all 7 cabanas – a heavy cleaning by two local women, and heavy yardwork and cleanup by Cebert (the watchee) and a couple of helpers. During the two weeks we were kept busy keeping the guests fed and provisions and beverages available. A very busy time.

Doug arrived from his cruising around Belize. Doug is a single handed sailor, and he was to occupy the dock space vacated by Free Radical, look after paying the wages for the watchees on the resort. We got Doug oriented as to the workings of the resort, and turned over the keys.

Finally the day arrived when we had to say to ourselves ‘now or never’. It was time to kick off from the dock. The day was still and meltingly hot and we drifted off the dock and put down the anchor a short distance away. Doug brought his boat alongside the cat, and then we walked his boat into the vacant dock space using lines (the area just in front is so shallow that you really can’t maneuver a boat properly to drive it in there). We handed over the USB plug for the internet….and away we went.

The first night we just motored over to Port Royal, and figured out how to get the dinghy onto the davits, and tidied up the boat from all the frantic preparations. After charting a course for Key West and checking the weather one more time, we jumped off to our ‘staging anchorage’ at Barbaretta. Unfortunately we just couldn’t get anchored there. We had been in there several times on the cat, but the water was just so shallow we kept running aground and damaging sea grass…so we decided it was so calm we should anchor over at the Pigeon Cays, a beautiful spot but exposed.

It was a wonderful afternoon and evening, but overnight the wind picked up and soon we were bucking a 3 foot chop totally exposed to the wind and protected from the open sea by a scant sandbar. But it was good holding, and we didn’t budge. We didn’t, however, get very much sleep!

At the crack of dawn we pulled up the anchor and headed around Barbaretta and north towards Cuba. We were cruising again!

Thursday started out windy, and just got windier. With 7 ft waves, we were heeled right over on our sides with 25 knots of wind. Luckily Ed had put a double reef in the main! We considered bailing out and heading downwind to Isla Mujeres in Mexico, but kept going. If we headed to Isla Mujeres we would be delayed at least another week waiting for weather to head east to Florida. And maybe it would get better. Maybe we were just not used to sailing. Our plastic enclosure once again was a godsend and kept us dry from the flying spray (but hot!). We were glad the zippers had been redone!

By Friday night we were rounding the west tip of Cuba. The wind did die down quite a bit, in face we the seas were way down and we were able to get some sleep and keep ourselves fed and rested.

That didn’t last very long, and soon the seas came back up, along with the wind and we were rocking and rolling along, right over on our side. Overnight, were were hailed on VHF 16. Right in our path was a crew setting down a submarine cable – a floating line 5 miles long! The guard boat who hailed us advised us to alter course to the east (which put us on a windy and fast beat almost directly into the wind). We had to do this for 8 miles, and then we could go on our way.

The autopilot started making funny grindy noises on Saturday afternoon. The wind was down, thankfully, and Ed worked in the hot, cramped compartment under the steering for hours while I hand steered. Finally after replacing all the parts with all the spares on board, he had to admit defeat. With 2 ½ days to  go, we ended up having to hand steer. That sucked.

We caught sight of the sea buoy at Key West around 6AM on Monday and sailed into the very large, well marked and busy channel. We drove around the anchorage areas trying to get an idea where to drop the hook….and who do you think was here but our friends Patrick & Nancy on Stolen Child! Patrick came over right away in his dinghy and helped us get a good anchoring spot. Then we got our paperwork together and they took us into town to check into the USA. A very easy check in, followed by some cold Irish beer and lunch at Finnegan's’.

We returned to the boat and slept for 15 hours.