On A New Tack

A Clean Anchor Chain? Okay, so why would you want a clean anchor chain?  Two reasons, really.  First, if it's muddy, we really don't want all that muck getting in the anchor locker, and second, it's no so much clean, the goal is really to have no salt residue left on the chain. Chain is zinc galvanized, so it is corrosion resistant, but there is only so much zinc on the steel chain, so the less work that zinc galvanization has to do to protect the underlying steel, the longer it will last! Manual Cleaning Up until now, we have been able to use a fresh-water hose and multi-position sprayer set to mist, which I would lock into "On" and then position the sprayer so that it would spray down through our bridle access opening to rinse the chain on the way up. When you are in sandy anchoring spots, that is pretty much all you need; just enough to get the saltwater off. Now, there have been times where we anchored in thick mud (the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA and Cocori...

We made it to Grenada! Quick note: Jump to the bottom if you want to help us cruisers help those impacted by Beryl in the West Indies After an overnight sail from Martinique, we finally got all situated on a mooring ball in True Blue Bay and then I dinghied over to get us cleared-in.  I went back to the boat.  A tropical wave was very far east of Grenada, but those always turn north of Grenada or fizzle out this early in the year...  This was on the morning of Friday, June 28. This Tropical Disturbance is not doing what its supposed to New updates and projected tracks are available every 6 hours, so every 6 hours we would take another look and make sure we were in the clear.  As we went to bed Friday night, after our 25 hour sail, we weren't feeling in the clear. By the next morning, things were not looking better.  Actually, they were looking worse. Most of the tracks had the eye of the storm going north of Grenada, but there was always a straggler or two that ...

Giving you more fuel tank options  One of the great things about catamarans is the redundancy in just about every system.  Fuel tanks are no exception and having a tank for each engine is nice, but it can be made nicer with a transfer pump or better yet, the ability to pick the tank that each engine pulls its diesel from. But why? There are couple of reasons that you may want to do this.  Maybe one engine is not working and you want to be able to go further by using fuel from both tanks for the engine that is working. If you are getting fuel from an area where this is concern about the quality, you can fill one tank with the suspect fuel, and if it in fact turns out to be bad, you still have the other tank that is known good to fall back on. We normally run both engines from one tank just so that it is a little bit easier to fill when the time comes.  This is a minor issue on our Vision 444, since the two fuel tanks are just in front of the base of the mast. The fill...

After a little over a week in The Abacos, we waited for a good weather day to make the trip from Little Harbour to Spanish Wells. Wednesday was the day. The wind was forecasted to swing to northerly, which meant an entrance through the narrow and exposed-to-the-north Ridley Head Channel would not be a great idea. We instead pointed for the further but safer Little Egg Island passage.  We were still with Umbono, Mira’s sister boat and her owners, Pierre and Kris.  We left at about 8:00 am with a light breeze from the west. Before long that picked up and we hoisted the main and Code 55 and motor sailed for an hour or so. Then the wind swung as forecast and built more. We put away those sails and raised the asymmetrical spinnaker with 15+ knots almost right behind us.  The wind continued to build to 18,19, with gusts to 22 knts. The asymmetrical is good to about 20 knots, but since we were downwind running, surfing down waves and generally hauling ass, our apparent wind neve...

Synopsys: I would be lying if I said it was smooth sailing.    Left Thunderbird We left Thunderbolt, a suburb of Savannah, around 10:00 on the 20th and started the two hour motor down the river to get to the Atlantic. We got a nice send off by dolphins on the way but quickly remembered how far Savannah is inland for such a major port. Anyways we made it to the Atlantic and the waves had certainly settled down from where they were a few days ago, but that's not really saying much, as we later found out that cruise ships were waiting in Freeport extra days for the weather to calm down! Waves were pretty short period and around 4-5' close to shore.  They got larger, but at least longer period as we got further offshore. They were hitting us on the beam, maybe a little forward, which does not result in a super pleasant sail. This was proved out because Abe became seasick soon after we entered this weather and went down to his cabin to rest around 1PM on the 20th.  Sue st...

 After being pinned down in Savannah for quite a while from bad weather, we finally have a good weather window to make the crossing from Thunderbolt, GA (suburb of Savannah) to Freeport, Grand Bahama.  We had a crew member join us yesterday, Abe.  He and his wife found out about a hull slot opening for a Vision 444, came to meet Sue and Mira in Oriental, NC for a tour and to hear about our experience, and decided to jump on the open hull slot!  Welcome to the Vision Family Abe and Anna! Abe has been on standby as we have all collectively waited for good weather.  That storm that came up the coast was creating 30-40 knt winds and 12-15 ft waves!  That is finally passed and the weather will be a little bumpy, but we have great reaching winds forecasted the whole way there.  Should make for a fast sail if that forecast proves true. We expect to arrive in Lucaya (the non-commercial port right next to Freeport) around mid-day on the 22nd.  We'll explor...

I forgot to mention in our last post that we are being joined by our friend Jared K. for the trip to Savannah. We’re glad to have him aboard and help with the watch rotation, but we’ll keep him slightly anonymous so that his work doesn’t find out he is working extra-remotely from home… After the unfortunately eventful trip down Adams Creek to Beaufort, we topped off our diesel tanks and Jerry cans at Town Creek Marina.  Shout out to them! Easy access and the price of diesel was under $4/gallon! The only down side, was that the nozzle was the diameter of my arm, making filling the Jerry cans a nightmare and even the main diesel tanks were no picnic.   We found a nice spot to anchor in Beaufort (great stop, by the way), visited the local brewery (of course!) and met up with the OCC Port Officer Diane to pick up the couple of items I had sent to her. We didn’t get to stay very long since the weather was looking to get more and more unfavorable as time went on.   We found (wh...