Puerto Rico to New York
Swaraj 2022
Angus Handasyde Dick
Mon 17 Jul 2023 16:45
We welcome Chris and Katie on board at Puerto del Reay. This was to be the first step on their 3 month sabbatical around the states when they leave us in New York (Chris is an early adopter and was accompanied by his new Starlink . Hence many bags including Twinkle plus internet dish. Will be very interesting how this works at sea. Chris is very compliant and has signed up for the world wide roaming package!
Great discussion follow as to whether we should strike off to Bermuda and then continue on to the states . That had my vote but I was over ruled by everyone else who fancied a taste of the Gulf Stream . 2 to 4 knots in the right direction what’s not to like . I had to concede they had a point although all the logs and blogs I had read indicated that it could be a long journey to achieve the coastal route.
We set of from los Palominos a little island just off Puerto del Rey in good spirits bound for where ever we could make . Possibly Beaufort if all went really well , Chris voted for a stop in the Bahamas , but it is very shallow for Swaraj and off the route to find deeper water. Still we settled into our watch system.
Our first couple of days were fabulous running goose winged in force 3 Trenchard ( the self steering gear) in charge . Heaven on earth according to our deck log. The only issue being the sargassum weed which poor Trenchard found very trying and he broke his sacrificial bolts several times before we realised we had to clear his weed at least half hourly .
May 20th dawned - all change squalls were coming in fast and thick the wind was from all over the place and the lightening was impressive , we were now close hauled and thinking about how long we could continue in this vein . Consultation of the gribs and windy suggested this might go on for sometime . Finding ourselves just north of Turks and Caicos a stop was definitely indicated. We would arrived at great Turk in the middle of the night so we continued on to Providenciales (the major island at the west end of the Caicos chain). We anchored under a headland at Sandy point about 11.30 pm. Ready to make our way across the shallows into the town the next morning.
Caribbean lite I think is a good description of Turks and Caicos .
Jo Waite has a cousin Alex who lives here . They were wonderful and looked after us royally taking us to check in and to the car hire place. This allowed us to fill our diesel cans and do a quick circumnavigation of the Island so beautiful white sand beaches , great restaurants we became quite the expert on conch dishes! Mainly delicious. Adam was also able to provide Angus with some amazing pain killers so he is a bit easier now. Adam obviously fairly beaten up physically having been a complete daredevil in his youth and clearly still up for any challenge going.
Having had a great stop over it was time to press on for the states , just to cover all eventualities we bought a chart book for the Bahamas. In haste we realised we only had the inner Islands book !
Again our trip started like a lamb motor sailing in 5 knots of breeze with the electric auto helm just coping. Followed by a broad reach up past the Bahamas we’re sloshing along feeling pleased with ourselves 7.5 to 8 knots through the water , a glance at the sog ( speed over the ground ) was not a welcome sight we had up to 3 knots of current agin us. Not what was required or indicated . Thus it was a slow trip past the Bahamas, where was that current we had been told about ? Emerging into the channel between Florida and the Bahamas things didn’t improve - more squalls - the deck log reports 36 knots over the deck and thunder storms returned before the wind went on the nose. Enough is enough so it was decided to run off and close the shore . We considered Cape Canaveral but decided to head for Brunswick just a bit further North. However we were close enough to see the launch pad it’s enormous visible many miles off shore.
(Angus finally revealed he had seen a launch early one morning when east of the Ts&Cs - a massive firework heading skywards - he was still smarting from the hilarity of his spotting UFOs two nights running on the way to Madeira.)
We arrived at Landings Marina ,Brunswick at about 5.00 am on May 30th. We had made the USA. We had a great welcome and managed to manoeuvre ourselves into a cosy marina berth to sit out the strong northerly winds forecast. A new autohelm was now on the jobs list as both Ed’s spare and our raymarine had gone bonkers and were driving the boat around in circles . A jury rig was set up with elastic to steer the last bit to Brunswick. Phew.
Brunswick was a joy , so interesting to visit a southern town , we had lunch with a local politician who we had bumped into at the brewery having a beer . He was a republican , but not keen on Trump, interesting he said did we realise he could be president from a prison cell !! Though he didn’t have a gun his friends all thought it was important that they should be allowed them despite the shootings !
Having hired a car , we were able to visit St Simon Island and Jekkel Island . Both haunts of the super rich Americans where families have their 10 to 25 bedroom winter cottages .
Eventually the northerlies died down and the new autohelm was adapted and adjusted to work on swaraj’s raymarine accessories as all simrad ones were unavailable. We were able to set sail once again on 6 th June ,how far can we get towards New York our current goal? Charleston was the answer - another really interesting historic town with a great seafaring history. A visit to the aircraft carrier Yorktown, followed by a trip downtown , the old quarter which has some lovely cobbled streets of red brick houses. Great art galleries and parks .
Our sojourn in Charleston proved brief as we had a fair breeze - we set sail once again the next day. Hoping to make Beaufort , however with twinkle up and running heavy thunder storms were forecast at sea so Norfolk became our goal .
Impression of Norfolk , gosh don’t the Americans have a huge navy. We saw at least 8 aircraft carriers which dwarf our efforts . Miles of docks with all sizes of war ship, including white painted hospital ships . Quite extraordinary. We took a marina birth in central Norfolk so able to walk ashore and visit the town with its huge world war 2 battleship Wisconsin , beautiful Japanese garden , and historic streets .
A better forecast greeted us and we left early next morning, can we make New York this time !
Yes a quiet motor combine with good broad reaching saw us at Sandy point by the next night. We anchored in the dark ready for our assault on New York the next day
A slightly grey day but nothing could damp our excitement at arriving in New York on our own boat . New York the big apple and past the Statue of Liberty - Wow! the Met fab , ground zero emotional, the Frick collection amazing, Central Park extraordinary and finally the Empire State Building wow again.
3 days flew by and it was time to say a fond farewell to Chris and Katie and wish them well on their gap year in the States.
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