A New Sailing Season Begins

Well, it's 2019 and I have yet to do much sailing but all that is about to change!  I have three off shore voyages planned this fall.  The first is from Key West to Isla Mujeres (Cancun) in Mexico with my cousin Karen, her husband Dean and their family on their new Beneteau Sense 57 sloop.  They left St. Petersburg here in Florida a couple of days ago and got into Key West last afternoon and are now waiting for me.  The second trip, is on a friend's Amel Super Maramu 2000 from Annapolis to Bermuda and then the third is from Bermuda to Martinique, all up totally nearly 2,000 nautical miles - almost enough to sail across the North Atlantic to Europe!

Feels like a sad day for Canada after the disastrous election (Canadian's essentially voted "none of the the above") last night but I'm happy to be leaving this weather behind for warmer and sunnier climates!  

This morning (Tuesday October 22, 2019), I flew out of Toronto's Pearson airport (thanks for the lift down Dad!) to Atlanta and then after a very quick connection on to Jacksonville, Florida.   I picked up a rental car and then drove down to St. Augustine where avid followers may recall that I visited two years ago on my way back up the coast from Key West on Kristy.    I really liked St. Augustine and had booked a night here in order to visit an Amel that was for sale but unfortunately I learned yesterday that it had been sold so I won't be visiting it.  That said, it's a great town and the first settlement on the continent (1565) so I wasn't that disappointed.  

The seawall promenade at St. Augustine.  This was originally built in the 1600's but has been renovated to allow for up to Category 1 Hurricanes in the last 20 years.

To the left is the passage out to the Atlantic.  These boats are moored before the lift bridge.

The city marina where we stayed with Kristy (Kent's Super Maramu 2000) on the way back up the East Coast from Key West two springs ago.

It doesn't look like the are going to fix the Irma damaged restaurant. It looked about that bad the last time I was here.  All sorts of Tarpon racing around eating stuff.  The water is not at all clear but every once in a while you'd see a big splash and perhaps a fin or a tail of a big fish.

Iconic St. Augustine

The beginning of the about a mile long pedestrian mall.  Lots of little bars, shops, gelato places.  Cool vibe.

It's hard to see but those are really cool trees (next to a building that was built in the 1600's)

More of the pedestrian mall.  See the old buildings?  

A waterwheel - obviously

The oldest schoolhouse in the Americas. Note the chain holding the walls together!

The original fort built by the Spanish... lot of good it did them.  The English (and then the US) still managed to take Florida away from them.

The original fortifications around the city.

The lift bridge we had to go under (through) to get at the City Marina just on the other side.

It's a romantic place with the lights and nice restaurants.

With nice boardwalks and park areas

And restaurants and B&B's.

Tomorrow the plan is to drive down the coast to Fort Lauderdale where I will meet with the original Amel dealer for North America and who has sold more than anyone else - often 3 or 4 times for the same boat!  Joel's ads in cruising world are what got me interested in Amel's over 40 years ago and while he's no longer the official Amel dealer for the US, he's still an encyclopedia of Amel information and acts as a broker still for many of the used Amel's on the US market.  He doesn't have a specific boat for me to to look at but I wanted to spend a few hours with him picking his brain so more on that tomorrow.

On Thursday, the plan is to see one or two of the Super Maramu's that are  up for sale in Fort Lauderdale (I'm not serious about either of these two but want to look anyway) and then I fly out of Miami to Key West to meet up with Dean/Karen and family on their new boat in preparation for departure on Friday morning.

The current winds for Friday afternoon/evening.  Isla Mujeres (Cancun) is at the tip of the peninsula on the bottom left.  

The weather forecast currently looks quite good for the passage with moderate winds (14-20 knots) mostly on our tail with light seas of 0.6 metres.  Of course, we could still see the odd squall but those are nearly ideal conditions for the passage which is about 330 nautical miles around the north west corner of Cuba to Isla Mujeres just off the city of Cancun.

On November 2nd, I leave Karen/Dean and family to take their boat back on to their home in the  Cayman Islands and I fly to Baltimore where I will get picked up by Alan Grayson and his wife Laura to join them and one other to sail their Amel Super Maramu 2000 to Bermuda and then later to Martinique direct.

The direct line sailing distance (our actual course over ground will be quite a bit longer as we may have to tack to get into the prevailing winds coming from the east when you get to the latitude of southern Florida.  

 Weather permitting, the plan is to leave the morning of November 3rd but if it is too strong, we may just toddle down the Chesapeake (it's 130 nautical miles from Annapolis to the opening into the Atlantic at Virginia Beach.  It's over 800 nautical miles (almost 1,500 kilometres) to Bermuda so we should be out for 5-6 days.  Then the current plan is to hang out in Bermuda for a couple of weeks (we drop the extra crew member there) and then sail on to Martinique direct via the outside (Atlantic side) of the Windward Islands.  That's another 2,000 kms (1,100 nautical miles) which with my other passages and this extended offshore passage will qualify me for the most prestigious Royal Yachting Association's Yachtmaster Ocean Master rating (I still have to pass the test but I would have the prerequisites as I've already done the written work).  I don't know that I will ever apply for that as it is quite expensive to take the course, rent a boat for the test, etc but it's nice to know that I could!