What a FANTASTIC sail!

We have traveled between the Abacos and Eleuthera many times now (we skipped the return trip during Covid because we went straight from the Exumas to Florida). Invariably it turns into a motor fest. Either there are days of too much wind so we grab the first non-windy day we get, or there is nice wind but it’s a tad too on the nose to sail, or it’s behind us and it isn’t strong enough for us to cover the 50 miles before it gets dark.

With our Pelagic autopilot on the fritz, I was NOT looking forward to hand-steering this time. The forecast showed, once again, too much wind on Friday and not enough wind on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, before going back to too much wind. So as of late afternoon on Thursday, we had resigned ourselves to motoring on Saturday.

But wait! Now the forecast was looking much better for Friday! 10-12 knots, gusts to 17 knots, just behind the beam, seas of 3-4 feet. That sounded great, and all of the forecast models agreed. So with a quick change of plans, we were heading out on Friday to hopefully sail across for the first time.

Not so fast. We motored from Spanish Wells to past Egg Island, and we were only seeing around 5 knots of wind. What the hell?? We’re supposed to have wind! But another 45 minutes later the wind freshened. And freshened. And freshened some more.

Our 10-12 knots just behind the beam ended up being primarily 15-18 knots at 60 degrees off the nose. The 3–4 feet of seas ended up being 4-6 feet plus. This was definitely a sporty sail in our book! But Bob the Monitor windvane was helming like a champ. All we had to do was sit back and hang on.

With the benefit of a slight current in our favor, Pegu Club was flying at over 6 knots most of the day. We even passed a catamaran that was sailing. It is unheard of for us to pass a larger sailboat. Granted, catamarans don’t sail well at that angle, but I’ll still count it as a win.

After we passed the catamaran we had a humorous/bizarre moment with them. We were at least 300 feet away when we passed them, and when I looked back they had moved over to our other side and were gesticulating at us.

We hopped on the radio and the woman complained that we were too close when we passed them (again, it was at least 300 feet.) Because we were so far away, I was completely perplexed and blurted out the first thing that came into my head, “We’re from New England.” I’m sure that statement made no sense to her, but in my mind I was thinking, “Lady, that was nothing. You should see how close people pass in southern New England.” She responded with, “Stay 100 yards away!” Ohhhh-kay. Later we were laughing about it with our friends on Minx, and Tanya said, “Tell me you’re new to boating without saying you’re new to boating.” Exactly!

Anyway, back to our sail. A few waves hit Pegu broadside, spraying us with salt water where the weather cloths ended, but as Jeff is fond of saying, “It’s a water sport.” We were so grateful that our friends on SV Lone Star had suggested that we make weather cloths before we left this fall! We would have been SUBSTANTIALLY wetter without them, and we’re going to extend them a bit more this summer.

As we approached Little Harbor cut, the thought crossed my mind that I wanted to sail through the cut. The wind angle was right and we had enough wind, but I knew Jeff wouldn’t go for it so I didn’t mention it. We started the engine, and after 30 seconds it cut out. We started it again. Same thing. Looks like we were going to sail through after all! I did admit to Jeff later that a little part of me thought, “Yay!” when the engine stalled. It’s amazing how much more confidence I have vs. when we cut the dock lines in 2018.

We called the catamaran that we had passed earlier on the VHF to let them know we had to sail in, and they said they’d give us plenty of space (at least 100 yards, I’m sure. 🙄) We sailed in without any issues, tacked our way to the anchorage with everyone who had heard us on the VHF watching the show, and dropped the anchor under sail for the second time in our lives.

What a tremendous day!! It was the best 50+ nm sail we’d had in a VERY long time.

As for the engine? It was no big deal. We foolishly hadn’t topped off our fuel tank before we left that morning. Even though we had about 1/2 a tank, the fuel-pickup is on the high side and we were heeling enough that Big Red was sucking in air. After we anchored we added another jerry jug of diesel to the tank, and the engine started just like it was supposed to. Lesson learned.

And just like that, we were back in the Abacos.