6/16/02 | Stormy passage back to Florida

You'd think that after three years of cruising, we'd be pretty savvy about weather windows and cruising plans. You'd think our passages would just be getting better and better, that our final leg back to the US would be easy and painless. Yeah, right.

A schooner goes sailing across the anchorage with nobody aboard

The low-pressure trough that had been causing the past three weeks of weird weather in the northwest Caribbean had, we thought, finally moved far enough west that it would no longer be a concern. A day of thunderstorms and howling wind, which washed all the salt from Windom's decks and caused several boats to drag across the anchorage, signalled, we thought, the trough's passage through the area. The little dotted line on the surface analysis was way over on the northwest edge of the Yucatan peninsula, and the fax and text forecasts all predicted 10 knots of wind from the south, nice and easy. In fact, we were worried the wind would be too light for us to sail! Yeah, right.

If we'd seen the satellite photo, we would have seen that the trough was still firmly astraddle the Yucatan straits. But we blithely motored out of Isla Mujeres on Thursday morning, with dark clouds to our south and west but clear skies, or so it seemed, ahead. We caught and released a few bonitos, which are fierce fighters but not so tasty to eat. It was shaping up to be a nice sail -- until the first storm clouds appeared. And these were serious storm clouds. We watched fishing boats disappear, swallowed up in dense walls of rain. A funnel cloud snaked down from one dark mass, kicking up whitewater where it touched down (a mile and a half away from us, fortunately). We flicked on the radar and watched the squalls form around us, and dodged around to stay out of their way. Sailing got weird as the wind switched around from northwest to southeast, swirling from the storms, although no big gusts hit us.

Tornado at sea!

The windspeed slowly increased all night. Between the 25 knot south wind and the north-flowing current, we zoomed at close to 8 knots. We had reefed the sails so they were fairly small as we were worried about being knocked down by a squall, particularly as the sea became rougher and the boat slewed around in the waves. By noon the next day the individual squalls had merged into one big nastiness which we had no hope of avoiding. The sky grew darker. Rain began to fall.

Suddenly Windom lurched sideways and started to round up into the wind. We raced outside and I grabbed the wheel to hand-steer while Britt reduced sail even more. The windspeed indicator read 42 knots. The rain sheeted down on us. After hand-steering for a while, trading off, we decided that this wasn't much fun. But we couldn't trust the autopilot to compensate quickly enough in the gusts to keep us from getting sideways to a breaking wave, even with our sails reefed down small. So Britt completely doused the sails and started the engine, and we set it to a slow rpm, just enough for steerage as we were still "sailing" at more than 5 knots under bare poles. We put the autopilot back in control, steering almost downwind with the waves directly at our stern, and headed below for hot chocolate and dry clothes.

For the next sixteen hours, we hunkered down below while wind and rain lashed our deck. It was actually fairly comfortable despite the stormy conditions, as the wind was just enough to one side to keep us slightly heeled and stable, while the constant rain battered down the waves from scary-huge to merely impressive. I took several photos but none of them captured the wildness of the terrain, the crazy towering white-capped waves, the overshooting breakers, the deep gray troughs. The highest waves might have been 12 or 15 feet. They rolled irregularly, clashing against each other, tossing great sprays of white foam into the air. But Windom rode smoothly across the cliffs and valleys, with us snug and cozy inside. We read, and nibbled granola bars and chocolate, and looked out the windows, and listened to the weather broadcasts telling us we were experiencing only 15-20 knots of wind and 4 foot seas.

There were only two things that really worried us. One was the prospect of bumping into a ship; we kept the radar on, hoping that the strong return of any ship would still be visible through the scattered dots where squall activity was most intense, and looked out the windows every so often. As it turned out, although we saw lots of ships during the first afternoon of the passage, we saw only one ship during the period of bad weather. Our other fear was lightning. The dark sky lit up at intervals, the rumbles and crashes of thunder echoing over the low hum of the engine. We counted seconds, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, and when it was close by we shut off our instruments, unplugged the computer, flipped off all the breakers except for the autopilot and the radar. The closest strike was two seconds away, less than half a mile, and the shatteringly loud crash of thunder set our hearts thumping and the adrenaline pumping.

Despite the lousy conditions, we had only one minor mishap. With the heavy rain, and the sea spray periodically sweeping our deck, we had all hatches dogged down tight. This kept us nice and warm, but when I started cooking dinner I opened the porthole directly over the stove for some ventilation. It had stopped raining, and I figured that on our downwind course it was safe to open that window; we usually keep it open, even underway, unless we are going upwind on port tack.

The chilly conditions had inspired me to make some lentils with onion and sausage, warm and filling food for a cold passage. Dinner was almost ready, and the pot lid was off as I was adding a few final spices. Then, whammo! A wave coming at exactly the wrong angle broke against our hull, sending several gallons of seawater through the open porthole and all over the stove, the lentils, and me. Drenched and furious, I closed the window, stripped off my soggy clothes, and then worked on saving our dinner while Britt mopped up the floor. I poured the seawater out of the pot and added a little freshwater, then set it next to the sink so I could dry off the stove burner and get it working it again. Then, again, whammo! This wave couldn't get in, but it sure gave our hull a big shove. The pot went flying, and its contents went into the sink. (Most of its contents.)

Fortunately, the sink had been clean and empty. Feeling like Julia Child in that famous episode of her TV show where she dropped the food on the floor, I directed Britt to avert his eyes while I spooned lentils and sausage out of the sink and back into the pot. After a quick warm-up on the stove, it was ready. A little salty, but not bad!

From the forecasts, it sounded like the weather was likely to improve the farther north we went. We were not too keen on being out at the exposed Dry Tortugas in big waves and wind, so decided in the middle of the night to continue towards Tampa Bay. Conditions began moderating toward morning, so we put the sails back up and turned off the motor. We threw the fishing lines in again and caught and released several bonitos. Britt caught a king mackerel while I was asleep, and not wanting to wake me up do do the gaff routine, wrestled it in on his own, breaking the rod in the process. I guess it's ok since we're not going to be fishing any more for a while. At least he got the fish.

Sails and the Skyway

It took us two more days to get to St. Petersburg, sailing in frustratingly light wind with a current against us. Too much wind, then too little wind -- perfect conditions, on average! The VHF chatter made it very clear to us that we were back in the USA, on a weekend no less; requests for radio checks every five minutes, calls to SeaTow by embarrassed powerboaters who forgot to check their fuel tanks, a distress call to the Coast Guard from a boat where somebody apparently cut off his thumb, somehow, and wanted the hospital they were heading for to be alerted...all in a day's work. With the wind directly behind us we poled out the jib and spread the main, and sailed wing-and-wing under the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Welcome to the United States of America. It's been a while.

Isla Mujeres, Mexico to St. Petersburg, Florida, USA:  469 miles, 76 hours 46 minutes, average speed 6.1 knots, max GPS speed 11.3 knots (no doubt surfing down a big wave!) We motored for just over 25 hours of the passage and caught more bonitos than we kept track of, as well as one king mackerel and half of a Spanish mackerel.