Birthday Tribute: 37 Reasons Why This Past Voyage Was Our Best Yet

Reason No. 1: My GoPro Broke Our First Day in the Bahamas.

Why is that a good thing? Because it was the universe telling me to just live in the moment—to see, taste, and feel it, rather than film it. Ahoy crew! Now that Phillip and I have completed our Bahamas cruise and tucked in safe for hurricane season, I’m excited to share all of the fun stories and photos from our incredible Bahamas voyage with you all here on the blog. I decided—as a fitting birthday tribute (this little sailor turned a proud 37 on May 28th : )—to first share the 37 highs and lows that Phillip and I have agreed made this last voyage to the Bahamas our best trip yet. The reasons might surprise you. Remember: it’s usually not the cocktails and sunsets you remember the most.

No. 2: We Had a Great Send-Off

  • Our friends in Pensacola are keepers, I will tell you that. Brandon made (try to wrap your head around this) bacon-wrapped, beer-battered onion rings along with a massive rack of ribs, well mainly just as a Saturday BBQ—that man loves to grill—but Phillip and I commandeered it as our “send-off feast” and it was incredible! Our buddy (and original boat broker, who helped us find our Niagara 35), Kevin, also brought us a nice bottle of champagne (complete with its own boat bubble packing!), and we had one rip-roaring last hoorah at our favorite Ft. McRee anchorage before leaving. Yes, those glasses do say “Party Rock!”

No. 3: We Had Two Captains Aboard

  • Double the knowledge, experience, and credentials; double the ease of cruising. Nuff said. With both of us now equally capable of steering, navigating, AND docking, Phillip and I both felt an increased sense of confidence when we left the dock in April.

No. 4: We Had Plenty of Wine

No. 5: We Had Plenty of Storage Space for Said Wine

No. 6: We Scored on Salsa!

  • Yes, salsa is serious on our boat. I always prefer it at room temp (and, yes, I have eaten a whole jar in one sitting to enjoy the full-warm goodness before it went into the flavor-sucking hole that is the fridge. We also always try to reduce foods we bring on the boat that have to be refrigerated, so when we found these perfect single-serving sized cans at Wal-Mart that taste like they were just chopped on a beach-side salsa stand, we were stoked! These guys made for a wonderfully-tasty treat often on Plaintiff’s Rest and we were able to reduce trash by throwing the cans overboard when we were underway offshore! Win-win. What do you say? “Arriba!!”

No. 7: We Got Lucky (on a Weather-Window)

  • While Phillip and I both often readily agree it is rare to find a perfect “good” downwind five-day weather window across the Gulf, we did find a rather peachy four-day one that suited us just fine. While our first day out of the gate was a bit sporty, I’m excited to tell you in a future post how well our baby girl performed in 20 knots of wind (albeit on the stern—my favorite kind) and 6-8 (sometimes 10) foot seas. It was a romp. Whew!

No. 8: Despite a Last-Minute Breakdown, Lord Nelson Held the Entire Time

  • This is my next story coming up on the blog: Auto Turn Notto: The Problem That Almost Prevented Our Departure. It’s quite an interesting saga. It never ceases to amaze me how often massive problems (the auto-pilot is not working) are caused by the tiniest of conditions (a bolt is not tightened or a connection is loose, for example). But, Phillip and I certainly learned a ton about our hydraulic auto-pilot in the process, and we hope you will too. After solving this problem—we *hope*—we now have Lord Nelson running in a condition that will last us ten more years of cruising. That was our hope when he had Brandon with Perdido Sailor help us install him during our extended stay in the shipyard back in 2016.
Screenshot from Shipyard Video #69: Meet Our Hydraulic Auto-Pilot “Mr. Roboto”

No. 9: We Left Under the Most Beautiful Sunrise I Have Ever Photographed

No. 10: We Had Another Successful, Safe Gulf-Crossing

  • Crossing the Gulf of Mexico is no friggin’ joke. Phillip and I have told many, many cruisers that, despite our multiple Atlantic-Ocean crossings, the Gulf still ranks as one of the most gnarly bodies of water we have crossed, often packing the worst punch. We have spent too many a day and night bashing and crashing across the Gulf. So, anytime we have a successful, no damage, no injuries crossing of the Gulf of Mexico, we will happily and unapologetically celebrate it. Ahhhh ...

No. 11: We Were Only in Foulies for One Day

  • Previous Gulf-Crossings, particularly those undertaken in November or December have seen us in stinky, sweaty fouls for days. Yuck! Phillip and I were thrilled this time, leaving later in the year (April), to start pulling off those foul (in many ways) layers, just north of Tampa!

No. 12: We Got in a Massive Fight in Bimini

  • Doesn’t sound like a good thing, does it? Well it’s not when you’re in the thick of it. But, if you come out stronger and closer on the other side, it’s worth it. Couples have to fight occasionally to let the steam out and regroup. I had made a stupid error in my lat-lon navigation trying to help Phillip (who was holding the helm at the time) into the entrance to Bimini (bad on me) but Phillip responded with a comment that cut me to the core (bad on him). And, it doesn’t need to be repeated. It wasn’t an expletive, just hurtful. But, the upside was my response. While I usually swallow that hurt down, trying not to “rock the boat” so to speak, I knew Phillip and I had many tight-quarter days ahead on the boat, so I spoke up and let it out so we could vent and heal and it was the right decision. I’m getting better at this adult stuff, I’m telling you!

No. 13: We Got Stuck in Bimini

  • Again, doesn’t sound like a good thing, right? For Phillip and I—who really like to stay on the move when we’re cruising, staying usually only 2-3 days in one place before moving onto the next—a forced five-day stay in one place can be a bit of a bugger. Buuuuttt, that is only true when there’s no wind there or no good place to kite. If it’s blowing like stink for days and we have the ability to kite, Phillip and I are happy to park it and get on that wind. We spent three glorious days in a row kiting the snot out of 20-25+ winds in Bimini. It was awesome!

No. 14: We Failed (Initially) at Fishing …

  • Shouldn’t sound like a good thing, either? No “fish on” to shout about. For the first week of our cruising, when we were doing most of our offshore voyaging and expecting to catch most of our fish, Phillip and I didn’t catch a damn thing. Those crafty fish stole lure after lure, laughing at us the entire time. But, it was this extended fish failure that made our first catch that much sweeter.

No. 15: Then We Caught Our Biggest Mahi Ever!

  • It was glorious. That beautiful bounty of the sea fed us six times over, three filets a piece. I’m not kidding. Neptune rewarded our initial failed attempts in droves.

No. 16: The Weather Forced Us to a New Place

  • Morgan’s Bluff! Have any of you been there? While Phillip and I were not sure whether we were going to stop in Andros this year, as the Exumas were certainly calling (and while I would not call it a “schedule” per se, as commuter cruisers, we do have limited time and have to make destination decisions accordingly), the weather made the decision for us. Coming into the Northwest Providence Channel, the wind turned more southeast than we anticipated and began building to 18 and upwards—not a comfortable wind speed on the nose on our boat. So, it was either beat into that all the way to the Exumas or tuck in at Morgan’s Bluff, a place we knew nothing about but that brought us one of our most memorable moments of the entire trip:

No. 17: We Ate Our First Dilly (It’s Kind of a Big Dilly-yo)

  • This was such an unexpected and eye-opening experience. While Morgan’s Bluff does not have much to offer if you just dinghy to shore—a pretty beach and one little bar—Phillip and I were lucky enough to find a local to hire to drive us around the entire island and give us a three-hour tour (that, thankfully, did not leave us shipwrecked!). Kanendra, the dock master there at Morgan’s Bluff, along with her daughter, Diamond, took us around and showed us the cave where Captain Morgan allegedly hid his treasures, the blue hole (where the limestone core has fallen through and you can dive straight through to the ocean), the cute little resort bungalows you can rent, along with the extensive devastation that still exists from Hurricane Matthew. It was enlightening and incredibly interesting. And, Diamond, herself, a child of only eight, was adamant about sharing a particular experience with us—eating our first dilly fruit. Diamond picked this one herself and Phillip and I ate it right on the stop, getting all sticky in the process. It was the sweetest fruit I believe I’ve ever eaten and an awesome moment!

No. 18: We Did Sooooo Much Sailing

  • This surprised even us: Phillip and I sailed so much, we started to run low on battery power because we hadn’t cranked the engine in a while sailing almost the entire way from anchorage to anchorage. We were very lucky, both across the Gulf and the Stream, and with almost every island hop, to have steady winds on our stern that just pushed us along. It was incredible. Phillip and I did some of our favorite sailing, ever on our boat, on this last trip.

No. 19: We Reefed Right!

  • This was a little trick we learned from Andy Schell and Mia at 59-North. You wrap the reef line once around the boom and then tie it to allow the reef line to cinch the sail alll the way down to the boom to get a flatter, more effective reef. The days we did have to sail to windward in winds that require us to reef (generally 15 kts and up), this trick helped us put a tighter reef in and sail more comfortably to weather.
Feel free to comment on my “beanie hair” – I should have left the darn thing on – but you can see the reef trick! Thanks Andy!

No. 20: Two Weeks In, We Still Had Enough Wine!

Cheers!

No. 21: We Studied the Charts and GRIBS Together

  • I realize only now—with six years of cruising and a Captain’s License under my belt—how little help I was during mine and Phillip’s first cruising years. Sure, I was a hard worker. I crawled down into holes to try and fix things. I cooked. I cleaned. I got greasy and helped where I could. But, I never pushed myself to get knowledgeable enough about the more difficult things, like navigation, weather-watching, and making wise passage decisions. Now that I have, Phillip and I enjoy checking the weather together (that is an every morning and every afternoon event and conversation we have when we’re cruising), studying the charts, and deciding “Where to next?” together and we then share the roles navigating in. At least this way if we run-aground, we can share the blame! Let’s hope that never happens … although I’m sure it will again someday.

No. 22: We Were Exceedingly Impressed With Our Boat

  • She never ceased to amaze and impress us. Granted, Phillip and I put a lot of time and money into her and try our best to be very diligent, pro-active boat owners, but that does not mean you’re going to have a boat that performs 100% of the time. I’ll say our baby girl did everything we asked of her (which was often to run hard for 24 hours-plus under sail, engine, or both, with Lord Nelson doing all the steering) about 95% of the time. She was just a beast out there—moving comfortably in all types of weather, practically sailing herself all over the Bahamas. Pretty much every system worked, every bit of the time. While this is a HUGE reason we always strive for less, more simplistic systems on our boat, it was clear to Phillip and I, those choices (and the work they required) were totally worth it. I am immensely proud to say our boat is “dialed in.”

No. 23: We Made It to the Exumas!

  • That, in and of itself, was an accomplishment, as we were not sure our time allotment would allow it. We were not able to make it to the Exumas last year when we did the Abacos—although our diversion to the Berries brought us a fantastic encounter with new friends and an amazing experience that was the subject of my latest article in SAIL Magazine—Phillip and I both still had a desire to see and experience for ourselves the breathtaking beauty so many have told us is unique only to the Exumas. And, boy were they right. Photos just can’t capture it, but they can try!
Annie and Plaintiff’s Rest in Warderwick Wells Cay in the Exumas

No. 24: I Was Published Underway!

  • This was such a treat! To have an article of mine, “People With Gusto: the people you meet when cruising”—ironically about the Berry Islands in the Bahamas—come out in the latest SAIL Magazine while Phillip and I were sailing to the Bahamas. It was fun to be a bit of celebrity in certain marinas along the way where people had seen the article. Thanks again to Peter Nielson and the SAIL Magazine crew for running my piece!

No. 25: We Met The Amazing Jessie (from Jessie & Kate)

  • Speaking of meeting amazing people while cruising, we were lucky enough to cross paths with this inspiring young sailor/photographer: Jessie from Cruising Outpost’s “Jessie & Kate on a Boat” series. Leave a comment below if you enjoyed their articles in Cruising Outpost. Jessie was such a warm, candid person and so fun and interesting to talk to. You can imagine she and I immediately meshed and scurried to the corner to chatter like schoolgirls. I’ll admit to a little girl-crush on her; I’m not scared. Jessie is phenomenal. She and her husband, Luke, came into Bimini on the way back from their Atlantic-Circle honeymoon. I mean … damn. Reminds of the amazing Pam Wall. I am so inspired by these hearty sailing ladies! Keep it up salty gals!! You can follow Jessie’s continued adventures on Instagram at www.instagram.com/jessiebrave/.

No. 26: We Were Able to Scrub Our Own Bottom

  • Many thanks to Mantus on this one! When Phillip and I learned they had designed a smaller, more portable scuba set-up, we snagged one so we could use it during our cruising to dive a really cool reef that might be perhaps a little too deep for repeated snorkel dives and also to scrub our own bottom. This saves us about $100/month if we can do our bottom ourselves, so it has proven well-worth the investment for us. Plus, it’s convenient to have a little scuba set-up just for fun on the boat.

No. 26: We Got to Dive This!

No. 27: We Got to Cheers Everyday to Views Like This!

No. 28: We Got to Wake Every Morning to Views Like This!

No. 29: We Got To Swim Everyday In Waters Like This

No. 30: We Got to Swim With Friendly Guys Like This

No. 31: We Got to Eat Food Like This

No. 32: We Got to Walk Beaches as Amazing as This

No. 33: We Got to Harvest Our Own Conch

No. 34: We Got to Snorkel Pretty Much Every Day

No. 35: We Got to Spend an Entire Vacation With Our Best Friend

No. 36: We Had a Life-Changing Swim With a Turtle

  • I’m proud to say because I was IN the moment, not filming it, I don’t have an image, but I don’t need one. My words and memory will do it justice, just you wait. I named him Rasta because he was so chiiiilllll.

No. 37: Six Weeks In, We Still Had Enough Wine!

Cheers!

Post-Bahamas Podcast – Shooting the Breeze Sailing Podcast

“Man, y’all are terrible at this!” I distinctly recall saying while talking to Jeffrey in this podcast interview about how our sail skills have improved the more offshore voyages we’ve done.  On the way to Cuba, our friends back home were right: we were terrible.  But on our way to the Bahamas, Phillip and I were much better thanks to our new offshore jib and a newly-anointed Captain Annie!  Ahoy followers!  My first post-Bahamas interview here for you, sharing a few of our fun Bahamas stories and misadventures.  Many thanks to Jeffrey Wetting with Shooting the Breeze Sailing Podcast at The Escape Pods for reaching out to me and putting this piece together.  Enjoy!

STBSP ep. 88: Annie Dike, Part Three, Bahamas!

10,000 Bluewater Miles

Ten.  Thousand.  I almost can’t believe it myself, but that’s my number.  10,025 to be exact.  I’ve been keeping track and when Phillip and I sailed our gallant Niagara 35 back into the Pensacola Pass on our recent return from the Bahamas, it was not only a fantastic feat successfully completing another offshore voyage, it was also a pretty cool milestone for this little sailor, who began sailing only five short years ago.  

Headed off on my very first offshore voyage: April, 2013

Captain Annie at the helm, returning from the Bahamas: April, 2018

Ten thousand … This calls for a ditty, no?

Five years, 5oo HaveWind posts, and one captain’s license later, and I dare say I just might call this little gal a bluewater sailor.

When Phillip first planted the seed, “I’m going to buy a boat and cruise around the world,” I immediately, without hesitation, heartily agreed!  “Not without me!” was my creed.

Our very first photo at the cockpit together during our first voyage.

So, we started boat-shopping and, little did I know, the many, many new, exotic places I would go!  In the bilge, in the fridge, “Get down in the engine room,” he said.

     

So down I went, bumping my knees, my knuckles, my head.  On that boat, I’ve cursed, and sweated, and bled.  There are so many, many things, you see, that have to be fixed, cleaned, fixed again, and re-bed.

 

But the good news is, as long as her hull, keel, and rigging are sound, you can work on her while you sail her anywhere, as long as you don’t run aground!  Because the worst, absolute worst, thing you can do to a boat, is to leave her sitting stagnant, unkept and going nowhere, just sitting afloat.

Not our boat, oh no!  Our beautiful Niagara, with her magnificent thirty-five feet.  She’s often cast-off, sailing away, on a gentleman’s (or perhaps not-so-gentle) beat.

That wise, seasoned boat has taught Phillip and I so much about both her and the sea.  Because out there, and you may not believe me, but she feels really rather small to me.  The time that she grows, seems unwieldy and impossible to stop, is only when we are approaching a treacherous dock.

But out there, in bluewater, while romping and running, she seems so agile and nimble.  Like a horse at the derby, impossibly stunning.

That’s where she and her crew love most to be — moving, gliding, slipping under sunsets at sea.

 

My heart and courage exposed, this amazing man and boat have challenged me, to push myself, try harder, learn more, travel further, set myself free!

So I did.  I changed my career, my address, my focus, all so I could head out to sea.  And the rewards have been limitless: Cuba, the Bahamas, Mexico, France, the Florida Keys!

 

All connected by big, brimming, bodies of blue, just waiting to challenge and test you, too.  Each passage, each mile, will teach you something new.

Forty-six hundred of them took Phillip and I all the way across the Atlantic, with a hearty, hilarious French Captain named Yannick.

But the Gulf of Mexico, never to be out-done, over and above the Atlantic, has, thus far, won.  The Gulf has handed us our most trying times, tossing and bashing us to windward, threatening to snap lines.

Thankfully the storms and rough seas generally do not last.  You just have to ride it out, get the boat comfortable, and usually in twenty-four hours or less, it will pass.

And soon you’ll find yourself motoring without a lick of wind, albeit across the most beautiful glass you’ve ever seen.

And you’ll make the mistake of asking Mother Nature to blow.  Just a little.  Like ten to fifteen.

Or seven and a quarter, perhaps, just enough so we can be #spinning!

While a perfect passage (in our world, a nice downwind run), from shore to shore is admittedly rare, the toying, tempting promise of it is what makes us accept the dare.

Because when you get there, no matter how near or far your “dream there” might be, it’s an incredibly cool feeling to have the honor to say: “We sailed here, you see.”

And for Phillip and I, I believe one of our most memorable offshore voyages will forever be: Cuba.  Because it was a trying, eye-opening, exceedingly-thrilling passage where we bypassed the Keys.  And Phillip and I both felt great pride in telling people: “We sailed six hundred nautical miles, here to be.”

Hope you all have enjoyed this little sailor’s first 10,000 nautical miles here at HaveWind.  Here’s to the next ten!  Cheers!

BV4 (VIDEO): Across the Gulf Stream to West End

“Never cross with a north wind!”  Can you hear it?  Pam Wall’s little energetic voice?  She repeated this warning many times when we first saw, heard and met her at the Miami Boat Show back in February, 2015.  I had no idea that amazing little enthusiastic woman would soon thereafter change my life.

Love that bubbly little lady!

After listening to her inspiring “Cruising the Abacos” seminar (and finding ourselves in dire hunger soon after for some “fresh baked Bahamian bread,” Pam always squeals when she says it) Phillip and I had originally decided back in 2015 that the first place we were going to cruise our boat to outside of the states would be the Bahamas.  And that decision held firm for a long time until we heard Cuba had thankfully opened up for American cruisers.  Heck yeah!

While the Bahamas were hard to pass up, we knew they would be there waiting for us the next season, and with the tumultuous state of American-Cuban relations, we weren’t sure Cuba would be.  That was when we decided to set our sights first on Cuba, and it was a fantastic decision.  Mine and Phillip’s cruise to Cuba in December, 2016 was a monumental, memorable voyage for us both.  It was our longest offshore passage (five days) just the two of us and it was the first time we had sail our beautiful little boat from the shores of one country to another.  What an incredible feeling!  I still remember when we watched the sun come up over the horizon on the fifth morning.

“That’s a Havana sunrise right there,” Phillip said and he played “Havana Daydreaming” most of the morning as we made our way towards the inlet to Marina Hemingway, singing heartily along as his late Uncle Johnny would have, who had also wanted to sail to Cuba but he unfortunately was not able to do so before he passed away.  I know Johnny was there with Phillip in spirit and I can still hear Phillip’s voice from that morning as he sat on the foredeck and sang.  “Oh he’s just scheming … his life away.”

Thankfully, we’re not just scheming.  We are going!  Our voyage to Cuba was a phenomenal trip and only told Phillip and I that we are ready to travel further and longer, just the two of us, on our boat.  So, in 2017 we decided we would set our sights on the Bahamas this season and enjoy the wonderful pristine patch of islands we have so close by.  It’s amazing to think that jewel-toned paradise is really only a 12-hour sail from the states.  How lucky we are!  All we needed was just a sliver more luck to give us a nice “no north wind” window of favorable conditions to allow us to sail from the Keys and across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.

In the months before our departure date from Pensacola, Phillip and I (well, and I will admit Phillip far more than me) spent many hours studying the Explorer Charts for the Bahamas making decisions about where we planned to enter the Bahamas, where we wanted to check in and what islands (called “Cays” in the Bahamas, pronounced “keys”) we wanted to sail to and visit and in what order, although knowing every plan is and will always be weather-dependent.  Having just recently completed my first Bahamas article for SAIL Magazine (thank you again, Peter Nielsen, for requesting more articles from me!) which will focus on preparing and packing for a trip to the Bahamas, Phillip and I both agree an intense study of the Explorer Charts and determinations as to where you want to go in the Bahamas and what route you want to take to explore them is a great first place to start when preparing to travel to the Bahamas.  Much of what you will need aboard will depend on how you are planning to traverse the Bahamas and what you are planning to do there as supplies are readily available in some places, limited and altogether unavailable in others.

After talking with fellow sailors back home who had cruised the Bahamas many times and taking into consideration what time of year Phillip and I were going (during December-January, when we knew we could expect many sudden and intense north fronts, the “Christmas winds,” and some chilly water and weather), we decided to make our way as far north as possible first and check in at West End.

We would then start dotting our way along the Sea of Abaco seeking protection from the northerly islands as needed when storms and heavy north winds were expected.  (And boy did they come.  I recorded 36 kts of wind on the boat one afternoon in Green Turtle Cay.  Just wait.)

With the plan to enter the Bahamas at West End, Phillip and I knew we wanted to “ride” the Gulf Stream as far as we could north before jumping out to make entry into West End.  Initially, we weren’t sure we would get a window large enough to allow us to sail all the way from Key West to West End.  If we did not, our plan was to dot along the Florida Keys to Marathon then perhaps Rodriguez Key while waiting for a good window to make the jump.  But, when we saw a beautiful two-day window blooming on the horizon, we started to top off the provisions and ready the boat to make way.  While we had a ton of fun in Key West (we always do!) meeting the new Geckos and getting to spend some time with them, seeing our old pals Brittany and Jeremiah and getting to watch their beautiful Alberg splash, as well as enjoying the many great restaurants and poolside views, we are always eager and excited to get back underway.

On Wednesday, December 20th, with expected 10-12 kt winds the first day (which would offer us a fun, comfortable sail around the Keys) and light, fluky winds of 5 kts or less the following day (which would allow us to at least motor safely across the Gulf Stream), Phillip and I decided to toss the lines and seize the window!  You’ll see in the video, Annie de-docked like a boss (I tell you I’m getting much better at this), and we then had a fantastic cruise all the way from Key West to West End, just shy of a two-day run.

   

Man, that’s living … 

So, is that.  With all the work comes all the rewards.  

There’s the entry to West End!

Don’t tell Pam this, but we totally broke the rule because you know what kind of winds we had throughout the entire Gulf Stream?  That’s right.  North!  We crossed with a north wind, Pammy.  I’m sorry!  But, when it’s howling at 3 kts, a north wind isn’t really going to affect the boat that much, particularly when it had been blowing from the south for a short time before.  Meaning, the sea state was just starting to turn around and we essentially crossed on a smooth, glassy lake.  It was beautiful though.  While I always prefer to have wind to sail, there is nothing that can replicate the beauty of a hull sliding through silk at sunrise.  It’s just stunning.

I hope you all enjoy the video.  I have had such a great time filming just for pleasure and putting these videos together for you all, just for pure fun.  Not to make any money from them.  Not in hopes they will get a lot of hits so I can get YouTube ad money.  Just because our views were amazing, so I clicked the camera on occasionally, and because the videos are such a vivid personal scrapbook for us.  I really will be excited to sit down when I’m 70 and watch my Atlantic-crossing movie.  Can you imagine that?  I wonder if YouTube will still be a “thing” then?  Who knows.  If any of you have read Dave Eggers’s The Circle (one Phillip and I both read in the Bahamas), apparently we all will soon be be filming and uploading every moment of our existence for all the world to see.  Heck, with the immediacy of Instagram and Facebook these days, we’re almost there.

But you know where you can truly unplug and get away?  Out there.  On the big open blue.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to be out there, nothing but satiny water all around you and nothing you have to do but eat, sleep, mend the boat and read.  I could sail offshore forever, happily, I do believe.  I hope you all love this bit.  As always, I try to capture the beauty of the voyage, the work and maintenance it requires, and the reward of having your beautiful, strong boat carry you from the shores of one country to another.  Next up, we’ll begin sharing the Bahamas with you, one Cay at a time.  Be ready to pick your jaws up off the floor because it’s breathtaking.  Stay tuned!

BV3 (VIDEO): A New Breed of Geckos in Key West!

There were!  Everywhere we went.  More than we expected.  Geckos here.  Geckos there.  Geckos extraordinaire!  You’re right, not real geckos.  I’ll admit I know not the native local habitat of geckos.  The desert, I would imagine?  This was—as I mentioned—a different breed of geckos.  The cruising kind!  Of all the fun, exciting things we were expecting to find in the Keys, a gecko overload was not one.  But that’s the beauty of chance and fate.  He stopped me by the pool in Stock Island with a sentiment I’ve heard often: “I know you from YouTube,” and there it happened.  We had stumbled upon a pair of newbie cruisers who were about to purchase, splash and move onto their first liveaboard sailboat the next day and it just so happened they had bought the s/v Lazy Gecko.  It’s amazing the happenstances that can happen out there and it is a constant reminder how truly small the cruising world is.  Fun video for you all of the lazy splash below and a surprise visit from a rather famous cruising couple.  But first, let’s get back to our Bahamas-Bound saga.

If you caught the video from our five-day voyage across the Gulf, you’ll know I got rather sick on that voyage.  The sickest, I can easily say, I have been in my adult life.  In true Annie-style, I spent the first few days of our trip trying to hide it from Phillip, telling him it was “just a sore throat,” “a little head cold, it’s almost gone.” But every time I swallowed, it felt like a fresh layer of skin was ripped off of my throat and swallowed down, leaving it raw and seething.  Day three my voice began to go out so there was no more hiding it.  I sounded like Patty and Zelma from the Simpsons.  You remember this fun clip:

 

That’s one sexy rasp!  Day four, my throat having been way more than “just sore” now for almost a full ninety-six hours, Phillip and I were both pretty sure I had strep throat.  And every day began with a clattering cough trying to hack phlegm up and swallow it down.  Appetizing, right?  Just wait.  Day seven, I woke in the middle of the night to the odd sensation of my eyes oozing.  I would wipe some gook out of my tear ducts, but then I could feel it puff back up under my lids, ooze out of my duct, pool up on my nose and literally drip off the bridge of my nose onto my pillow.  Nice.  Several hours in I could mash it out of my eyes by running a thumb across my puffy lids and squeezing it out like a tube of toothpaste.  Did I find it odd my eyes were oozing?  Sure!  Worrisome?  Nah.  All told, my sore throat had healed and my morning cough wasn’t too taxing.  I figured whatever nasty shit was in my head was finally making its way out—albeit out my eyeballs—and I chalked the drainage up to be a good sign.  Annie didn’t take a lot of selfies during that phase, but here was one pic Phillip snapped of me my first red-eye morning and you can see it’s not pretty.

 

Waiters and waitresses seemed to be afraid to serve me, or at least touch anything I had touched.  Probably smart.  While waking up several mornings in a row with lashes caked so heavily with snot clusters I had to manually pry my lids open was not fun, it did prove to be the last of my wicked strep-bronchinus-infection (we called it) and finally, somewhere around Day Ten, the Captain considered me fully-healed.  Hooray!

Why am I sharing all of this with you?  Because gross bodily stuff is really cool and interesting.  At least I think so.  But, really, I wanted to share all of this to pass along another important cruising lesson on first aid and medication: ANTIBIOTICS.  When Phillip and I shove off on an extended cruise, we like to try to get a couple of rounds of preventative antibiotics prescribed so we can have them on-board in case one of us gets a wicked infection in a location where we are not close to a clinic … like 100 miles offshore in the Gulf.  Did we have antibiotics aboard to treat Annie’s wicked illness?  Yes.  Points for us.  But, was Annie too stubborn and stupid during the first four days of her illness to take them?  Yes.  Take back those points.  I hate taking medication and I really thought it was just a pretty bad cold that was I was just about to overcome.  So, I waited.  I felt like taking antibiotics for “just a head cold” would be a waste.  I usually have them prescribed for a UTI, which I am known to get every couple of years and I wanted to be sure I had them for that if one of those flared up while we were crossing.  I would much rather have the gnarly shit I did than days and days of an untreated, raging UTI.  Any ladies out there who know the feeling would probably totally agree.  But when Phillip finally won out and I did start taking the antibiotics, I made another mistake.  (Me?  Stubborn?  Noooo … ).

I am always a ball of sunshine!

You can probably guess what it was.  Obviously, I’m trying to spare as much medication as possible and I still believed I could kick that thing on my own.  So, I did what I often do when taking antibiotics: stop-mid dose and save the rest.  That has often proved helpful.  Here, it proved decidedly detrimental.  I took the antibiotics for two days (the last two of our voyage), and I started to feel better, so I stopped.  “Must save the rest now for a burning bladder, Annie,” I told myself.  Then what happened?  My eyes started oozing and my morning cough began and my illness lasted an extra five days.  As Phillip later pointed out, if you stop an antibiotics regimen too early, the illness isn’t eliminated but, rather, educated on how to fight that particular antibiotic and it rears back twice as strong.  Mine certainly did.  So, two lessons for you here fellow cruisers (all lessons are free today): 1) carry preventative antibiotics aboard on long passages (as I mentioned, my ob/gyn nurse prescribes them for me for potential UTIs); and 2) take the whole damn dose.  Don’t pull an Annie.  Oozing eyes are not sexy.

But, back to our saga.  We made it to Key West!  Stock Island, rather, as this was the marina where we kept our boat most of the spring last year after returning from Cuba while we flew back and forth to work in Pensacola and play in Key West and we were very pleased with the security, cleanliness and efficiency of the marina at Stock Island Village.  While it is a little pricey, it is also a fabulous facility, now with a completed hotel and nice pool, lounge and bar area available for free to all marina residents that we highly recommend.

  

We heart Stock Island!

And, we were so glad to see it had not been damaged or wiped out entirely by Irma!  One of the really fun things we discovered about this marina, immediately after our return from Cuba, was that there is a little Cuban restaurant within walking distance that everyone claimed was “very authentic.”  Having just sailed 90 miles from that wonderful island last December, with plenty of Cuban ropa vieja, picadillo and plantains still making their way through our tummies, we were highly skeptical, but definitely intrigued.  And the little Cuban gal that runs that tight ship at Deluna’s did not disappoint.  We got a mojo pork, with beans, rice and fried plantains that definitely held its own up against our high Cuban standards.  And, when we came back to Stock Island this time, we were pleasantly surprised once again by this little Cuban cuisine gem.

“We’re having a little dock party tonight over at Deluna’s to announce our Christmas parade winners,” one of our new boat neighbors told us after he helped us dock and tie-up.  “Ahh … cool.  Maybe we’ll check it out,” Phillip and I said, not knowing whether we would in fact as we had been planning (and talking, and dreaming, and drooling) about it for days.  Our first dinner ashore after crossing the Gulf we had both agreed would be Roostica, a fabulously-decadent little pizzeria bistro in Stock Island that makes delicious wood-fired thin-crust pizzas with names like The Diablo, The Island Pie, Truffle & Mushroom.  Are you getting hungry yet?  We were.  Phillip and I—splayed out wet, exhausted and salty in our stinky foul weather gear sloshing around on passage—had been daydreaming about every oily, buttery, cheesy bite for four days.  After our first hot shore shower, it was the first place we were planning to go.  But then our dock neighbor said:

“They’re serving food and drinks, too.  For free.”

Free?!  That’s “cruiser” for “We’re going.” So we did.

And turns out by “food” they meant a tantalizing Cuban feast!  Braised pork shoulder, black beans, succulent yellow rice, yucas (Cuban-style mashed potatoes), fresh Cuban bread (“Pre-buttered? Shit yeah,” Phillip said) and sweet, fried plantains.  As much as you could eat, with a full wine glass coming every 15 minutes?  All for free?!  The decision was immediate and mutual.  Sorry Roostica.  We knew it would be there for us another evening.  The Delunas folks had tip jars out and we gave generously then hopped in line to fill a heaping plate.

Then another …

And another.  I’m not kidding.

Yes, thirds.  We had thirds.  I don’t think I’ve had thirds since Thanksgiving 2009.  Holy smokes did we eat.  But it was the perfect “Welcome back to Stock Island” event.  And then we were just stumbling distance from our boat.  Our bellies so full we could have rolled home.  It was a great way to end our first night ashore.

The next day we were planning to walk or jog to Key West.  The beach stretch on the south side of the island is really beautiful and we’ve enjoyed trekking from Stock Island to Key West on foot before.

 

We wanted to eat at one of our favorite places in Key West, a little French creperia that makes (don’t tell Yannick) better crepes than we had in France.  Sorry, but it’s just true.  Savory ones with mushrooms, chicken and beschamel sauce.  Or sweet ones with dark chocolate and bananas foster.  God, can you tell we’re foodies??

Another item on our agenda while in Key West was a reunion visit with an old friend from Pensacola.  Our buddy, Russ, who worked at www.PerdidoSailor.com in the shipyard under Brandon for a while, had left Pensacola a few years back on his 1969 42’ Pearson to begin his own cruising adventure and he had landed, as many do, in Key West where we heard he was working on one of the charter schooners there.  There are only like a thousand charter schooners in Key West.

But I must share one little secret Russ and I had.  Back at the shipyard in Pensacola, Russ and I … we got really close.  Physically.  I mean it!  We did.  The two of us were cramped in the bilge of our Niagara 35 for a week together rebuilding our rotten stringers back in the winter of 2015.  There’s not a lot of room in there and there was a lot of work to do.  We had to get close.  Roll that fabulous shipyard footage!

Two videos covering our rotten stringer repair for you here if you haven’t yet seen them: #52: Stumped by the Rotten Stringer Repair and #53: Rotten Stringers Repaired with Coosa Board and Fiberglass.  Russ and I put a lot of work (and 185 pieces of glass) into that repair, making our baby stronger than ever.  And, man did we rock those Tyvek suits!  High fashion.

Ahhh … good times with Russ.  It was very fun to have a reunion with him and hit up a few of the dive bars and delightfully tacky joints around Key West Harbor.  Everyone loves Schooner’s Wharf!  Say “Hey!” to Russ!  Cheers!

Another item on our to-do list while we were in Key West was give our baby some TLC.  Plaintiff’s Rest had worked quite hard chugging us across the Gulf, particularly in those gnarly conditions outside of Tampa, winds of 25 kts and 6-8 foot seas.  She had done a fantastic job and definitely deserved some pampering.  We gave her a good scrubdown right after we docked, which we usually do every time we make a passage and come into a marina.

Oh, and I did mention that bilge pump in BV1 … we discovered our forward bilge pump, a 500 gph Rule, had gone out.  For whatever reason.  Just quit working.  We figured that probably contributed to the bilge water accumulation I mentioned in BV2.  Ahhh … that explains a lot.  Good thing we brought a spare!  We popped the new one in, not too bad of a chore.  Re-wired her and we were in business.

And, Stock Island has a West Marine there so we were able to get another “spare” to replace the now-used spare.  Good to keep stock of your spares!  We also changed out the oil in Westie.  He’d run a good 38 hours bringing us across the Gulf and we usually change the oil every 50 hours, so we figured an early rotation wouldn’t hurt.  Our previous owner made a few small modifications to the engine which make it rather easy to change the oil, and a much cleaner process.  He rotated the oil filter from sitting horizontal that it now screws up and down vertically (containing the spill) and he put in an extended tube we connect to our manual pump catch-bin to pump the old oil out.  All told, this chore only takes about thirty minutes and isn’t too bad at all.  Westie certainly deserved it.

Chugging 38 hours across the Gulf had burned a little bit of oil:

And some coolant, which we topped off as well:

Using a mirror to check the gasket around the thermostat in our raw water system to make sure there wasn’t any green ooze around it signifying a leak.  “Nope!  All dry!” shouted Diesel Mechanic Annie.

And, Stock Island has a nice facility where you can dump your used oil, making this chore even easier.  Always good to properly dispose of your nasty fluids.

We also noticed some additional rust that had creeped into our stainless since we last polished (in July) and, while we had time to do it in Pensacola, we literally didn’t have the right weather for it.  The Spotless Stainless recommended the product not be used in temps less than 78 degrees.  “We’ll do it when we get south then!” the Captain decided and it was done.  We gave our gal a beautiful spit shine at the dock in Stock Island and she was glistening!

One thing we would have never expected to happen while we were there in Key West, though, was an unlikely run-in with a pack of geckos!  Do geckos run in packs?  Perhaps it was a herd, or a flock, but it was way more than we expected to find in one place.  FOUR!  And, I’m not talking about reptilian geckos.  We’re talking about the human kind.  Here’s how it went down.

Phillip and I had been lounging by the pool at the Stock Island Marina our second day there (Roostica night!  Shit yeah!) and I had a guy stop me by the awesome little tiki bar they built there.  “Hey, I know you from YouTube!” he said.  I smiled and laughed, because I do get that quite often, and promptly apologized for my Patty-and-Zelma voice.  While I did feel and sound like crap most of our Key West days, I never let it stop me from having a good time or meeting fun new cruisers!  “I’m Steve,” he said.  “My wife and I just bought a boat.  We’re going to splash tomorrow then move aboard.”

Super cool, right?  Well, wait until you see the boat they bought!  This vessel has quite the following.

Steve told me that afternoon at the bar—he and his super cool wife, Ashley were there having their necessary “Holy crap, we just bought a boat” drink—that the boat they bought was the s/v Lazy Gecko, so Phillip and I knew they were getting an awesome 1985 Alberg 37.  And, Phillip and I had planned to come watch them splash, hand over a bottle of champagne and enjoy seeing two newbie cruisers launch their cruising dreams.  But, what we didn’t know was that the geckos.  THE GECKOS.  Jeremiah and Brittany were going to be there, too.  They had flew in just for the day to finalize the deal, make sure the engine ran for the new geckos and help get Steve and Ashley secure on their new boat and safely off the dock.  When Phillip and I were walking toward the shipyard and I saw Brittany pushing Rhys in his little stroller, I jumped for joy!

It was so fun to get a spontaneous surprise visit with the Geckos.  We have only been able to connect with them in person on very few occasions.  One time they were coming through Pensacola and stopped to get a quick tour of our boat.  It was very fun to finally meet them in person.

Then we got to spend another millisecond together when we were all at the Miami Boat Show in February last year.  Say Hey to Teddy J with SailLoot!

We had also collaborated remotely doing a virtual tour of their beautiful Alberg, which you can watch here.  You’ll see Steve and Ashley are getting one heck of a bluewater boat.  In all, we’ve always enjoyed hanging out with them and it was a lot of fun to have a quick impromptu reunion in Key West.  We’re very excited for the new geckos, sailing under the name “Bella Vista” and we’re eager to see where their plans take them.  Phillip and I had some influence on their first destination.  I’ll let some of you guess where we encouraged them to go!  For now, meet the new Geckos and say hello to some old friends.  Jeremiah, Brittany, we’ll sure miss seeing you guys on the beautiful Alberg, but we’re really excited to see what the sailing future holds for you.  I’m sure Bella Vista is going to take the Alberg to many new and exciting places!

Love these crazy sexy two!

“I need an Annie selfie!” Brittany said.  “You got it!”

Bon Voyage Bella Vista!

So, tons of fun in Key West, right?  We love that quirky little colorful town.  Tons of great restaurants and tiki bars, too.  Not to mention sunset at Mallory Square.  The street performers.  Boat parades.  Pool parties.  All kinds of perks.

    

But, Phillip and I had our sights set on the Bahamas for a reason.  It was time to go!  But, one must never be in a hurry when cruising.  We knew one of the toughest jumps we might have to make on this journey would be across the Gulf Stream.  Pam Wall and so many other experienced cruisers had advised (very harshly but necessarily) against crossing the stream in any kind of north wind.  The Gulf Stream is a powerful current that runs south to north along the east coast of the United States and trying to cross it with any kind of north wind we had heard was like trying to run on a treadmill while someone is spraying a fire hose in your face.  Very lumpy seas and forceful current-meets-wind conditions.

When Phillip and I left the dock in Pensacola we were prepared to sail straight to the Bahamas if the weather would allow, we figured it was unlikely but possible.  When we got the weather data our fourth day of the journey across the Gulf from our router, it showed a front coming through the next couple of days with steady north winds, so a complete Pensacola-to-Bahamas passage was not advised.

We also knew we might be holed up either in Key West, Marathon or some other key (we had heard Rodriguez Key makes a good jumping off point) possibly for weeks waiting for a good window to cross the Gulf Stream, which would not be ideal but totally tolerable.  We were thrilled to find, however, that just a few short days after our landfall in Key West, a wonderful weather window was opening up soon that would likely allow us to make the jaunt from Key West all the way up to West End in the Bahamas.  Here is the window we were watching:

 

We checked the GRIBS, checked with friends and confirmed with our weather router this was our window!  On Wednesday late-morning, December 20th, we tossed the lines in Key West headed for West End.  Next up on the blog, we make the jump!  BV4: Crossing the Stream – Key West to West End.  Stay tuned!

#93: Cuba Voyage Finale: Gulf Stream Crossing and Landfall in Cuba

The current of the Gulf Stream is no joke, particularly when it is pushing you into head winds.  Watch as we reef up and cross a pretty kicked up sea state across the Gulf Stream, sing to our first Cuban sunrise, deal with an issue with the furling gear on our headsail, navigate the entry to Marina Hemingway and make landfall in Cuba.  HaveWindWillTravel is traveling this year!  There’s a great Patreon update for you as well in here as we will soon be getting a video update from each of our previous Gift of Cruising winners and get ready to give our 4th gift away — a 100% free offshore voyage on SailLibra at the $500 reward level.  WHOA.  Become a Patron to be eligible to win and help us create cruisers out of each and every one of you!  Hope you all are enjoying the journey to Cuba.  We can’t wait to share that beautiful, culture-rich country with you.