CAPTAIN'S LOG

14 January 2022: Relocation Preparation

DATE

14 January 2022

Departure point

West Palm Beach, FL, USA

arrival point

Peanut Island, FL, USA

distance (NM)

4 NM

Cumulative Mileage (NM)

1,574 NM

Crew on Board

CALLY

Skipper, first mate, chef, entertainment and more; I guess that is solo sailing for you!

GENERAL WEATHER OBSERVATIONS

WIND

8 knots of wind, calm in the protected parts of the ICW.  Probably windier out in the ocean as my departure waited for wind to settle down to leave.

CLOUD COVER

Not a cloud in sight!

TEMPERATURE

Chilly as this was done in the dusk and early night.

 

 

PRECIPITATION

Dry, thank goodness!

Log

After a last minute planning meeting with Jamie to discuss options for getting further south before my crossing to Bimini in the Bahamas, we realised this coming weather window might be better suited to crossing to directly to the Bahamas – but to West End on Grand Bahama instead!

A few reasons for this:

Now with bad weather guaranteed for two or three days after arrival, I would be paying for a marina for those days as there is no where to anchor in West End where I would be checking in.   But it seemed a small price to pay (despite being a high price of $2 per foot per day) for all of the important reasons why I needed to get out of the US in that weather window.  

So preparations began, the to do list was longer than I thought was achievable but I was darn well going to try:

Given that our planning meeting was only 40 hours prior to departure, this list is a little bit nuts for one person to achieve.   But you do not know if you do not try I suppose. 

The list was prioritised into two parts: things I had to do on land and things I could do once I was at my anchorage for the night.   And believe it or not I got all but three of these things done by the time I gave up.

It was 11 o’clock and I was exhausted after only five hours of sleep the night before (up until 2am doing my video covid test and Bahamas paperwork and waking again at 7am to resume the list).    Remaining were some relatively important tasks: download charts for the Bahamas, activate Garmin In-Reach and change health insurance. 

The health insurance I decided could wait, the Garmin In-Reach I technically forgot about and the Bahamas charts I gave up on.   The wi-fi connection at the new anchorage was terrible and the file size was huge.   It just would not work!  And I was falling asleep with my tablet (that is my chartplotter) in my hand in bed trying various tricks to make it work.   Lucky for me my tablet and phone still had the charts from 2018 on Active Captain and after messaging Jamie to confirm that was acceptable in the short term, I plotted my route in two seconds (it was a straight shot) and went to sleep.   The maximum I would get would be four hours of sleep before my 3am alarm clock and 3:30am planned departure. 

Kill me now.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

 – Benjamin Franklin

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