Crossing the Gulf Stream

Saturday, March 17th, St Pat's Day, we hailed John and Lois on Astar, and were on our way at 7am. A small stream of boats, Plumpuppet, Astar, Whispah, Chris Deke, Free Spirit, headed around the Whale to the other side of the Sea of Abacos and motorsailed on to Great Sale. Other boats joined the parade, some stopped at Great Sale overnight or for a few hours before continuing, some stopped on the lee side of Mangrove Cay, and some, like us, opted to continue without stopping. We had all intentions of stopping for 4-5 hours at Great Sale but were on a roll: the weather was perfect, we were making good time, why stop? We got to the edge of Little Bahama Bank and Memory Rock about 3am and headed out into the Gulf Stream. We could hear chattering on the VHF off and on; heard the group at Mangrove having a hard time finding the little island in the dark then heard Astar, who stopped at Great Sale, reconnect with them early in the morning. We and Astar were the only ones of the group headed to Lake Worth Inlet.

We motorsailed most of the way, pulling out a reefed jib with the wind behind us in the Gulf Stream. The Florida coast skyscrapers could be seen way off in the distance and it seemed to take forever to traverse the last few miles with the current against us. Just as we were about to enter the inlet, we were hit by a rain squall and 22K winds. The waves were already large with the fetch and the east wind. It being Sunday, and it's best to stay put in Florida if possible on weekends, a large trawler barreled past us leaving a huge wake just as we got in the inlet, and it was followed by 2 smaller powerboats also trying to avoid the rain. Boats were going all which ways; seadoos were jumping the wake; 2 small seadoos were slowly going out the inlet seemingly oblivious of the bedlam around them. We thankfully found a spot to drop the hook in the south anchorage, settled in and slept. We'd been going for 31.5 hours straight!