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Date: 15 Mar 2012 11:21:14
Title: 30 23 32.62N 081 25 47.85W The last Blog - Part 1
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The short version... Pipedream is safely out of the water in St John's
Boatyard, Jacksonville, Florida, with all hands enjoying extended shore
leave.

Saturday night the 10th, Bob the weather guy had emailed us that there was a
strong nor'easter coming into the north Florida area. As most sailors will
tell you the key to getting really nasty seas is to have a fast moving
current... the Gulf Stream running maybe 4 knots south to north with an
opposing wind blowing over it... a northeaster blowing say 25 kts from north
to south. Our GRIB satellite weather files predicted 25 kts from the north
east. We wanted to take advantage of the 10 kts run north but made for the
west wall of the stream around Titusville so we could get out of the stream
toward land easily. When the weather started to pick up we moved out of the
stream and although we had a 25 knot wind and were on almost a beam reach
the seas were confused and building with lots of squall activity. We were
only able to make about 4.5 kts. There may have been a counter current.
That night the seas got to the point that I could not use my rear berth and
had to wedge myself in the settee to try to get some sleep. At one point I
looked up and the hanging lanterns were all swinging in complete circles
about once a second and we were taking enough solid water over the deck that
buckets full of water were coming in through the dorade ventilators.

Matt reported a 37 knot gust on his watch. We both realized sleep was not
going to happen that night in the 10 plus foot waves. Throughout the blow
we left the auto pilot on and ran the engine to make sure the batteries were
fully charged. The rudder/autopilot was making it's usually 'screaming
monkey' sounds all night. We made the outer marker at Jacksonville at
around 5 AM and after starting the motor and furling the sails my cell phone
chirped to life... first time in a very long time. I called Mary as the sun
popped out of the water, to let her know we were on our way in.

As the sun went higher we made our way up the St John's... (one of only a
few rivers in the world that flows from south to north...) and I just
happened to catch a Coast Guard announcement on the VHF about repairs to the
Mathew's bridge. In Jax there are maybe four big bridges to navigate on the
way down to Green Cove Springs (our Marina). I radioed the Coast Guard and
found that two bridges were broken. The Mathew's lift bridge had to be hand
cranked up from 38 feet to 60 feet and then maybe only at 1800 hours that
Sunday. Beyond that the FEC railroad bridge was broken but could be opened
on special arrangement. That would have meant tying up the boat in a strong
tidal flow river in front of the first bridge until 6 PM and then dealing
with the Rail Bridge and the rest of the 20 mile plus trip up river in the
dark in an unlighted channel.

We decided to put in at the Trout River Marina the same one we had left from
three plus years ago.



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