Bluewater Cruising on Pleiades: Richard Bearman's Travel log

Blue Water Cruising 

When I retired in 2016, I bought a 1974 Hallberg-Rassy sloop, a Rasmus 35 from an Arkansas cabinet maker who had rebuilt her and taken her to the Med and back. I named the boat Pleiades and kept her on a mooring off Tampa Bay.  I sailed her to Cuba from Pensacola, to Isla Mujeres and Cancun in Mexico, and spent three winters cruising the Exumas, a chain of mostly uninhabited islands running southeast from Nassau.  It’s hard to say enough wonderful things about these islands –they are simply spectacular, and snorkeling is a total delight (one spot is called The Aquarium, and the name is no exaggeration.)

This year, I decided to move Pleiades up to the Chesapeake.  I contacted friends and lined up three crews –one for the Tampa – Nassau leg, one for the Exumas (had to have a farewell visit), and one for the Nassau – Chesapeake leg.  I think most of my crew was new to offshore sailing and some were pretty much new to sailing in any form. You know how people are always telling you, That sounds great, let me know when you go out again –well, watch what you wish for: you might get asked to crew!

Pleiades is a well-found boat with two cabins, a composting head, and a salon.  Each cabin has two berths and we set up leecloths to keep us from falling out when heeling. I had flown down to Tampa early and provisioned the boat with food and drink.  Pleiades has a large fridge and small freezer space, and food is crucial on a passage since it breaks up the day and can be a joy to look forward to or a disappointment if not carefully chosen. We had meals planned for three weeks and lots of snacks –nothing like a granola bar and handful of dates when you go on watch at 2:00 AM…

We set out on April 30, finally casting off lines at 2:00PM to sail into what appeared to be a squall line but which we outran.  Sailing down the coast of Florida, we had light to moderate breeze just ahead of the beam and our motor had fuel delivery problems which ultimately became the ongoing demon of the trip. Many fixes, many reversals. However, we were five days to Nassau with a stop in the Keys to visit and enrich the local NAPA parts store.

We stayed at Nassau Harbour Club Marina, where I’ve been many times before –good people and just across the street from an excellent liquor store, grocery, and Starbucks.  What more could one ask for? Dinner at Potters Cay, a collection of little restaurants under the bridge to Paradise Island –you can pick any one and not go wrong, just be sure to order the conch salad and fried plantains.  We saw a Spotted Eagle Ray from the restaurant deck, nosing along over the cast away conch shells that litter the bottom.

Some crew flew out, some crew flew in and the next day we headed out late afternoon having solved (we hoped) our fuel problem.  We sailed overnight down the Exumas chain to Shroud Cay, one of my favorite uninhabited islands, cut through with guts that we intended to explore by dinghy. And explore we did, climbing to Camp Driftwood and seeing turtles and small sharks in the guts.  However, motor fuel starvation problems persisted, and we decided to head back to Nassau rather than go further down the Exumas.

Back in Nassau, we made another obligatory trip to Potters Cay and had another huge meal. Another crew trade and some more work on the motor and we were off for the Chesapeake.  I had purchased a special forecast from noted weatherman Chris Parker, who advised us to go up the Gulf Stream as far as we could, noting that we would have southerlies for quite some time.  I should say I took this advice with some trepidation, for the only really dangerous experience I’ve ever had offshore, over 15,000 nautical miles, was in the Gulf Stream with a northerly wind and I’ve always crossed the Stream pedal to the metal ever since and certainly never chose to ride it up the US coast.

However, we had little wind for days, and what there was came out of the southeast, so we were comfortable nursing the motor and being appreciative of the Gulf Stream’s three or four knots going our way. A bananaquit came on board and stayed for a while; swells appeared and faded again; and we watched a total lunar eclipse against a background of bright stars. All in all, it was a relaxing six days until we got to the latitude of Beaufort, North Carolina.

And there the wind shifted northeast and built, and the seas built to eight to twelves, and having seen this movie once before, we decided it was time to leave the Stream and sail to Beaufort, where we went up the Intercoastal Waterway to Norfolk and into Chesapeake Bay. We encountered one brutal little squall in the Bay, just as night fell with me on watch, but otherwise, it was uneventful all the way to Cambridge, where we arrived salt crusted and deeply satisfied. We’d been on board 22 days and had sailed just shy of 1600 nautical miles, the last 300 in the ICW and Chesapeake Bay but most of the rest with no land in sight.

Many thanks to Richard for sharing this sailing experience with us.

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