6.1.2022 - 6.30.2022 Moving up the East Coast: Part 1

Once I was back from Belgium, we got to have some unexpected (but exciting) unexpected guests onboard - Mom & Dave!! They were on a trip to St. Lucia and were spending a night there and back in Miami to break of the travel. On 6.6.2022 we were able to meet up for dinner and they got to get a tour of Saguaro!

On 6.8.2022 we got to meet Jess and Matt in-person. Since we first met them virtually in February, we've stayed in touch as they've been working their way from the west to east coast in their van. And now that we're back stateside, we were able to share our passage plans for working our way up the east coast to get out of the hurricane box to comply with insurance. As a first passage experience for them, they agreed to be crew for our sail up to St. Augustine, FL!

In preparation, we had to refuel. Based on our new anchorage in the more protected area, we had to go under a bridge to get to a fuel dock. Bridges will be a challenge for us due to our mast height of 73 feet. This height makes it so that we can't take advantage of the Intercostal Waterway (ICW) network. For big boats like ours, there are designated spots along the bridge that have been dredged out to allow passage under. These spots also have a height marking within the water that shows what the height is based on the tide (high vs. low).

Passage #3 - Miami, FL to St. Augustine, FL (6.10.2022 - 6.12.2022)

Jess and Matt came aboard on 6.10.2022 and we went through a general safety brief and pre-departure checks.

We departed at 8:30pm EST which was another first for us (leaving on a passage a night). We were able to bring the sails up prior to bringing up the anchor and navigated out of the channel with ease. Something that was immediately different to us on this coastal passage vs. our previous open-water passages is the effect of light pollution from land - we maintained about 10-20NM offshore the entire time.

It was a lot of fun having crew onboard! This was a pretty low-stress, low-prep passage and both Jess and Matt took turns experiencing part of our night watches with us. Matt was able to fix our fishing lures and during the day, we caught one female and one male dorado fish! Matt showed us how to properly bleed and filet fish and Jess made some yummy fish dishes for dinner! They also got to experience a dolphin encounter :)

We made it to Conch House Marina around mid-morning on 6.12.2022 and had our first difficult docking experience. We came in during low-tide and due to this, we got stuck in the mud trying to dock on our starboard side. It took 3 dockhands and Matt to get us within two feet of the dock which meant we had to jump/stretch to get on/off.

At the end of our passage, we sailed 290NM over 38 hours.

Once settled on the dock, we took an Uber to go check on our RV and car that's been in storage. The RV was still in great condition (better than I expected it to be) but our car battery had died. We had to jump it with a battery from the RV and get a replacement.

With the RV and car checked on, we were able to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing and hanging out with Matt and Jess before they drove back down to Miami the next day.

Conch House Marina

After Matt and Jess went back home, we spent the next week hanging out at the Conch House Marina. We were able to move slips so that we wouldn't be stuck anymore and our plan was to finalize moving onboard from the RV. Since we were gone 6 months instead of 2-4 weeks, we wanted to do an inventory of what we left and still needed. However, since we were gone so long, we ended up replacing or getting things we needed along the way. So our final move aboard of our stuff was much smaller (only one trunk load) than we thought-

• clothes/shoes

• workout equipment

• memento décor

• important files

• tools

We also were able to do a local pickup of mail/packages we had at St. Brendan's Isle.

The marina itself was somewhat of a vacation destination for those local to the area. They had a motel, pool, dock bar, and dock restaurant. The marina also was home to mostly fishing powerboats and had it's own filet station. We got to know our slip "neighbors" for the week to socialize and share boat stories.

Passage #4 - St. Augustine, FL to Charleston, SC (6.17.2022 - 6.19.2022)

After our week at Conch House, we needed to keep moving up the coast to get north of Georgia to comply with our insurance requirement.

We departed at 11:30pm EST and only brought up the headsail. Within 15 minutes of departure, we had a major scare of almost hitting a concrete channel marker that was not marked on the map or radar. The buoy was massive and we came within about 2 feet of it. Due to the time of day and lack of light, it was extra challenging to see it. I remember making a comment about "What is that?!" and having to get our handheld flashlight to see, and what I did, we were heading straight for it. I yelled "BUOY DEAD AHEAD" to Mike and he very quickly and smartly put our engines in a hard reverse prior to turning to miss it. It was a very narrow miss and I'm not going to lie, I saw our boat life/adventure end in that moment. Thankfully we missed hitting it and no damage was done, but once the adrenaline wore off we were both a bit shook up. And after we debriefed, we also realized we had good reaction and response a (potential) emergency situation.

In the morning, we were greeted with a pod of dolphins at sunrise. Based on weather forecast, we expected to have to motorsail the entire way due to low/no winds, so we didn't bring up the mainsail.

A few hours later (around 11am 6.18.2022), our starboard engine died. We weren't sure what happened when it suddenly stopped and we couldn't get it to restart. At the time, we didn't think too much of it as this engine had historically needed more maintenance and been more temperamental. We continued on with our port engine only.

Starting on my night watch (12am-4am), a water alarm from our main control panel started going off. This alarm is different from the bilge alarms which tell use that water is in either bilge. I turned on the bilge pumps just in case but the water alarm continued. I was able to post about the water alarm to our Lagoon 440/500 Facebook group to get some insight and found out there was water accumulating in our engine compartment bilge. Apparently there's a line that connects between the engine bilge and regular bilge that should be open to drain, but it was closed. As soon as we opened the line, the water alarm went away.

Then, at 4:30am on 6.19.2022, our port engine died. Just like how the starboard engine died the day before, the port engine suddenly stopped and we couldn't get it started again. At this point, we were about 10-15NM from entering the Charleston channel. Without engines, we can't safely enter a channel (which are high traffic areas), anchor, or dock. We brought up the mainsail and diverted to basically "sail around" the area until we could call for help. At 6am, we were able to reach a sea tow company that could come meet us to tow us in. It took the sea tow about 2 hours to get to us and in that time, we were trying to call marinas for where we could be towed to but didn't have luck.

Once the sea tow arrived, we got the lines setup to be towed in and the guy was able to contact a boatyard/marina. The tow process took about 4 hours from the time we got the lines connected to getting us docked at the boatyard/marina.

At the end of our passage, we sailed 183NM over 34 hours.

Passage Debrief

What went well-

• Our response to the engine failure. I think having the prior scare with the concrete channel marker coming out of St. Augustine better prepared us to adapt and respond to engine failure. The good news about engine failure on a sailboat is that we still have the sails to maneuver (e.g. if the failure had happened further from a channel/shore). If we had a power boat with engine failure, it would be a much bigger emergency because there is no alternative except to float/drift until you could be rescued. Instead of panicking about the situation, we were able to stay logical and practical and do what needed to be done.

What we can do better-

• Talking about this passage and our prior one, we realized we got a little lax with our passage planning, which is a problem. Both of these passages were coastal (instead of open-water) and shorter (about 36 hours) compared to our first two. We also didn't submit a float plan to our land support. In retrospect, we decided whether the passage was 1 day or several, we have to follow the same safety procedures.

Charleston, SC

We ended up being docked by the tow boat at Safe Harbor boatyard/marina and were there for a week to troubleshoot our engine problems. After doing some diagnostics and electronics checking, the cause of both engines' failure was clogged fuel filters. In talking with the repairment, we think this was due to a combination of mixed fuel (some from St. Thomas, some from Miami) and rough seas that made the fuel mix/slosh around in the tank, loosening potential sediment and contributing to the clog.

While at the boatyard we got to meet up with some of my workers and new boat friends! We were planning to meet up with Adrienne and her husband DJ to go fishing on the boat since they live about 2 hours away in Fort Mill, SC. Our plans got interrupted with our engine failure, but they still got to come aboard to check out the boat, hang, and go out to dinner :)

We also got connected through Brad and Jacki with another couple who just bought an Orana 44 catamaran, Chuck and Joanna (Jo). They were about a day behind us coming from St. Augustine to Charleston and were continuing to move up the east coast into North Carolina and the Chesapeake Bay area per their insurance.

Once we got the engines fixed, we left Safe Harbor and re-anchored next to the USS Yorktown, which is close to the downtown Charleston area. It was nice to get to explore a few places and try some Carolina-BBQ!