Passage from Magens Bay, St. Thomas to Charleston, SC, May 2020

Passage Summary, from engine on and anchor up in Magens Bay, St. Thomas at 10:00 am on Thursday, May 21, to tied up on the inside of the Megadock at Charleston City Marina, South Carolina at 9:00 am on Friday, May 29. 

Miles traveled:  1276 nm 

Time elapsed:  7 days, 23 hours

Time motoring:  13 hours

Time “hove to”:  14 hours

Distance traveled away from the finish while hove to:  11 nm

Average boat speed while sailing:  7.8 knots

Maximum boat speed:  13.5 knots

Maximum wind speed:  30 knots

Number of cargo ships/tankers that we communicated with:  3 (Star Swift, Nunalik, Hafnia Lise)

As islands in the Caribbean started closing their borders mid-March, many of the live-aboard cruisers congregated in the US Virgin Islands. We all faced a similar dilemma:  Where do we go for Hurricane Season? The Salty Dawgs set up several Homeward Bound Flotillas to support a large number of boats in their efforts to get from the Caribbean to the east coast. One friend decided to join the Salty Dawgs and sail his Express 37 solo from Maho Bay, St. John to Deltaville, VA.  Another decided to ship his Pearson 36 back to the East Coast from St. Thomas.  Several friends had their boats hauled out in the Virgin Islands while others decided to wait it out until they could go further south. Since our first choice was to go south, we waited until the beginning of May to make the decision to join the last flotilla on May 20 and head for Charleston, SC.

We left from Magens Bay on the north side of St. Thomas on Thursday, May 21.  It looked like we had a nice weather window for the next week, with mostly beam reaching in 10 - 12 knots of breeze.  We flew the spinnaker on the second day out - very fun.  The next couple of days were also smooth and uneventful.  By Tuesday, May 26, a low pressure weather system off the coast of Florida had developed into tropical storm Bertha. Bertha was headed for the Gulf Stream off of South Carolina and it appeared we would be entering the Gulf Stream at the same time Bertha arrived.  Using our PredictWind weather routing program, we reviewed our options. We decided the best option was to “heave to” and wait for Bertha to move north past SC.  We backwinded the staysail (the CLJ on the inner forestay), put two reefs in the main and strapped it in and lashed the wheel to port, on port tack.  This allowed us to slow the boat speed to 1 to 2 knots without having to steer or make any sail adjustments.  It was a little bouncy in the waves, but the only bad effects we saw from Bertha that night were some heavy rain and wind to 25 knots.  

The next morning we were back on our way.  Every morning, we were visited by Bermuda Longtails; sometimes only one and sometimes up to six birds.  They seemed to stay with us for three or four hours and then disappear until the next morning.  We were disappointed that we didn’t see any dolphins the whole passage.  We encountered many cargo ships and tankers and had fun talking to three of them to verify they saw us and would avoid us. 

The sky was just getting light on Friday morning, May 29 as we approached the Charleston Harbor Entrance buoy.  We sailed another 10 miles or so, then started the engine and motor sailed up the river to Charleston City Marina.  All in all, it was a very good passage.  A couple hours after docking, we had a surprise welcoming committee, the sister of a friend from work.  She and her friend brought a Charleston gift bag with balloons and all.  It was such a nice surprise and we really appreciated the warm welcome back to the east coast. We're looking forward to exploring Charleston!

The Covid-19 Pandemic has caused us to change our plans

We have decided to sail back to the east coast. Our original plan was to stay in the Caribbean for at least a couple years.  Our boat insurance requirement is that we are south of Grenada or north of Cape Hatteras during hurricane season.  After spending March and April in the US and British Virgin Islands, we had planned to continue south down the island chain and then haul the boat in Trinidad and fly home for September and October. The Corona Virus scare hit the Caribbean in late February and was pretty serious by mid-March.  Islands started closing their borders so we decided the best place to be was in the USVI.  We have been in St. Thomas and St. John since March, watching the status of the various islands as far as their border closure and availability of flights back to the US.  The hope was that islands such as Trinidad and Grenada would implement plans to open up their borders in time for boats to escape the hurricane zone by June or July.  By the beginning of May, there were still too many unknowns on whether we would be able to get into Trinidad and leave the boat on the hard, get home to the US and then get back to the boat in the fall.  The Salty Dawg organization has arranged several flotillas back to the US and we have signed up with the May 20 departure from the USVI.

This is bittersweet because we are really enjoying the lifestyle and we are leaving new friends; however, we are looking forward to seeing friends and family back home. One day, I’m excited about getting back to the US; the next, I feel bummed about leaving this beautiful place and the great friends we were “stuck” with in St. John. We were just getting settled in to the cruising lifestyle - getting to know other cruisers, getting all our boat systems up & running and settling in to a bit of a routine.  Our solar panels keep the batteries stable during the day and we only lose 5 - 10% of their capacity at night.  The 5KW generator is running very well, so every 3 or 4 days we run it for 2 - 3 hours to top off batteries, make water and heat up the hot water tank.  The water maker is also working very well and we make about 90 - 100 gallons each time we run it.  It gives us lots of freedom to use fresh water and take hot showers. 

Soooo, we will stay a few nights at Yacht Haven Grande marina in Charlotte Amalie to provision and complete preparations on the boat.  Then we will anchor in Magens Bay on the north side of St. Thomas to quarantine for a week to make sure we are all healthy before going offshore.  We have our friend Pia with us and we expect to make landfall in Charleston, about 1200 miles.  It should take us 7 to 10 days, based on weather.  We’re looking forward to the sail and seeing family and friends when we arrive.