Monday April 2, 2018 - Little Bahamas Bank to Fort Pierce

It was a long night.  As I approached the deep channel north of Memory Rock (on the west side of the bank), the waves had picked up.  I had the mainsail up with no reef since the wind had lightened from around 8 to around 5 or 6.  As I got dark, I had trouble telling where the wind was coming from and I made two or three accidental jibes.  I should have rigged a preventer but I didn't.  So, I turned around and dropped the main.  After that, it was all motoring. 

Not long after I left the bank, the seas got larger and more confused.  After an hour or two, the swell picked up some.  It was only 3 or 4 feet but with the east wind, it was surprisingly rough.  Maybe it was because I was doing downwind but the boat was rocking back and forth to 25 degrees of heel - first to the left, then to the right - and on a 3 second period. I was just thankful the swell was small and the wind was light. 

At about 1am, the auto helm began acting up.  The wheel clutch began disengaging itself and the compass was going haywire.  After a couple hours of hand steering, I tied the clutch arm in place.  At about 5am, I began troubleshooting the compass and concluded that some piece of metal in proximity to the compass had been the cause. 

Once I got out of the gulf stream (about 15 nm from Ft. Pierce), the swell and wind waves died down and I had a nice motor sail into the Ft. Pierce inlet.  Entering the Fort Pierce inlet was a piece of cake. There was no swell and the surface of the water was glassy.  There were lots of people fishing on the jetties and beach goers on the beach (isn't Monday a work day?).

It took 3 calls to clear customs but I was glad that all my hard work with the SRVS vessel reporting system actually worked.

I made some calls to several local hospitals and decided on going to the one at Vero Beach tomorrow.  The rest of the day was spent cleaning up the boat and these blogs, showering, and trying to get some sleep.