After Anne returned to Minneapolis, Jim stayed on Tilia to get things ready for the journey back to the United States. Two friends of ours, Brian and Pete, flew to Marsh Harbour to help with the sail back to the US. The goal was to move the boat to the US safely and quickly with an emphasis on having the journey be done under sail, enjoyably.
The crew was fully assembled by April 1, so after a good night’s rest, we left the marina on April 2 for a couple days to get Brian and Pete familiarized with Tilia while exploring the Abaco Islands a bit. The weather allowed us to sail about 25 nm to a nice anchorage near Crab Cay, where we spent two nights on the hook. While there, we did some snorkeling and took the dinghy to explore the mangroves, and did our final preparations for the journey to Charleston.
We studied the weather forecasts closely and also had input from a weather routing service with professional meteorologists to develop a plan. We decided that best plan was to head northwest to the coast of Florida, and then use the powerful current of the Gulf Stream to shoot north towards Charleston. We believed this would give us a fast journey with the option to bail out to other ports on the coast if the weather took a turn for the worse.
On April 3, we had a team lunch of hamburgers from the grill, raised anchor and headed out through the Nunjack Channel into the Atlantic Ocean. The first 30 hours were very good. We had good conditions and got the two headsails up in a wing-on-wing formation for about 10 hours, surfing down the waves comfortably as we put the miles behind us. We even had a surprise guest that flew into boat and rode with us overnight, visiting the boat and crew.
After resting on the boat and riding along with us, the bird disappeared later the next day. Conditions continued to be very nice as rode the Gulf Stream, which added 4 kn to our speed. We were moving at 8-10 kn as we headed north.
Then, we were mobbed by more than a dozen dolphins. They surrounded us, swimming under and around the boat, dashing forward and off, and riding in the bow wave of the boat. It was a mesmerizing experience that lasted for at least a couple hours, until the sun finally set on a day that was even more remarkable than the prior day.
That night we continued to sail towards Charleston, leaving the Gulf Stream around 8 pm. We were still making good speed, headed right towards Charleston until about midnight when the winds started to fade and we decided it was time to turn on the engines.
We entered Charleston harbor just after the sun came up behind us, and we made our way to the marina. Docking was uneventful and Tilia was secured, having brought us 433 miles in 2 days 19 hours.
