A Superlative Passage
- sondrawinter
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Utopia has successfully traveled from Fort Myers Beach to Belize City. It was the longest passage that we have ever completed, and we have reached new furthest points west and south aboard Utopia. This was the most amount of time we have gone without touching land. We saw our biggest waves at sea and had our first sighting of bioluminescence!
Friday, March 20 – Thursday, March 26
Total Distance Traveled: 796 miles | 692 nm
Leg 1: Fort Myers Beach to Dry Tortugas National Park
Friday 3/20 & Saturday 3/31
25 hours | 124 nm
Utopia slipped from the mooring ball around 8:30 in the morning and headed out of Matanzas Pass. The seas started out calmly as we first exited the inlet, increasing as the day wore on. The bigger seas included occasional large waves causing everything inside the boat to fly if it was not stowed up tightly. The chaotic mess aboard Utopia was a sign that we need to step up our cabin preparation next time we expect big seas.
This trip had us up on deck several times during the daylight hours. On my first trip up on deck in the rolling seas, I felt a little unsteady, but felt my balance improving with each trip on deck. My feet slipped a few times either due to the soles wearing out of my shoes, or because the non-slip coating of the deck is a bit aged; probably a little bit of both.
There was enough wind for a majority of the trip to sail along nicely at 5 to 6 knots, mostly downwind. Around 5 a.m. the winds diminished and our speed dropped below 4 knots so the engine was fired up for the remaining four hours of the trip.
Mechanically there are a few things of note:
Alternator & Belt Alignment: We are very pleased that the alternator and the belt behaved wonderfully on this leg of the trip.
Dinghy Stowage: All our prior offshore passages have been in mellow enough conditions for us to leave our dingy hanging as high as possible on the stern davits. Since we are about to enter seas that are known to have larger waves, we hoisted the dinghy up onto the deck of Utopia. This arrangement reduced our visibility from the cockpit which made maneuvering in and out of channels and docking a little more challenging. Another issue we ran into was that when flying the staysail, the sheet rubbed against one of the dinghy's inflatable pontoons. To avoid chafing a hole in the dinghy we tied a line to the sheet to pull it away from the pontoon. We felt this was an acceptable method for daylight hours but decided to douse the staysail before sunset.
Water Maker Leak: After making water for a few hours, a lot of salt water was discovered in a locker. We suspect a loose hose connection somewhere. There is enough water onboard Utopia to make it to Belize, so this is something that we can investigate later.
Around 9 am we had the anchor set next to Fort Jefferson and spent the morning onboard, cleaning up the boat and addressing some of the minor issues we had along the way.
After lunch we jumped into the water to remove some of the growth off the hull, each working on opposite sides of the boat. At one point I thought Jimmy had swum under the hull to join me, until I saw a long spiny dorsal fin and realized it was a person sized goliath grouper. It could care less about our swimming above it.
Leg 2: Dry Tortugas National Park to Belize City
Sunday March 22 to Thursday, March 26
104 hours | 569 nm
Day 1 - Sunday, 3/22: Departure!
96 nm
With a lot of excitement to finally begin our big voyage, I wondered things like, what would it feel like to be doing shifts for four days? Will I get enough rest to be able to make solid decisions? How will Utopia handle the bigger seas of the Yucatan & Caribbean Sea? Did we prepare the boat adequately?
Seas slowly built as we headed southwest under a cloudless sky. The prediction for light winds held true and we motor-sailed across the Florida Straits. Around 3 pm clouds started to decorate the sky and knew we were well into the Gulf Stream since the water temperature had jumped up 2.5° F and we had a 25° set (heading vs course over ground).
Day 2 - Monday, 3/23: Motorsailing
132 nm
At the beginning of my 2 a.m. to 5 a.m shift I noticed little dots of light in the foam created by Utopia as she sliced through the water. This was my very first siting of bioluminescence, which surprisingly decreased each night of the passage. Closer to the end of my shift I could see the glow of lights from somewhere in Cuba.
Around sunrise I woke up to very calm conditions as we sailing without the engine, making it such a peaceful way to wake up. By noon the sky was cloudless, and we had a beautiful 360° view of the cobalt blue waters. Believe it or not, this sight was improved even more when a large dolphin pod came to play alongside Utopia, racing her bow. The water was so clear we could see them well below the water surface. A lot of them would swim sideways or even upside down. They looked smaller than the dolphins around Florida. Most had white noses, a grey eye strip and whitish bellies. Several of the larger ones had white spots. Maybe they were Atlantic Spotted Dolphin.
As we turned around the tip of Cuba into the Yucatan Channel, the seas began to grow, as well as the winds.
Day 3 - Tuesday, 3/24: Reefed Sails
129 nm
By the time the sun came up the waves had increased to 5’ to 6’ in height, and as the morning went on we began to see some of the largest waves we’ve ever experienced. Every once in a while, we would look up at a wall of water on our port stern quarter at least 7’ tall. The first few times we braced to get pooped, but the waves were not breaking, and Utopia just rode up and down with the “wall”. Other times the giant waves uncomfortably heeled us over. With each of these waves, my confidence in the boat and our ability to handle the situation increased and the “walls of water” were seen as really big waves.
Most of the day we sailed under a reefed main, eventually crossing from the Yucatan Channel into the Caribbean Sea and officially entering the tropics. Our speed over ground ranged between 4.5 and 7 knots.
Day 4 - Wednesday 3/25: Variable Conditions
133 nm
Throughout the night, the wind remained constant and we held a continuous course. Each shift change briefing was short, and was generally a repeat of the prior report:
Wind speed range and direction are the same, no change in the seas so continue to use caution moving about the cockpit, and no nearby traffic. Good night, see you in three hours.
During the daytime hours the conditions began to change. The sun only briefly peeked out between the clouds earlier in the day followed by rain clouds bringing scattered rain along our route. When it wasn’t raining, we moved along nicely between 4 and 6 knots, occasionally surfing along at 8 knots. Wind direction was variable and we made a lot of sail adjustments. Then the rain would steal our wind making it impossible to reach 4 knots of speed without an engine assist, which happened more and more as the day went on.
Now that we have been underway over three days, we are getting accustomed to being at sea in not-so-smooth conditions, although I admit that I still find eating a meal in rocky conditions to be a hassle. Jimmy commented he is glad that we gradually increased our sailing experience before taking on this passage. This trip would have been much more stressful had we attempted it our first year of cruising. Decent weather and sea conditions contributed to an easier passage. Another feature about this route is that although at times we do not see any boat traffic for hours, there is enough shipping traffic out there that help would be available within a day if it was needed.
Day 5 - Thursday 3/26 Arrival!
79 nm
In the early morning hours, we had rounded the top of the Turneffe Islands. At sunrise we could see little tufts of land to our port. These atolls were doing a nice job of calming the seas down. Also visible were several scattered rain clouds that eventually found us, obscuring our views of the atolls.
Around noon Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) we turned into the English Cay Channel, feeling a little bit nervous coming into an unknown, foreign port on a cloudy, rainy morning (Belize is on Central Standard Time, CST; they do not observe Daylight Time). Having sunshine, or even clear windows, to find channel markers would have been preferred. Add on having the dinghy on the deck blocking visibility, and being perhaps a little sleep deprived after four nights underway… but the rain let up, and the chartplotter location appeared to be accurate (we saw warnings that chartplotters might not show accurate locations) and we were able to enjoy the long trip to and across Belize Harbour.
It was nearly 3:30 p.m. EDT when we dropped anchor outside of the marina entrance, 104 hours after weighing anchor in Dry Tortugas. Since we needed to enter the marina at high tide, we had to wait 90 minutes. This time was spent tiding up the boat and taking a short nap.
About 30 minutes before high tide, we pulled up anchor, headed into the marina and had Utopia tied up to a dock by 5:30 p.m. EDT (3:30 CST) completing our seventh day without touching land. Over the next 90 minutes we checked into the marina office and were visited first by Immigration and then later by Customs who did an inspection of the boat. That was the first time we had an inspection of Utopia. We were up front with stating what goods we had onboard, but yet it’s still a little strange for someone to be going through your cabinets, lockers, and drawers. They were most interested in firearms, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and produce. All of the officers were polite, professional and yet, very nice. The process was quick and smooth. It is likely that our use of a customs agent (Ventura Yacht Agency) may have been a major factor in the ease of our check-in.
With the check in now completed, we are free to roam Belize!
Post 26-13
Great to read about your adventures together. YOLO, and ya'll are doing it!
Love this post! You journey on Utopia has been an inspiration.