On February 26th 2022 my friend Benjamin Whiting of the Flying Spur met me in Fort Laureldale to do the Gulf Stream crossing to the Bahamas with me, we started the day with some provisioning, then we topped off the oil and the diesel in Aeolus 1 Cylinder Yanmar YSB8 from 1977. We also rebedded the tiller pin for the autopilot which was wiggling. On February 28 we departed at 4 pm for our night passage to West End. Benjamin shot a beautiful video about this passage which I recommend you to see, what the video faisl to show is a cople of moment where the boat was overpowered by the current and the wind and just did not want to go in the direction we needed to go, after we overcame that problem a squall hit us and we quickly had to reef the sail but still did a couple of spin before being able to adjust our heading.
All in all was a smooth passage. When we arrived to west end we met another sailor who had a much harder time in this treacherous waters that is the gulf stream, the squalls he encountered must have been more fierce , his topping lift broke and he lost control of the boat for quite some time. he was also able to complete the passage safely so all is well that ends well. during the passage i cooked some ramen topped by boiled eggs, we also had some tea and cookies all made in my gimballed water boiler which now I can’t live without.
Video of the passage below