Float Plan for 2-21-2026 to 3-1-2026

Helping a friend move his boat from West Palm Beach, Florida, to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The journey will cover approximately 1000 nautical miles, and we’ll depart from the Peanut Island area. We’ll cross the Bahamas without stopping and arrive in St. Thomas, where we’ll check in with customs and find a place to park his boat.

The starting coordinates are: 26* 46.595N 80*W

We will end up at: 18* 46.453N 66*W

26 – 18 = 8 degrees south or 8X60 = 480 Nautical Miles South and

80 – 66 = 14 Degrees East. Or 14 * 60 = 840 Nautical Miles East.

Track this journey here:

Adventure Awaits: Track My Current Progress

Or Directly from the Garmin Site here:

https://share.garmin.com/JAKENH1

The trip will commence in the afternoon on Saturday, February 21, 2026, around 4 p.m. Considering the weather conditions and the non-stop route, we anticipate it to take approximately 6 days, averaging 6 knots. However, sailing is unpredictable, so the actual duration could range from 6 to 10 days. Im expecting to be in St Thomas by March 1st at the latest, but we will see how it goes.

The Manta Catamaran is well-equipped with electric drive and ample solar panels. It also features a new chart plotter, radar, and a set of sails. The boat hasn’t been sailed in a while and has been moored, so this will be a great opportunity for her to get some miles under the hull.

As we progress and I start to get some pictures from the trip I will add them here. For now Im traveling from Boston to West Palm Beach to get to the boat and help out with some last minute repairs and preparations.

Weather reports are showing that there will be some uncomfortable wave patterns on Monday through Wednesday. We are evaluating our departure based on these waves. We may need to tuck into some place and let the weather settle some. Still looking at options at this moment.

Working on the boat this morning we were trying to go up the mast on the winch to work on a tri color light. We got 2/3 up and the winch stoped working. We are investigating. It looks like it may be a solenoid. After investigating and thinking we had found the correct breaker we discovered that the breaker was indeed a smaller one that went to a big breaker. The big breaker was tripped. We are back in business.

After a week of repairs and upgrades to the boat and a lot of clean up and organizing we have selected a weather window. We are going to go at 6 AM today Friday the 27th. Our plan is to head toward Cat Island in the Bahamas. We are expecting some weather to fill in behind us and our bail out location is Cat Island. Thats about 3 days away from now.

We left on Friday the 27th from West Palm looking to make it to Cat Island as a stop over in a weather window. The crossing was uneventful but the wind and tide were stronger than expected and we could not point as well as needed so we ended up further north than expected. This ended up in a long evening of tacking back and forth trying to get to our target entry point. We were seeing thunder storms, but nothing on top of us.

As we were making our way into what looked like a good entry point it was fast becoming obvious that it was a major large vessel shipping channel. The south of Freeport is where all the large ships pass through and cruise ships are everywhere. That was very challenging in the night keeping a watch all the time. They are huge.

We then proceeded to follow the south side of Freeport and make our way across to another shipping area where I accidentally put us smack into the restricted zone. It was very early in the morning and not much was happening thankfully, but the wind was making it hard for us to go anywhere else. After these 2 events before I make any navigation decisions based on just the land, wind and weather Im adding checking the shipping routes and traffic apps.

We had a lot of boat tweaks to make as we were going along. The boat has not been sailed for a long time and while its sound, there are things not set up correctly. The reef points for example were on the sail, but misconfigured. We had to climb up and get those sorted out on the ocean. Luckily we had a calm day the next day to do just that. Climbing up on the hard top is not hard, but there’s an interesting element of danger added when your in the middle of the ocean.

Our next day was mostly uneventful. We sailed to our targets getting used to the boat and the electric propulsion and balancing the power consumption so we can go longer distances. The boat will basically go for days and days but only at 3 knots. So if there’s no wind and no sun, that would be top speed to conserve battery. When the sun is out we could go faster. The wind would push the boat, but it’s so heavy that it requires a lot of wind to move it. It would move ok in 20 knots of wind but anything less and it’s slow going.

On our last day before CAT island we thought we were doing great. The evening was uneventful and by 9 am we were ready to make the turn to the island. When we made the turn, we had a series of events that made for a LONG day to follow.

We made the port turn to go into Cat island and immediately the boat was not responding. It was a dead stick. Steering was unresponsive. No big deal. We’re a Catamaran, we have 2 motors we can steer with those easily. No such luck. At the same time that the steering went, our starboard side motor suddenly was unresponsive. Ok. Now we have issues. Looking upwind of us there was also a weather system starting to gather some power and was looking ominous. We were at the time about 3 hours from the safety of the bay we were heading to, so we are definitely exposed on the water.

We started to sort things out and dug around for the emergency tiller. We knew we had one and where it was, so it was just a matter of getting to it. That didnt take all that long and we had the tiller in place. If you ever get a chance to steer a 23000 lb boat with an emergency tiller, dont do it. It sucks.

The other problem at hand was the starboard side motor. Taking my GoPro I was able to look at the issue and could see that there was a line around the prop. We are thinking that this line took out the rudder and the motor in one shot, but it’s hard to prove.

My sailing partner and boat owner jumped into the water to try to get it untangled but to no avail. It was proving too difficult in the deep water. So we decided to make it the best we could into the harbor and get on anchor and fix it with some better gear and some assistance from our sailing buddy boat. They have scuba gear on board and it would be much easier.

I have to say that sailing the boat with a broken rudder and a motor on only one side presented a lot of challenges, especially when trying to get into a new place directly into the wind. We spend the entire day fighting with the poor performing steering and having to constantly redirect the boat. It took us the entire daylight hours to get into the bay where we were going to anchor. My assessment of how big and how much area is in the Bahamas was way off. The distances to islands and the amount of water here is huge. When we got to what I thought was going to be a smaller bay it turned out to be about 6 miles across. So now we still had a 2 hour slog to get to our anchorage. Upwind and with steering issues that 2 hours kept turning into another 2 hours. We eventually made it to our anchorage but not without a lot of bumps riding the struggle bus.

Looking around Im not 100% sure that it’s worth it yet. The Bahamas are beautiful for sure, but not what I was expecting. This is the first time since sailing through them for 3 days that we have been even close enough to see any land and its all very low elevation land masses. Im not sure what’s on this island. Im hoping that I will get a chance to see before we decide what’s next. It’s possible that I will head home from here while the boat gets sorted out. Not sure yet.

Update: 3-7-2026. We have been sitting at anchor at Cat Island in the Bahamas to wait out some difficult weather. We have been trying to sort out some challenges with the steering and the prop being tangled. The prop has sucked in the rope significantly more than expected at first look. This is probably due to stupidly trying to move the prop forward and backward while knowing the line was on there thinking it would self untangle.

The steering cable that has snapped is so corroded that as we try to cut it back to some good cable there was not any good cable. As we bend it to make an eye, it is splintering and not able to hold a new eye. We are going to install the emergency tiller and have it ready to go and we are going to rely on the auto pilot to steer the boat. If that fails we will hand steer with the tiller. Probably but a crap idea.

Our buddy boat captain has come over with some scuba gear and looking at the prop closer. We may have to take the prop off to get the tangle free. This could be a bigger problem than we originally thought.

Our route will take us south toward St Thomas. We are still debating on a straight shot or trying to hug the coast. Im inclined to hug the coast where possible to help with swells and be close to land in case we need to divert for steering issues or some other unexpected problem with this boat.

Our current departure plan is 3/8/2026 about 10 am. I will update with a route plan once I have one. The reason we are looking at this window is the wave action seems much better than it has been, the wind is not blowing as hard and actually settles for some of the trip so we are not hammering into a headwind by the 3rd and 4th day. The challenge will be the last few days will be directly into the wind and we may not make as good a progress. I want to be near land for that so we can divert if need be.

Ok so we are still in Cat Island. We are currently stuck here 12 days. We only just finished up the steering yesterday. The challenges of getting the parts imported, put on a plane, then through customs was a long process. Island Time Vortex for sure. The interesting part of the process was needing a broker. I was not familiar with that part. We had the part easily picked up in the states and then put on a plane and then once they were in the island we could not pick them up personally. They had to go through customs which means we needed a broker. We did find one and he was ok. The other snag in the process was we needed an actual Click2Clear account which took 24 hours to get processed. This caused another delay.

After getting the parts we started to get into the repair and we had to pull the old cable out of these long conduits. They were filled with oil and debris. The steel cables themselves were crumbling and were so fragile that they definitely needed immediate replacement. We pulled some line through the conduits with a small patch of cloth on it and mineral spirits to loosen up the crud. There was a LOT and it made a huge mess. So it was a fun project to do at the remote cat island in the Bahamas.

on the 2nd day of repairs we had to pause and take our buddy boat partner to the clinic. He had been having some issues and needed some medical attention.

day 3 of repairs we tore into the inside of the boat and had to take out the oven because the cables were run behind the galley area. We did the same process with these cables and got them cleaned out and new cable run. We replaced all the steering cables and the steering feels 100% better. We’re going to do a full sail test today and see how they go. We will then make a decision about our exit window and get moving again toward our final stop. St. Thomas.

After the steering cables were fixed we made a decision to go for a test ride which proved successful! We were planning on a new departure window and getting our heads back into leaving the Bahamas.

On shore that afternoon we were invited to attend a Town Sponsored BBQ. They were smoking up some wild boar! They had chicken, ribs, and all you could drink beer and other hard liquor. Amazing food and everyone was welcoming to us. We even made friends with the chief of police. He was having people get us more Guinness to drink. My favorite was the wild boar. It was super good.

So as we were planning our departure the weather started to turn again and it looked like the boats were going to be sitting again for another week or so.

I was at the end of the time I could commit to the trip so I made the hard decision to head back home on the next flight out. I had a quick dingy ride over to the shore where I stayed at the Rolezz Resort. They have some very cute and colorful cottages and the owners are very accommodating. They took me in as a stinky vagabond of salt life for the last month and I cleaned up and even got an invite to dinner! One of the guests was cooking dinner for everyone and since they are Scottish she was making a boiled dinner. She called it cabbage and brown gravy. It was amazing. Poured over some cabbage bits, and some string beans with mashed potatoes and a gravy sauce made from Guinness and beef stock. What a special treat.

In the morning I was flying back to the states. The weather forecast pushed back to later in the afternoon and the boats were experiencing some serious wave action. They were very close to shore and had little fetch so the wind must have been blowing quite hard.

Arriving in Florida again and easily going through customs and back where I can move around and get what I need quickly and easily I feel appreciative of the time I had on Cat Island and very proud of the 300 miles of sailing that was put in on the trip. I didn’t quite make the goal of getting to St. Thomas, but after 30 days of effort trying to get the boat ready, enduring some mechanical failure and doing a major repair in a remote location and learning all along the way I feel accomplished and happy how it turned out. I know that the captain and the boat will make it to St. Thomas eventually.

For me Im off to the next adventure! Im happily headed back to my own boat and will start moving it to eventually point it north.

U.S. Coast Guard Emergency Contact: 1-800-323-7233
(1-800-SEACOAST)