After 6 weeks on the dock in Jupiter, M/Y Puffin Quest was finally ready for her maiden voyage. The day before, Eitan and I did one last wash down of the boat while the owners did a final Costco run before selling their car. Luckily, the high tide the next morning was at 9 am, giving us a reasonable, well rested, departure time. It was a good feeling to finally stow all the lines and fenders, knowing it would be some time before we would pull into another marina.
Before departing, Eitan studied the weather for several days and chose a very nice weather window, allowing us to get out of the ICW and through the Palm Beach Inlet with almost no swell. Although entering and exiting through an inlet seems like easy stuff, I recommend searching “Florida inlet fails” on YouTube to see some of the insane attempts that people have made transiting through these channels. With the winds, currents, tides, and shallow bottoms, going in or out of these inlets can be quite a bumpy experience, even for a 70-foot motor yacht.
Our first destination was Ft. Pierce and we were off to an easy day of motoring on calm seas. Being in an air-conditioned pilot house is such a different experience compared to sailing in an open cockpit. There is no sense of the wind or temperature outside and, with the boat’s hydraulic stabilizers, there is hardly any of the rolling motion that I had become so accustomed to on S/V Sierra Wind. Had we been on the sailboat, we probably would have stopped a handful of times just for a quick swim to cool off from the heat and humidity. Instead, I sat in the co-pilot chair with a hot tea and sweater to combat the cold AC blowing on me.
While underway, Eitan is obviously at the helm driving the boat during our shifts and I stand watch when he needs a food or bathroom break. I also help to do the hourly engine room checks and record the different engine, generator, water, and fuel metrics. The engine room checks take about 10 minutes and then it seems I hardly have any time to relax before I have to do the same checks all over again. This makes the hours go by pretty fast and we arrived in Ft. Pierce just in time for dinner on the aft deck as we watched the sun go down. Although this first leg of the maiden voyage stop wasn’t the most scenic, it served as the initial sea-trial run in case anything significant happened and the boat would need to go back to Jupiter to resolve them. Luckily, our first day went fabulously and we all slept well at anchor.
Our next destination was Cumberland Island in Georgia, just north of the Florida border. This was a longer run and would be our first overnight passage. It was another easy day of motoring and we started our first series of shifts. Eitan and I took one shift and the owners took the other, alternating every four hours. For night passages on S/V Sierra Wind, I had been on solo night watches since our initial sail down the Baja coast back in November. I found the night shifts are much more enjoyable with someone to share them with. But from the pilot house of a motor yacht, you miss out on the other enjoyable aspects of the night watch, such as looking up at the milky way, seeing shooting stars, and watching the mystical glow of the bioluminescence in the boat’s wake. Instead, my eyes were glued to the horizon, unable to see much above or below from the co-pilot chair.
Even though it was a relatively calm evening, we were all pretty tired by the time we arrived at the St. Mary’s inlet the following morning. As we entered the channel, we were immediately approached by the US Coast Guard who notified us there was a submarine coming through and we would have to pull off to the side of the channel and point the boat away from its travel path. Although we were eager to drop the anchor ASAP, it was really cool to get to see the submarine cruise by, half submerged below the surface, as I started the washdown.
Although arriving at anchor brings a sigh of relief for everyone onboard, it also brings a flurry of work for Eitan and me. Since saltwater is corrosive to most material over time, the boat needs to be washed down almost every time it’s moved. If you have spent any time in a yacht marina, you know that 90% of a deckhand’s job it just washing down the boat. The level of wash down can vary depending on how salty the boat actually got while underway and some days the weather gods bless us with an afternoon shower to lighten the load. For me, I typically spent the last hour of any transit washing down the hull, decks, and handrails. Regardless of the work, we were excited to finally be in Cumberland Island and heading north!
