Trust the Boat, Trust the Boat...

Sunday, November 13

The ocean is over a thousand feet deep here. Yet, tonight I looked at the depth gauge and it flashed 13 feet. Then, it flashed 19 feet. What could be under our boat? A pod of whales, sharks, dolphins, a big green octopus? The possibilities are endless.

Mom wanted to know if any of the other boats get close to us while we are sailing, and if we can see them on radar or in the distance. Yes, Mom, usually we have been able to see at least one boat a day on our chartplotter through AIS, and sometimes can eyeball them if they are within a mile or so. Strangely, it's usually at night that we get close enough to see them, and then we can pick up their navigation lights. Today we passed a cruise ship, close enough for us to see, but never a danger to us. Tonight, we are following another boat in the rally. We can see them on AIS, but we haven't picked up their lights yet. They are about 8.5 miles ahead. I would love to be able to catch them, but they seem to be doing exactly the same speed. (They say that whenever there's more than one sailboat, it's a race. Haha. So true,)

We have now gone over a thousand ocean miles on this trip. Every once in a while I look at the chartplotter and see our boat on the Atlantic Ocean and I think, 'Wow, kind of cool!'

We had a good night, although we didn't sleep as much as we would like. We were trying out a new sail so thought we needed to babysit it a bit. Carey is having fun sailing with the Code Zero. During his night watch, he figured out how to get the most out of it. At first light, the wind freshened and we needed to switch head sails--from the Code Zero to the jib. The Code Zero is always a little tricky to furl, so that was a fun morning. Not.

We use the auto pilot 98% of the time in wide open waters. We hand steer in more narrow areas like the Erie Canal or rivers, or if we're just out for a day sail and somebody wants to steer.

The sea temperature is 84 degrees, and the sun is really hot here. Thank goodness for our canvas enclosure. We've got the windows wide open, but still lots of shade from the sun. And tons of breeze. Our boat has a complete canvas enclosure over the cockpit. It has been fabulous! One of the ARC Rally organizers called his a Canadian camper top. It's like a tent sitting on your boat, keeping you nice and cozy and out of the elements. It is temperature controlled (we can open and close windows as needed, and we get a greenhouse effect in the cold, sunny weather, so we keep warm), it has screens to keep out the bugs, and it keeps out the bad weather. Many racers and cruisers don't have them, but we wouldn't go anywhere without ours. We love it. It works really well for our type of boat, because we can do almost all of our "sail stuff" right from the cockpit. Nobody has to risk life and limb to go out on deck in nasty weather.

Carey saw a few flying fish today. Funny fish. People frequently report them jumping/flying onto their decks. None on ours so far. If so, I'd inspect it closely! We shouldn't see any pirates, except the drunk kind. There are a few areas in the Caribbean that have reported pirate attacks, but mostly around Trinidad and Tobago. We aren't going anywhere near there.

For communications we use Iridium Go! Not fast (it is satellite, after all), but still does the job. It's like a wifi hotspot in our boat and we can just connect our iPhone and iPads to it. It's pretty amazing. I love being able to communicate with family and friends, and this does the trick admirably.

In Annapolis, we bought a set of passage dishes. They have a rubber ring on the bottom which is designed to grab onto the surface, and not allow the plate or dish to slip right off the table. This is really handy on a sailboat that heels over quite often and quite a bit. Now, they have to design a plate that holds the food on it. Yesterday, Carey's ribs kept trying to slide right off the plate every time the boat heeled. Not a happy camper. Never mess with his ribs!


Monday, November 14

We had a fast and furious sail over night. The winds were blowing a steady 15 knots on the beam with gusts up to 20 knots. That was the fast part; the 'furious' part was the confused seas. We had waves hitting us from three sides at very short intervals, which causes the boat to shimmy, shake, shudder, roll and pitch. Not a comfortable ride, unless you like riding angry camels.

We have had beautiful sunsets and sunrises. It was quite overcast the first part of ocean passage (not good for our power creation), and partly cloudy lately, which makes some awesome shots when the sun shines through at dawn or dusk. Beautiful. I'll post some when I can.

Mark and Becky from Forget-Me-Knot, a catamaran, just called on the VHF radio. Just to chat. So nice to hear another voice out there. We've been close to them for the past two days. We can see them on the AIS (but not visually), so we knew they were there, but they can't see us. I was surprised when they called. They must have been checking the daily positioning reports to see who was close. They are dealing with some of the same issues as us (fuel shortage, power consumption, downwind sailing, double-handing, etc.), but they have had to overcome some bigger challenges. Stuff has broken, of course, but also they were pouring a jerry can of diesel into their tanks (like our act) and he dropped the syphon hose into the tank! Yikes! Shortly after, the engine wouldn't start. They've solved the issue short-term, so they're okay for the moment. I'll send more details when I get them. We have planned to meet up in the BVIs and cruise a bit together. We'll have lots of storie
s to share. Looking forward to sharing a rhum punch with them.

When we get to Tortola, we have reservations at the Nanny Cay Marina for the first two nights. After that, we hope to start cruising and anchor out for the most part.

We are actually sailing in a straight line to our destination. Hallelujah! No motoring. We have very strong winds so we can make good time, even with deeply reefed main and jib. At six knots of speed, we can cover approximately 150 nautical miles per 24 hour period. We still have about 260 miles to go, so at this speed we should get there some time tomorrow night. It's always tricky going into an unknown marina (on an unknown island, in an unknown sea) in the dark, but they say it's well lit. We'll see. Don't care. We'll be happy to be there.

Best laid plans. We were getting clobbered by the waves on our beam, so around 5:00, we had to turn south west, because the swells were knocking us right over. Twice we got slapped with a wave broadside and water poured into the cockpit and all over us and the cockpit cushions. (You know that commercial with actors pretending they're in the high seas, and then they get doused with a pail of water in the face? That was us! It would have been funny, if it hadn't been so maddening.). Worse yet, it really shoved the boat and could damage the bimini. Aaaarrrggghhh! So frustrating when we're this close! Mother Nature wins again. This will definitely delay our arrival in Tortola.

After we turned, we were still rolling wildly, but at least we aren't getting slapped. I took a shower (heaven, even with the six new bruises), and then made supper in my pressure cooker. The pressure cooker is great for days like this when it would be too dangerous to cook anything on the stove. This way, it's all enclosed with a locked lid, so if it did fall off the stove, it would be contained and not splash on the cook! Ahem, I mean 'chef'.

We turned on the engine at 6:10 to recharge the batteries, and ran it until 8:00.

At 9:00, I could hear the wind start to howl. The gauge read 29 knots! Luckily, it was right on our stern. The winds were not forecast to be this high. Grrrrrr.

Carey had gone to bed at 8:00, but he kept jumping up every time there was a wild roll, or if he heard the wind picking up, or if the jib flapped, or if the boat crashed down on a wave. You get the picture. Finally, around 11:00, after watching our boat on the chartplotter get further and further away from our destination, we decided to bite the bullet, turn back on line, and suffer the huge swells on the beam. Carey went back to bed, since he'd barely slept, and I sat up and watched the swells as they rolled toward us. Some rolled right underneath us, some hit the bow, some slapped the sides, and most tipped us this way and that way, and released us to spring back up. While anxiously watching this act, I had a moment of clarity--our boat can handle this. No problem. In all of the seminars they talk about trusting your boat. If you have a good boat (and I believe we do), then it will get through almost anything and keep on sailing. It can handle more than we can! From
that moment on, I was relaxed and free from anxiety. I let Carey sleep until 2:30. Then, I explained the reason for my Zen state, and he embraced it, too. My new mantra in rough conditions is 'Trust the boat.'