Preparing for our 700nm passage to Grand Cayman

Thursday 20 Feb, BHS day 51, George Town: Customs cleared, provisions and petrol top-up, and decks ready for downwind sailing.

After breakfast we study weather routing on Predictwind and decide firmly that we will depart tomorrow morning. That should put us just ahead of the incoming weather system, all the way to the east tip of Cuba. That leaves us today to get ready. And there’s lots to get done.

We want to upload our next YouTube video using the remaining GBs on our Bahama phone package. So Oana works on final editing all morning, then rendering for upload this evening.
Meanwhile, I get the deck set up for the passage. In anticipation of a leisurely downwind passage, I get the spinnaker sheets, guys and barber-haulers setup on the bow sprit and deck. And also the spinnaker pole ready to launch, complete with fore and aft guys on each side. Even if we don’t fly the spinnaker, we will certainly have the genoa poled out. The decks are now covered in colourful spaghetti. Sun covers are removed from the life-raft and JonBouy. And on deck I think we are ready to go.

By 1pm we are again heading to shore with another to-do list. First, we do the check-out at the customs office. To our surprise, they ask $75 for the official clearance-out document that we will need to present in Cayman. We had not heard of this charge before and we are a bit suspicious. I mean, $75 to sign and stamp a piece of photo-copied paper? This is a multiple amount more than other islands charge. But he does give us what looks like an official receipt for the money, so we guess it must be correct. Next stop is immigration, but they don’t seem to want or need any checkout procedures. We can “just leave” they said. Hmmm, maybe we should have “just left” from the customs point of view too! What would they do in Cayman? Tell us to sail 4 days back to Bahamas to check out properly? We doubt it.

As we are wandering through George Town we spot a local pizza place and suddenly we feel hungry. How is it that junk food does that to you? So we head to Driftwood, the Italian run cafe, where they also make pizza. And we are not disappointed. It’s delicious.
Finally, while Oana goes for a last shop at the supermarket, I take the dinghy fuel tank for a refill. The Shell gas station is a bit of a zoo. They have 4 pumps but only 1 pump attendant, who seems to be a bit mentally challenged and certainly hard of hearing. The poor guy can only fill one car at a time, including having to remove the fuel cap, fill the car, take the money (walking it inside the office, bringing out the change) and replacing the fuel cap. None of the drivers step foot out of their vehicles. By the time I’ve managed to fill my small tank, there is a queue of 15 cars lined up waiting to fill, yet no one seems upset by the ridiculous procedure. Pfffff, “tis is island time, man”, as they say!
With our tummies full and our to-do list complete, we dinghy back to Cloudy for the last time. The wind has calmed and for once we don’t get sprayed.

We invite Ian and Michelle over for one last sundowner session, and as usual we have a great time with them. Then we say our farewells till we meet again in the Chesapeake in May. I am now firmly committed to sail across the Atlantic with Ian, planning to leave 1-June. Gulp! Well, at least we now have some deadline to plan towards, in 3 months time. And frankly, I’m really looking forward to it.

After they depart Oana starts cooking. The passage will likely be 4 full days, so she is making 2 big lots of food, so we alternate one each day without her needing to do any elaborate cooking during the passage. Cooking on short passages like this always makes her nauseous. On longer passages she usually gets acclimatized to the boat motion after 5-6 days.
Talking of seasickness, she is ready to try one of the Scopadine patch remedies that Pete & Tracy recommended. Hopefully they will be more effective than her cinarizine pills.
Once cooking done, she defrosts the day fridge as it would not last another 4-5 days till we get to our next destination. And she finally finishes the galley tasks at midnight.

Today has felt like a work day. We have not been pressured, but definitely on a mission. After the last couple of months in these benign Bahama waters, Oana is not looking forward to an open ocean passage again, and to be honest I’m a little nervous too. But, for me an exciting kind of nervous. Sadly, not the same for Oana, who knows this time tomorrow she will more than likely be nauseous, poor her…. the things she does for me.