Passages

Monday 28 May: D Day! Departure for USA. We are in mission mode now. Early alarm, to finish a video and go ashore to tick a few boxes before we leave.
First, Customs and Immigrations Office, which, now that we have set up an online account for checking in and out of Antigua, was a relatively quick affair. Still the bureaucracy: go to Port Authority first, the 3rd door; then go to Customs, the 1st door, then to Immigrations, the middle door; and finally back to Customs again.
Second, Budget Marine chandlery. Oooph, that is a one big toy-shop! But we only managed to buy oil absorbent pads, heat shrink and tie-wraps. Hm, not exactly what we walked in for: big snatch block, boarding ladder, 3 core mooring line etc. These items are now added to our already very long US shopping list, where we hope everything will be cheaper.
Last stop, supermarket, to provision with fresh fruits and vegetables, and some goodies to keep us motivated during the 2 weeks of downwind sailing ahead of us. The shop has good stocks, even Waitrose products, but we are shocked that virtually everything was passed its sell by date!
By 11am we are back on Cloudy Bay. Quick look at the weather and the distance to BVI, and yes, we are still good to go. Glen gets the deck ready, outboard off the dinghy, pole out for the genoa, while Oana stores away the shopping. Feels like Lanzarote all over again… preparing for the big one yet always a bit of a rush just before departure.
And we are on our way by 12.30pm. Few minutes into our passage, and it’s already raining… good thing we have the cockpit tent up!
To begin with we only have the genoa poled out to port, but the wind is 10-12kts, and we are soon rolling badly as our speed is only 5-6kts. Hopefully the wind will pick up to 20kts as forecasted!
Hm, so what do we do now? Glen is hunting flies and killing them with an elastic band (a skill gained from his childhood) while Oana is on the phone with her parents. We are not having any stowaways hitching a ride to USA … especially not annoying flies! Then what? Hm, we need to come up with an anti-boredom plan fast!!!
2 hours into our sailing and wind is still not picking up significantly. So out comes the main, and speed is improving to 7kts and the rolling becomes more comfortable as our speed is almost as fast as the waves. Such is downwind sailing… the faster you can go the more stable the yacht is.
Cooking lunch certainly brought back memories, as we had lots of spillage in the galley while crossing the Atlantic. And today was no different!
As we pass Redonda, the small uninhabited island that also belongs to Antigua, we admire its shape in the distance. It looks just like what it is, peak of a volcano sticking out of the sea.
Rain squalls gather behind us and we furl in some main to be prepared for the inevitable strong gusts. But furling the main made us roll even more. Not a good timing, as Oana was boiling kettle to make tea. Out come the ‘tea safety trays’, some little non-slip deep trays we bought in Ikea. Very good investment they are, as mugs can spill all they want in these trays!
Between Redonda and Nevis, wind is all over the place as the squall passed us to port. We constantly adjust course to keep the wind dead behind us. It dies down a bit before sunset, as it usually does, so we revert to full mainsail again. The rain has missed us, even if the dark clouds have been hovering around us.
Nevis looks impressive from offshore, with its 1000m volcanic peak covered in clouds. You could even imagine that it’s erupting as the clouds streak off down wind. At sunset we are passing Nevis to the south, and as we are rounding the volcanic peak we gybe the main, put the pole away and tidy up the decks before it gets dark.
As we come into the lee of Nevis we are treated to an accelerated wind of 22-24knts and flatter seas. We are cruising at 8-10knots just as a wonderful full moon rises. OMG, night sailing doesn’t get better than this!
The phone signal reappears, and Oana manages to upload the video we were working on today: a 15 minute compilation of our sail from Les Saints to Martinique. Goodness, we haven’t managed to upload any videos for over a month and now we upload 4 in less than 24hours. We are amazed at the comments we get back. Several people saying “welcome back”. We feel honored to have a growing fan club! 3 more to do now to get up to date (Martinique, Antigua and Barbuda). Starting each one takes a lot of effort, but when done we are usually pleased with the result. It feels a bit like emails used to at work: always hundreds to still read, and once read the inbox is already full again :). Well, not so painful as work, but you get what we mean!
We sail off towards BVIs as night encroaches. Our instruments are on “red” mode and the cockpit cozy with the tent up, the back window removed and the moonlight shining in. We will be heading over the Saba Bank, a 10-15m coral bank, in the early hours. It would have been nice to see it in daylight, but it will be interesting to see it in moonlight too.