Like any morning of living on the boat, we woke up, listened to the weather report on the radio, did the Northwestern Carribean NET and check in, made breakfast, and then it was time to hit the road. We did our last minute packing and secured everything in the boat, said goodbye to our cruiser friends, blew the horn, and off we went into the big big blue sea! We knew going into the trip that it wasn't the perfectly ideal weather for our journey but if we waited any longer we risked having even worse weather as hurricane season was approaching. Patric watched the weather very closely and did a lot of research to make sure when we started the journey that it would be okay. It was thought to be worse in the beginning and then get a little bit better the further out we went. Once we were away from Roatan and out onto the clear sea, we set up the sails. The waves were pretty large, maybe 3 meters and then a few pockets of rain during the morning, with light wind. As soon as the sails were set, the boat shifted and that is how the rest of our journey nearly would go. The angle that we were trying to sail at to reach the point we wanted to reach in Cuba was 40 degrees. (0 degrees is straight north.) I don't have all the specifics about how the sailing details but I think we sailed mostly around 15 to 20 degrees. So the direction of the wind and the location we wanted to go we had to be heeled (shifted) to the left side the whole time. The wind didn't really change besides its strength. It was usually a little stronger at night time. During my watches we would usually be going around 7 knots per hour at night and usually 5 during the day time. The sails were adjusted by Patric a few times but nothing major.
Because of the boat heeling to one side it meant a lot of stuff went flying and the bed that I had previously been sleeping on, you could pretty much sleep on the vertical part of the couch. Going to the bathroom proved to be a huge challenge because you are crashing wish waves, hoping that the things in the toilet don't come up to splash you, trying to pump the flusher, and not fall over. Then you have to get back out of the bathroom and to the cockpit or the couch without falling. It was quite a challenge, but as Nicole told me from the very beginning.. the boat at anchor is much different than en route. So I knew things would be crazy and really expected the worse.
The first half of the day I felt fine. It wasn't until the afternoon that I started to feel a little queezy.. We had some pasta salad that Nicole prepared before we left.. and it was then while I was trying as hard as I could to eat the pasta salad that I knew something wasn't quite right.. But really tried to fight through it. After all the excitement of leaving, I took a nice little nap in preparation of my first night watch and wanted to be fresh for that. I am incredibly grateful that I was able to sleep most of the time when I was feeling sick. When I got up for my night watch, I was feeling it pretty hard. Every time I had to get up to check the front of the boat, I knew that pasta salad was coming closer and closer to back up to feed the fishies. Soo I'll spare everyone the details but this continued for another two days. I still completed my night watches and one day time watch because after all this is what they wanted me to come on the journey for.. so as you all know, it's not my personality to bail on something even if I was sick. But luckily besides my watches, I would usually just be sleeping... so we are talking like a baby or cat. Sleeping usually 17 ish hours each day. After I started feeling better, I was awake more. Sometimes we would chat, sometimes it was silent with the waves crashing under the boat. I had sooo much time to be thinking about life here.
After completing the journey Patric and Nicole said that on this passage, it was the least amount of trash they have seen floating by. We didn't see too much, but it still makes me sad that they have seen much more in their other passages. I didn't realize that cruise ships and well everyone can just dump everything EXCEPT for plastic into the water.. So think about all the waste created on a cruise ship, or all the bleach and soapy water they can just pour out back into the ocean and the turtles, dolphins, and seaweed are all getting some of it.. Very sad.
Something else I thought a lot about was how big the world really is and vast the oceans are. We were making a 385 or so mile journey which ended up taking us 5 days and 4 nights total to complete. To not spot land for so long but looking at a world map, the passage we did looks so small compared to others. It was a weird feeling to not see land and to be SO alone out there. The day that we left we had a few other boats nearby but I think no more than 6.
I had the second night watch shift. Patric decided that we would all take turns and each do two hours.. so we had four hours to sleep in between since there were three of us. My shift was from 9-11 and then 3-5am. During these night shifts you were in charge of monitoring that the wind didn't change, that we weren't going to hit another boat, and that the auto pilot stayed on its course. Unfortunately during the passage we didn't see any sea life. But there was photoplankton so the plankton would light up when the boat crashed and made waves, so that was really cool to watch.. It's not the first time I've seen that but gave you something to look at and stay awake for during your shift. The stars during the passage were incredible! They are so bright, along with the full moon, I could stare up into the sky for such a long time and never get bored. Then I would stand up and check around for other boats and obstacles every 15 minutes. That was my usual routine to make the watches go by quickly. The greatest perk of my watches was the early morning watch, where I got to see the moon rise and the incredible sun rise over the water. They were the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen and to the best was the day that I could finally spot the land on the mountains and the sun rise over those and against a storm.
For food we just ate really whatever we could without preparing things. Lots of snacks, pretzels with peanut butter, the rest of the pasta salad, cereal, granola bars, etc. I ate very little and tried to continue drinking even though I didn't want to because everything came back up.
Occasionally there were waves that crashed pretty hard on the boat and would make real loud boom noises, but that is just the direction and the way we had to sail. We couldn't change anything about it and the way the boat is designed, is to be able to handle waves crashing like that. I never felt unsafe during the journey even if it seemed a little intense.
In the night time we always wore our life jackets.. Which weren't the Styrofoam orange vests most boats have, but serious life jackets. they self inflate once they touch the water I believe, and have a flashlight and a whistle in them. So they were not super uncomfortable to wear.. at times made you a little hot. They also had a leash.. At night time when we were in the cockpit we were always to be leashed onto something. If a man goes overboard at night.. it is literally impossible to find them and the way the boat was heeled I could see that it wouldn't be that hard to lose your balance, a wave crashes, and you are over.. So was really grateful for the leash.
During the journey while we still had radio contact, Patric still checked in to the NW Carribean NET and then we had the cruisers in Roatan checking in on us again at 5pm every night to be sure everything was going okay. Some of my family and friends had a link to a tracker which sent a signal about our where abouts during the journey so they could follow us. There was also a safety boat in the cockpit in case anything went wrong.
After five days and four nights of sailing, we had finally arrived to our first anchorage point.. Which was quite a ways from where we wanted to land but at least we made it safely and had no problems in the journey. We cleaned up the boat, cooked a nice meal, and enjoyed sleeping in a boat that was so calm. Ensenada de Barcos was a large cove where there were tons of huge jelly fish floating all over.. Soo my first reaction to dropping the anchor was to jump in, then decided it wasn't the best idea. The temperature was absolutely boiling and the sun was so strong. We got out the solar shower and took showers and finally were really happy, clean, healthy, well fed, and ready for a good nights sleep!
I didn't take many pictures during the journey because it was difficult to really do anything and stay standing. After resting up at Ensenada de Barcos for a night, and making a nice big breakfast, bacon included we started off on our day sails to get to immigration. There is no immigration check point where we arrived so we would have to go on 4 day sails to reach Cayo Largo, where we had originally intended to go to check in. this meant we could not walk on land. Only swim and pass through.
Because of the boat heeling to one side it meant a lot of stuff went flying and the bed that I had previously been sleeping on, you could pretty much sleep on the vertical part of the couch. Going to the bathroom proved to be a huge challenge because you are crashing wish waves, hoping that the things in the toilet don't come up to splash you, trying to pump the flusher, and not fall over. Then you have to get back out of the bathroom and to the cockpit or the couch without falling. It was quite a challenge, but as Nicole told me from the very beginning.. the boat at anchor is much different than en route. So I knew things would be crazy and really expected the worse.
The first half of the day I felt fine. It wasn't until the afternoon that I started to feel a little queezy.. We had some pasta salad that Nicole prepared before we left.. and it was then while I was trying as hard as I could to eat the pasta salad that I knew something wasn't quite right.. But really tried to fight through it. After all the excitement of leaving, I took a nice little nap in preparation of my first night watch and wanted to be fresh for that. I am incredibly grateful that I was able to sleep most of the time when I was feeling sick. When I got up for my night watch, I was feeling it pretty hard. Every time I had to get up to check the front of the boat, I knew that pasta salad was coming closer and closer to back up to feed the fishies. Soo I'll spare everyone the details but this continued for another two days. I still completed my night watches and one day time watch because after all this is what they wanted me to come on the journey for.. so as you all know, it's not my personality to bail on something even if I was sick. But luckily besides my watches, I would usually just be sleeping... so we are talking like a baby or cat. Sleeping usually 17 ish hours each day. After I started feeling better, I was awake more. Sometimes we would chat, sometimes it was silent with the waves crashing under the boat. I had sooo much time to be thinking about life here.
After completing the journey Patric and Nicole said that on this passage, it was the least amount of trash they have seen floating by. We didn't see too much, but it still makes me sad that they have seen much more in their other passages. I didn't realize that cruise ships and well everyone can just dump everything EXCEPT for plastic into the water.. So think about all the waste created on a cruise ship, or all the bleach and soapy water they can just pour out back into the ocean and the turtles, dolphins, and seaweed are all getting some of it.. Very sad.
Something else I thought a lot about was how big the world really is and vast the oceans are. We were making a 385 or so mile journey which ended up taking us 5 days and 4 nights total to complete. To not spot land for so long but looking at a world map, the passage we did looks so small compared to others. It was a weird feeling to not see land and to be SO alone out there. The day that we left we had a few other boats nearby but I think no more than 6.
I had the second night watch shift. Patric decided that we would all take turns and each do two hours.. so we had four hours to sleep in between since there were three of us. My shift was from 9-11 and then 3-5am. During these night shifts you were in charge of monitoring that the wind didn't change, that we weren't going to hit another boat, and that the auto pilot stayed on its course. Unfortunately during the passage we didn't see any sea life. But there was photoplankton so the plankton would light up when the boat crashed and made waves, so that was really cool to watch.. It's not the first time I've seen that but gave you something to look at and stay awake for during your shift. The stars during the passage were incredible! They are so bright, along with the full moon, I could stare up into the sky for such a long time and never get bored. Then I would stand up and check around for other boats and obstacles every 15 minutes. That was my usual routine to make the watches go by quickly. The greatest perk of my watches was the early morning watch, where I got to see the moon rise and the incredible sun rise over the water. They were the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen and to the best was the day that I could finally spot the land on the mountains and the sun rise over those and against a storm. For food we just ate really whatever we could without preparing things. Lots of snacks, pretzels with peanut butter, the rest of the pasta salad, cereal, granola bars, etc. I ate very little and tried to continue drinking even though I didn't want to because everything came back up.
Occasionally there were waves that crashed pretty hard on the boat and would make real loud boom noises, but that is just the direction and the way we had to sail. We couldn't change anything about it and the way the boat is designed, is to be able to handle waves crashing like that. I never felt unsafe during the journey even if it seemed a little intense.
In the night time we always wore our life jackets.. Which weren't the Styrofoam orange vests most boats have, but serious life jackets. they self inflate once they touch the water I believe, and have a flashlight and a whistle in them. So they were not super uncomfortable to wear.. at times made you a little hot. They also had a leash.. At night time when we were in the cockpit we were always to be leashed onto something. If a man goes overboard at night.. it is literally impossible to find them and the way the boat was heeled I could see that it wouldn't be that hard to lose your balance, a wave crashes, and you are over.. So was really grateful for the leash.
During the journey while we still had radio contact, Patric still checked in to the NW Carribean NET and then we had the cruisers in Roatan checking in on us again at 5pm every night to be sure everything was going okay. Some of my family and friends had a link to a tracker which sent a signal about our where abouts during the journey so they could follow us. There was also a safety boat in the cockpit in case anything went wrong.
After five days and four nights of sailing, we had finally arrived to our first anchorage point.. Which was quite a ways from where we wanted to land but at least we made it safely and had no problems in the journey. We cleaned up the boat, cooked a nice meal, and enjoyed sleeping in a boat that was so calm. Ensenada de Barcos was a large cove where there were tons of huge jelly fish floating all over.. Soo my first reaction to dropping the anchor was to jump in, then decided it wasn't the best idea. The temperature was absolutely boiling and the sun was so strong. We got out the solar shower and took showers and finally were really happy, clean, healthy, well fed, and ready for a good nights sleep!
I didn't take many pictures during the journey because it was difficult to really do anything and stay standing. After resting up at Ensenada de Barcos for a night, and making a nice big breakfast, bacon included we started off on our day sails to get to immigration. There is no immigration check point where we arrived so we would have to go on 4 day sails to reach Cayo Largo, where we had originally intended to go to check in. this meant we could not walk on land. Only swim and pass through.
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