Our passage, hour by hour
Ever wonder what we do while on a long passage, or what’s going through our heads? Just for you, we wrote it down. Hour by hour, here’s what we were thinking as we travelled from Grenada to St. John, USVI.
- 03:00 AM: Woke up to alarm. With very little conversation, both of us got busy doing what needed to be done to prepare for the passage.
- 04:00 AM: Anchor up. Virgin Islands, here we come.
- 05:00 AM: Trying to figure out what the lights mean on the ship in front of us (We figured it out… it was a tug with a tow).
- 06:00 AM: First light. Rebecca did workout on the bow.
- 07:00 AM: Winds are light but we are sailing at 5.5-6 knots with full main and genoa.
- 08:00 AM: Said our goodbyes to Grenada on the VHF radio net, 27 miles offshore of Carriacou.
- 09:00 AM: Lost what little wind we had so started up one engine to keep our speed up.
- 10:00 AM: Playing around with our new GoPro3. Thanks Alan and Christina!
- 11:00 AM: Early lunch of sweet & sour broccoli, chicken and mango salad.
- 12:00 PM: Bringing in fishing line with cedar plug on it and BAM, a big fish stole it!
- 01:00 PM: The Sargasso weed is keeping us busy (clearing it off the fishing lines).
- 02:00 PM: Birds have been diving and we have seen fish (Mahi) jumping but still Nada. If only we had our blue cedar plug! 🙁
- 03:00 PM: Small birds are hitching a ride on our boat, and on the fishing lines that are out.
- 04:00 PM: Just the numbers: 13? 20.7N 062? 23.7W, course 350? M, Wind 5k apparent 080?, motor sailing with single engine at 2400 rpm, SOG 8.8k, Approx. 83nm west of St. Lucia.
- 05:00 PM: The sun is getting lower, Rebecca is prepping dinner and we’ve just knocked off the first 100nm.
- 06:00 PM: Fishing lines in. Put 1st reef in mainsail. Had a tasty dinner of teriyaki meatballs, rice and Caesar salad.
- 07:00 PM: We are now 86nm from the nearest shore. Noted that this passage will be our longest to date, and our farthest from land.
- 08:00 PM: Rebecca just went to lie down for a short nap. She missed the countdown dropping below 300nm to go.
- 09:00 PM: Shift change. Mike has gone down to catch some Zzzzs. Hoping the nice calm weather stays with us.
- 10:00 PM: More numbers: 14? 03.5N 062? 43.7W, course 350? M, Wind 7k apparent 080?, motor sailing with single engine at 2600 rpm, SOG 7.4k, Approx. 98nm offshore
- 11:00 PM: Goodnight, Moon! Thanks for giving us some light for our night passage. Now have about 6 or so hours before we get more light. Not a fan of sailing in complete darkness!
- 12:00 AM: Rebecca’s gone to bed and I’m sailing with the Walking Dead (the TV show, not real Zombies!).
- 01:00 AM: Very quiet night. Little wind and no shipping traffic.
- 02:00 AM: The is the first passage that has been calm enough for me to feel safe bringing my laptop up to the helm.
- 03:00 AM: Mike’s off and I (Rebecca) am on. Time to watch some Walking Dead.
- 04:00 AM: Getting a bit more rolly out here.
- 05:00 AM: Still dark!
- 06:00 AM: Rebecca went back to bed. Sun will be up soon. Time to put the fishing lines back out. Sailing!
- 07:00 AM: COFFEE!
- 08:00 AM: Bye bye, nighttime reef.
- 09:00 AM: Deploy fishing lines, catch weeds, remove weeds, repeat!
- 10:00 AM: Done my workout and Mike is almost done his Kettlebell strength exercises.
- 11:00 AM: Hiding from the sun.
- 12:00 PM: Point of sail close to dead downwind = preventer!
- 01:00 PM: Sitting out on the bow while Eddie (our autopilot) steers the boat.
- 02:00 PM: Would you believe we just passed a tiny island owned by Venezuela?
- 03:00 PM: Celebrity Summit off our Starboard beam.
- 04:00 PM: More numbers: 16? 00.7N 063? 39.6W, course 345? M, motor sailing with main only, single engine at 2200 rpm, SOG 7.8k, Approx. 153nm from Cruz Bay, 92nm W of Montserrat.
- 05:00 PM: Put our nighttime reef in. Winds are light now but who knows what will happen after dark.
- 06:00 PM: After being skunked fishing for the first day and a half, we hooked two Mahi Mahi simultaneously, and landed them both!
- 07:00 PM: Found the shipping traffic! We love our AIS.
- 08:00 PM: Mike is napping and I am sitting on watch listening to the gentle lapping of the waves against the boat.
- 09:00 PM: Lightning!
- 10:00 PM: Rebecca is in bed and I continue to share my watch with the Walking Dead.
- 11:00 PM: By the light of the moon I notice a couple of thin lines hanging down where they shouldn’t be. A section of our lazy jacks has chafed through and broken.
- 12:00 AM: Complete darkness as the moon has said goodnight. Less than 100nm to go!
- 01:00 AM: Ships AND Lightning!
- 02:00 AM: Ships gone, lightning continues. Are we there yet?!
- 03:00 AM: One really has to put a lot of faith into the idea that there is nothing out here to run into when you’re traveling at night without any moonlight.
- 04:00 AM: Still plenty of lightning in front of us, and now some behind us too! It really lights up the sky.
- 05:00 AM: I have to cover my flashlight with my T-Shirt as it kills my night vision.
- 06:00 AM: Wind has veered, now out of the SSW. Likely due to the thunderstorms off our port side.
- 07:00 AM: First bit of rain since we left Grenada behind us.
- 08:00 AM: Raymarine chart data for St. Croix sucks. Using iPad with Garmin app beside it as it has much better data.
- 09:00 AM: Main is down — Squalls all around.
- 10:00 AM: Cloud cover, starting to rain (spitting).
- 11:00 AM: Yesterday’s catch resulted in one of the fishing lines getting massively tangled. I (Rebecca) spent some time trying to untangle it just to give me something to do. I have been defeated.
- 12:00 PM: With the current rain, we are very much appreciating our new dodger!
- 01:00 PM: We made it! Coming in to Cruz Bay to clear in with Customs and Immigration.
Now you know! 🙂
First time to comment but have been following your travels for a long time. You mentioned recently that you didn’t have radar on either ZTC or One Love and I’m curious as to why you don’t? I know as well prepared as the two of you are you must have a sound reason. Those night passages without it would scare me to death.
Why not? Money. That said, for the vast majority of sailing we do, better than 99%, I think it would be of little use. If we were going to change our traveling plans, we would likely invest in it.
Hello Mike!
Thank you for this blog-post. Well done on the dorados! Question: you mention that you can watch a tv show while on watch. Doesn’t that totally ruin your night vision? Does that mean you mostly rely on radar and AIS? Do you still scan the horizon with the eyeball every few minutes?
Thank you!
Yes and no. Looking at a chart plotter ruins your night vision equally, as would looking at a kindle, or a book using a flashlight. I keep the screen brightness on both the laptop and the instruments turned down to the minimum.
Thank you so much for this post along with all others! We are getting ready now to sail south and end up somewhere around the BVI on our 41 lagoon (from RI). I’ve been following your adventures for over a year and it has given me great insight. Hope to see One Love along our travels this winter. Safe travels!
If you see us when you get here, make sure you give us a shout, or drop by for a visit.
Thanks for posting that. It is more interesting than you may realise.
Cheers, and well done on a nice well planned passage.
Mike
Thanks, Mike!
Loved the play by play guys!
Aren’t you glad of preventers ? (One of our favorite pieces of equipment on our boat.)
Laughed when I read of ” Eddie” – our windvane is : Iyotollah
You sure are diehards continuing your workouts while under sail- you think I would be surprised?- nope- after many mornings at anchor near you you guys we know you are very regimented about exercise!My question is: Didn’t you get scared watching Walking Dead in the dark on a night passage? Scares me!!
Silly, Zombies can’t swim!
Thanks for taking us along Mike and Rebecca..
You’re very welcome!
I wonder what goes on on One Love that can’t be posted..
Just a thought..
Let’s just say that we don’t dirty a lot of laundry.
What a great way for us to be able to enjoy the passage you just made! Congrats on a flawless and safe voyage. The timelines and comments you each made we most informative.
Glad to hear that you have taken the GoPro Hero 3+ out of the box. It will no doubt give you many hours of great video and photo capture (above and below the water). May you have loads of fun archiving future events in your lives with it.
For now then, we will continue to live vicariously through you until we can get back out on the water more permanently – each day that passes up here is a day closer to that realization.
Cheers!
Alan and Christina
Hi guys
Today I’ll post a couple of videos that we filmed with the new camera. Thanks again for your amazing generosity.
Mike
Red plastic lens on flaslights preserve nt vision and nearly cost free
I suspect the lens would have to be matched specifically to the light. Worth getting if available, that’s for sure.
I love reading this kind of stuff! I follow a few sailing blogs and get jealous every time! Look forward to seeing y’all in the spring.
Peter
We’ll see you out there!