What a trip! Six days planned out to go straight from Panama to Turks and Caicos, sailing, avoiding high winds and currents, turned into 11 days with way too much hand steering, too little sleep, and too much wind and current in our faces.
Monday, June 21, 2021
Friday, June 18, 2021
The Journey from Panama: Chapter Seven, We arrive, at last
Heading into Great Inagua at 2 AM, bone tired, slightly loopy, but oh so happy to be there, where we could get fuel and continue on. I was on watch as we approached the harbor, trying to make out which lights were on shore and which were boats we should be avoiding. Coming into a new harbor in the dark is something we try very hard to avoid. Fortunately we did have a Bahamas guidebook which said that the harbor at Matthew town, where we were headed, was an open roadstead anchorage, meaning that it was clear of obstacles and all we had to do was to pick a spot and drop the anchor. Super easy if you have a functioning windlass to lower and retrieve the chain, a little more complicated when you have to pause at 20 foot intervals to tie a retrieval line onto the chain, but we managed.
Monday, June 14, 2021
The Journey from Panama: Chapter Six, We get a break
By Bob
As we rounded the south eastern tip of Cuba it was mid day of day 8. 24 hours more of hand steering from Navassa left us a bit fuzzy from all night cat naps again. Light fluffy clouds and bright sun followed us past the rocky cliffs and wooded plateau that was our only glimpse of this 600 mile long island.
Monday, May 31, 2021
The Journey from Panama: Chapter Five, North from Navassa
6 hours late, still low on fuel and having no autopilot and no windlass to assist in anchoring and we took off from Navassa. We knew we didn't have enough fuel to make it to Turks and Caicos so we weighed our options. The winds were still whipping down the channel between Haiti and Cuba, the same channel that we were trying to go up. We were determined to sail as much as we possibly could to save what fuel we had so our route was aiming us much further west into Cuba than we wanted. For hours I was watching Navassa recede into the distance, unfortunately it was remaining on our stern when I was hoping that we would be passing it on the starboard (right) side. If Navassa was on the starboard that would mean that we were making progress up the channel, in the direction that we wanted, but alas that was not to be.
Monday, May 24, 2021
The Journey from Panama: Chapter 4, Six Hours to Raise an Anchor?
Navassa Island- where to go when you really want to get away from it all!
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| Navassa Island as seen from the Space Station |
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