LIFE: Part 2

Well, I must say it’s been going pretty well. Since our longest passage we had done so far was only 24 hours, we had no idea how it was going to be. We wanted to do a long passage on our own before we set off to do the Atlantic, so we planned to do this one leg of our trip. But it meant we had to bypass Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. Sad to see it getting further and further on our port side.

So far we are on our 50th hour. It is going very well, the weather has been great, calm seas, of course we can always do with a bit more wind, to speed us up but our spinnaker has been working beautifully as we don’t like using the motor much.

I did prepare some meals in advance, in case we got some rough weather, but its been very nice so instead I roasted some lamb and baked a chocolate cake. We have been enjoying our cooking, the beautiful sail, sunshine and turquoise waters. Wow it’s starting to feel like a holiday!

Roast lamb served at the Heavenly Delights restaurant

I even have time to write my blog post…finally!

Surprisingly the trip has been very relaxing. First of all, we are not running around ashore shopping, looking for things and places we can’t find from people that can’t give directions. And most of all we are not stressed about not being able to connect to internet and run around town to finally find it, only to be in a middle of an important business call and it all fails!! Or frustrated I can’t Skype with my kids and my grandson. Although we do look forward to arrive soon and get a connection so we can skype again. Let the game begin all over again!!!

On my first night on watch I got so excited, thought we caught some fish, finally. We had our line out and tied on the cockpit. (we dont even have a proper rod with a reel) We then put a clothes pin on it and tie again. If we catch something the clothes pin will go flying. Well at 3am it did! I started thinking how I was going to bring it on board and all, since we have a rule, that if its only one of us on watch we do not leave the cockpit. I had some gloves with me and the bucket not far. Nervous and afraid of the unknown I started pulling in the line, which was pretty tough ( it’s going to be big) In the dark ,but the moon shinning,and a far distance in the water I could see it was whitish color, and looked spiky. Heck ,I was ready to just let go of the line and all, then I thought it looked like a loofah, that us ladies use to exfoliate! My curiosity kicked in and I brought the line closer only to find out it was a big bunch of weed and sponge-like sea stuff which we cleaned out when Noel woke up. I think we DO catch fish but other fish come and eat them. We need to buy some proper fishing equipment maybe, then we can brag.

Night watches have been pretty good. We now have installed a Radar and AIS. Ha, that’s another blog post. With so many toys at the helm station, I find myself very busy and getting use to these strange and demanding noises. Every few minutes our radar scanner is beeping, going on to scan the area. I have to get up, CHECK. 2 minutes later beeping again, scanning time over. GOT IT!!! Check course, make sure when Noel wakes up we are still going in the right direction!!. Then wind direction changes or dies down, the kite starts to make noise and needs attention. You’re still busy playing with the kite or jib sheets and the timer is ringing away to remind you it’s time to write on the log book. We record the time, position the wind and our destination. When I’m not running around looking at everything, I am snacking…..ohhh and avoiding to look at he screen where it says 4000, 5000, and  even 6000 and something meters in depth.  If I look, I gotta snack some more!!! I do read for a bit or watch movie but I find it makes me sleepy. Not a good thing!

Its pretty neat though, to be able to check up on the cruise ships via our AIS. We saw quit a few at night. They look very beautiful all lit up, they are so big, looks like you’re approaching an Island but it’s only Ruby Princess,or Carnival Glory…..well they do have more population in them then most of the Islands around here!!!

Tomorrow we are looking forward to another day in Paradise and that should take us very close to our destination, Turks and Caicos. So far we feel good and rested, we get enough sleep.

So stay tuned to our 4th day of our great journey!