End of Day 1 - Caribbean towards Chesapeake

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage. They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system. We sent the messages daily to Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

2359 (AST, GMT-4) 7 May 2018

Dear All,

First task of the day was to wave goodbye
to Mark and Lisa on Wild Iriswho left an hour
 before us to head south
towards Bonaire or perhaps Curacao

Well we are off again on another long passage.  This one should take us somewhere between 8 and 12 days (depending on the wind which is looking rather variable) and we will cover something in the region of 1300 nautical miles.  Four months to the day since we arrived in the Caribbean at Barbados, this morning we raised our anchor in Culebra (part of the Spanish Virgin islands) and have set course north towards Chesapeake Bay.  We are on our way to see our good friends Phil and Lesley who live just west of Washington DC, and we've timed that visit to fit in with our insurance company's requirement that we are above the 35 degree north latitude by 1 June to keep us out of the hurricane belt.

We spent the last few days in Culebra making preparations, so BV has been checked and we also have lots of meals already prepared and ready to reheat to make the first part of the passage as easy as possible. We do have a slight problem with the weather forecast which prompted a last-minute job on the engine first thing this morning, delaying our departure slightly, but we're now bowling along nicely.

And the it was our turn to set off from Culebra 

Heading out of Ensenda Honda, Culebra

Once underway, our first priority was to make water so that we had full tanks again (our last anchorage, whilst nice, didn't have water that looked great for watermaking).  Happily, the watermaker worked perfectly so we didn't have to divert to San Juan or Fajardo to fill our tanks from a hosepipe. We'll make a little water every day from now on during the passage to make sure the tanks stay topped up.

A couple of short videos to show you what it’s like:

And one in a rain shower:

The issue with the weather is that the wind is fine for about 5 days but then we will hit a part where it dies off to nothing or comes from the wrong direction for us.  We may well end up motoring through that patch, hence we decided to change the impeller on the engine slightly early, first thing this morning. To keep us going under sail for as long as possible we have elected to head out almost towards Bermuda and will then make an abrupt turn left to head towards the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Our friends Mike and Cate on Kealoha Vset off from Puerto Rico a day ahead of us to sail towards Charleston. They have elected to sail much closer to the American Eastern Seaboard and so it will be interesting to see which routing works better. Our last weather forecast also predicted that a low pressure system was going to build just south of Chesapeake at about the time we'll be approaching that area; we'll have to see how that works out.  But we are also conscious that an 8 day out weather forecast isn't very accurate, and a lot can change.

We'll aim to send in a daily report on where we are and how the passage is going.  We use our HF/SSB radio to send that to Charlotte and she will then send that out to you.  That's all subject to it not getting in the way of her university studies, and so if you don't get a report one day then don't worry, she'll send it out when she has more time.

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:
Position at midday 7 May: N18 36 W65 26
Position at 2359 7 May: N19 59 W65 41
Midnight to Midnight distance: n/a nautical miles
Total miles covered:  104 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go: 1194 nautical miles

End of Day 1 - Caribbean towards Chesapeake