The Night of 100 Squalls: A Passage to St. Kitt's and Nevis

St. Kitts and Nevis

     The passage from BVI to St. Kitts was...frightful. From the start we pounded upwind as squall after squall poured on us. The night brought with it what I like to call "the fears," those irrational thoughts you just can't seem to stop while out at sea. I shivered in my bunk picturing all the bad things that could happen, wondering all the while why I was exhausting myself with these pointless thoughts. Jamie was a beacon of light throughout the passage, ever positive and laughing through the wind and rain. When the rest of us gave in to sleep and sickness he stood fast and helped Dad sail through the night. Lucky for me, aside from a bit of a drowsy stupor, Bonine kept the sickness away. Sarah was not so lucky. Why is it that time seems to slow down to an agonizing crawl when you least want it to? The night dragged on and on as walls of rain and wind hit us one by one. All I could do was wish for the light of day to come faster.

Basseterre

     Finally, in the early morning light, the rain cleared and Statia loomed mountainous in the golden glow. The sail along Statia to St. Kitts brought hope and wonder after the long night. Behind us, the green mass of Saba drifted in and out of sight in the mists. Statia stretched a few miles long, an oil storage depot perched one end and the town of Oranjestad spilling down a perfectly formed volcanic peak on the other end. St. Kitts shone green and fertile ahead as the rare beam of sunlight pierced the clouds. We sailed along the coast to Basseterre, the small capital city where buildings sit low and colourful and a long cruise ship dock ends at a series of duty free shops. The buildings of the city range from picturesque West Indian to British colonial to battered and boarded up. There is an intriguing and distinctive Caribbean feel to the city, a sense of a culture very different from the BVIs. We plan to rent a car to explore the island further and hike in the rainforests of the island's mountain range.

A starfish under the boat

I have to hurry because our internet time will run out, but I will write in more detail soon.
Nicole.

Nova Scotia to Cape Cod

     We left Halifax for Lockeport on a night passage intending to get diesel in Lockeport. However, after managing to sail all night decided to head on for Cape Cod. All in all the trip took two nights and we arrived at Pope Island Marina in New Bedford Massachucetts early this morning.

     On the passage we encountered lots of waves. Up and down, up and down, the pitching and rolling became pretty tiring after a while and the waves were fairly sizeable by yesterday accounting for our first real experience with large ocean swell. Most of the time we managed to not feel sick by staying above deck or lying down while below. I tried out my first audiobook, "Hunger Games," and enjoyed it so I will be buying many more for the longer ocean passage to come in November.

     The weather was sunny most of the days and as Dad planned we took advantage of a weather window that allowed us to sail the majority of the time. Sarah did some awesome steering yesterday as we all took turns at the wheel. Both of us feel that we've learned a lot more about sailing over the past three weeks and are much more comfortable with a lot of tasks. Plus after so much docking we have a system pretty well down and are pros!

     Last night we had some sticky planning to do while communicating with customs about checking in to the US. Sticky situations always seem to happen in the middle of the night. We passed through the Cape Cod canal in the dark in a crazy 4 knot current and decided to make for New Bedford to anchor and then rest up. All I can say I saw of Cape Cod was a few lights and a lot of darkness. Exhausted and really in need of a shower we were all grateful to get safely to Pope Island Marina. I'm not gonna lie, it was so nice to get off the boat onto solid land after feeling cooped up for the last few days. The customs people were great today, very accomodating, and we bought a prepaid cell phone to use while in the US. Tonight we are safely tied to a dock and looking forward to a still and undisturbed sleep. I plan to settle in with a nice Keiths and watch "How I Met Your Mother" for a few solid hours (awesome show if you haven't seen it).

     The next few days we'll be making our way towards New York City. This involves contending with the open ocean and a strong current in the Long Island Sound. Despite all the tiredness and difficulties of these passages it will be pretty amazing to pull into a marina in downtown New York. So here's to the city that never sleeps.

Nicole.

Moments Like These: Tadoussac to Riviere-au-Renard

Tadoussac

Our anchorage at Tadoussac turned into an ordeal where we swung too close to the shore as the tide went out. We floated around for a while with no ideas about where to go, then reset the anchor just behind our previous spot. Mom and I sat up until low tide at 1 am doing word searches and glancing at the GPS to ensure we stayed in a depth of 30 feet. The wind went up and down, howling then quieting throughout the night. Trying to sleep after the danger had passed I realized how attuned to the sounds and motions I had become. The clanks and creaks, water lapping on the hull, the pitch and cadence of the wind, all these things become so noticeable when you are on watch during the night.

Saturday was a great day in comparison and our favourite sailing day yet! The sun warmed the air nicely and the sky was a clear blue as we sailed on a long downwind tack along the southern shore of the gulf of the St. Lawrence. Despite watching for sea creatures we only spotted one whale early in the morning. The sails were set in the perfect downwind “wing in wing” configuration with the main on one side and a preventer to stop it from jibing, the genoa attached to a spinnaker pole on the other side with ropes (a foreguy, afterguy and topping lift) to hold the pole in place.

We consulted with s/v Raftan and the favourable weather and south-west winds convinced us to go through the night. We took three-hour shifts throughout the night (Mom and I; Dad and Sarah) and had a beautiful sail into the early hours of the morning. Stars illuminated the clear sky like thousands of fireflies and the moon made a strikingly orange appearance and great visibility. It was nice to just sail a course and not worry about aiming between buoys.

Like the night before, I found my senses awakening to the sounds and sights around the boat. It was so relaxing to listen to the salt water foam up as the bow cut through waves, letting off a rush and fizzle sound. We noticed that this fizzling foam doesn’t happen in fresh water. Being on watch involved a lot of sitting wrapped in layers of clothing and sleeping bags, adjusting sails, checking the depth, speed, wind direction and wind speed, watching Raftan’s progress beside us, staring up at stars, and watching lights on land slowly pass by. All in all it was a beautiful night to be sailing and I have to say that it’s moments like these that make all the stress of the trip so far worth it.

Today we sailed and motored through a sunny day and are now anchored at Riviere-au-Renard, a peaceful, large and empty anchorage inside the harbour of this small fishing town. Mom says this is her favourite place yet, as it has lots of “east coast” character with the fishing boats and simple white houses in a rugged landscape. This is a place like nothing seen yet and we’ve finally turned the corner into the east coast!

Riviere-au-Renard

To carry on with this trend of “favourites” here are the most memorable places for each of us so far: Dad enjoyed Tadoussac with the whale in the harbour and the currents as the Saguenay flows in and out of the St. Lawrence with the tides. Sarah liked Cap-a-L’Aigle because it was our first time seeing this hilly region up close, was very pretty and exciting because it felt like we had just appeared there out of the mist. And my favourite place was Quebec City with its windy streets and refreshing beauty.

Our plans for tomorrow aren’t firm yet but likely we’ll aim to re-provision in the Gaspe region before beginning a passage to Nova Scotia. 

Sorry it’s a long one, but hope you all enjoyed!

Nicole. 

Sarah on deck in Riviere-au-Renard

Thoughts on Living Onboard

Labour Day weekend. Leaving Friday after dark we made a quick crossing to Kerr Bay. Out of CBYC we almost hit a buoy due to the poor night vision of our captain :P It was a bit unsettling after that and although our passage was quick and smooth I got to thinking about how intense our ocean passage will be. So exposed.

Saturday was sunny with an overlying haze from the humidity. We swam, washed the boat, napped, read and ate tasty meals of hotdogs, burgs and veggies. It was a relief to have this weekend of relaxation and good sailing after the emotional chaos of the past week. Nice to fall gently into a routine onboard.

Sunday and Monday mornings brief storms blew overhead. We had a great sail to Prinyer's Cove in Prince Edward County Sunday. Dad was finally able to take a break from using drills and screw drivers to test out things like "heaving-to" (a useful storm tactic) and creating a pulley attachment for the anchor (to allow for smooth anchoring if waves are coming from a different direction than the wind).

One notable thing about living on a sailboat...frequent encounters with spiders! Learning to co- exist appears to be the only option. Luckily none of us are really afraid of them...minus one encounter with a massive dock spider at Beaurivage Island a few weeks back. Mom and Dad were pretty freaked and I was the one who had to go below to see if it was caught in one of the window screens. It was! We managed to prod it overboard, after which it proceeded to skim across the surface of the water at an alarming pace. Yikes.

Since we left the dock and in spite of a small knot of tension in my stomach, I keep having the most wonderful thought: that right now in this time and place I am exactly where I want to be. Nothing will ever be perfect in this life. Or even in this lifestyle. But I can feel the intense truth of that one thought, and it is comforting.

Until next time when we leave on our greatest journey yet,
Nicole.