What is it Like on a big Passage?
Sunday 19th Nov 2023
I watch quite a few YouTube videos of sailors, and I’m envious of those that find long passages to be periods of quiet calm and meditation. To me they mostly feel somewhat monotonous, at times stressful and always tiring!
As far as I am concerned the most important aspect of trip planning is having the right people. I have been very fortunate to have sailed with wonderful people who are easy to get along with and fun to hang out with. Dave, Pete and Simon are great friends and were terrific people to spend time with on the passage.
We followed a watch schedule of 2-hours ON, followed by 2-hours in SUPPORT and then 4-hours OFF. In this way we always had a minimum of two people in the cockpit, and if everything was quiet, the support person could just doze, whilst the on-watch person monitored the situation. In contrast to 2017, we ran the watch schedule 24-7, not to ensure we had coverage during the day, but rather the opposite, to encourage everyone who wasn’t needed to get some extra sleep. I think we all felt this worked well. Pete, Dave and Simon all managed to sleep reasonably well, but I really struggled to put together much in the way of decent sleep. I don’t know if it is the constant worry of what will come next, but I didn’t seem to be able to fall asleep easily and I don’t think I slept more than an hour or two at a time for the entire passage. This is not what your body needs and it left me feeling exhausted.
We put a lot off thought into food for the passage and had several meals cooked in advance and frozen down in a fridge at the marina. These required little preparation other than warming up. We also had some freeze dried meals that simply needed hot water adding, and we did do this on the first night. We ate chicken marengo, peanut chicken stew, curry, beef and cabbage, pasta and sauce, …. For breakfast we mostly ate muesli and fruit, bagels, or eggs in some form, and for lunch, cheese and salami, crackers, lentils and tortillas …. We ate well! The person who was in SUPPORT at the relevant time was in charge of cooking and clearing up that meal. We had a one hour “team time” in the morning, intended as an opportunity to discuss how things were going, but in reality it mostly served to move the schedule by one hour a day so everyone’s watch schedule advanced and we all got to see sunrises, sunsets and different parts of the day. Some schedules are better than others at night, and this would all equal out over several days.
Some of the times conditions were rough. The sail out to the Gulf Stream was “lively” and Simon was a little seasick. Simon, Pete and I all wore scopolamine patches for the duration of the passage. Some additional ondansetron, prescribed by my doctor, helped settle Simon down and he had no further problems. The Gulf Stream itself was very bumpy, with steep, short period waves form various directions. We ended up hand steering quite a large section of this. I also recall uncomfortable conditions before we made our final turn south, when we ran into some squalls that kicked up nasty seas. We also encountered dead-calm and glassy, mirror-like seas. At these points we had no choice but to motor-sail.
As the calms followed us along our path, we began to get concerned about our diesel supplies. On the one hand, we had been warned by our weather forecasters not to fall behind schedule or we might miss the chance to catch trade winds as the windless high pressure moved south. On the other hand the faster we motored the more fuel we used. As the journey went on, this became a constant source of stress. At one point, we thought we had reached the trades then lost them in a series of squalls. We were seriously concerned about spending days bobbing around in windless seas. I even contemplated heading to Bermuda to pick up more diesel. We ditched this idea when it became clear that this would result in us navigating 11 foot seas. We were also reassured by more weather input that suggested the squalls were localized and we should pick up trade winds on the far side. From there on we motored at very low revs (1500 rpm) and monitored fuel levels with a dipstick. We all longed to reach the point where we felt confident we had enough fuel to finish. Eventually, about 150 nm from St Thomas, we finally picked up solid NE-E winds around 15 knots that allowed us to have a fabulous beam reach sail for the final 24 hours. We carried 145 gallons of diesel and ended up using about 120 gallons ... not exactly environmentally friendly.
One of the best parts of passage-making is getting there! We first saw land in the early afternoon of our 9th day and passed the northern islands of the USVI shortly after sunset. We chose a slightly longer path to our desired anchorage, to avoid navigating a narrow tidal cut, and sailed around some islands using our electronic instruments. We tried to find a mooring ball in Christmas Cove, but were unable to find an empty one, so we dropped anchor. I have become pretty familiar with anchoring in the dark and find the radar very helpful (day or night) in determining how close you are to other boats. We felt the anchor was securely set and we were in a calm well protected location. I think it was about midnight that we had a quick beer before hitting the sack. The following morning Dave inspired us to take a swim off the boat, which was absolutely marvelous!
My photos are time-stamped, but in reality I cannot differentiate most days of the passage. It’s partly due to the effects of scopolamine patch, but the days just blend into one another. Its takes some time to absorb the fact that you have made it and to square away your thoughts of the trip. One question that comes up is “would you do it again?”. I can say for myself that this is the last time I will bring the boat south to the Caribbean. We may keep it down here a while; at some point we will sail back to New England (which can be done in much easier hops between islands), but I’m not planning to do the Caribbean 1500 again!
Mike
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