last leg

through the windward passage, cuba, bahamas and cay sal....

finally the winds clamed a bit and esteban and peter departed for the last leg of the trip. they left port antonio on christmas day and arrived in Miami on new year’s eve. (so much for spending the christmas holidays together as a family…. but we will make up for it next year for sure!) peter cooked lunch on board for christmas while I went to bed early with my mom and the baby after having just arrived home from the hospital a couple of days before. we were anxiously waiting for them to arrive. this leg was easier than the previous one, except for very rough 48 hours of a strong northerly that met them near cay sal. It was rough sailing with 35 knots of wind against and in the gulfstream and with cay sal so close. unfortunately there was no where safe to weather the storm so they had to sail right through it. the boat and crew took a beating. funny how in this last sail, on the last couple of days of the trip, the weather changed and left them with a reminder of how strong it could get. esteban told me it was one of the hardest sails ever… and so close to home. he said he was so tired and wet but happy to know they were going to arrive soon. finally on december 31 at midnight they entered government cut in miami. just in time to see the new year’s eve fireworks. as for myself, between the baby feedings and changing diapers I received the year in bed sleeping at 11 PM. there is something with us and the new year’s. we always seem to miss them. wrong hour in thailand, no food and long nap in carricou, or apart and dead tired in florida…. not the average new year’s celebration for sure.

cabo de la vela

cabo de la vela was the last point of ok weather. we approached but decided not to stay. we had the last hours of good weather and knew that if we stayed, we would have to stay for at least a week for the weather to calm down again. so we unfortunately missed this place known for its cool sand dunes and home to the wayuu indigenous people. after our approach, it was crazy windy until we reached sanata marta. we sailed through the tayrona park and could not even see the high peak of the sierra nevada of santa marta because there were so many nasty clouds on top. rather we were sailing very fast with one of the strongest winds we have had on the entire circumnavigation, trying to get to a protected harbor before the worse of the storm.

sailing through venezuela & colombia

sailing through venezuela and the northeastern part of colombia is said to be one of the most complicated legs in the world! it is in fact very windy, specially this time of year, and there is a 1.5 knot of current against the wind, creating rough seas. the wind blows constantly at 30 knots and the gusts are easily up to 40 every single day. we had not thought much about this before, but when approaching we were a bit nervous. we tried to plan around the weather and left bonaire with a good window of two days ahead, however the next leg was for three days, and we knew we were going to have rough seas and strong winds the last day. we had planned on several stops, including los monjes, which is a military base in venezuela north of the gulf of maracaibo, but when we were close to that area the wind and seas seemed ok, so we moved on through the cabo de la vela in guajira, colombia.

at the end the wind was not so terrible in this part, but what did complicate things a bit was the heavy traffic of ships carrying oil from venezuela and coal from colombia. we were constantly watching them approach us and pass very close. they kept us awake all the time.

sailing towards the abc's

we left grenada towards the abc’s, specifically bonaire. as every other leg in the caribbean, we had constant 20 knots of wind from the east. we set the sails wing on wing and went on a run for 3 days. this was our fastest leg ever. our average speed was over 6 knots and the boat was sailing great. we almost did not feel the wind or the swell. it was beautiful, except for the last day when he had torrential rains and some nasty weather in the horizon, but at the end, it did not affect us much.

we were expecting to catch lots of fish but we had actually zero bites. so soup and pasta had to do. it was ok. at least 3 days is not that long.

sailing towards grenada

the sail to grenada was long for caribbean standards. a whole 35 miles which took us 7 hours to do. at the beginning it was rolly but after a few hours we had a most pleasant day sail downwind and even over an active volcano: kick’em jenny is the name. we are not supposed to sail on top of it but because it is in the middle of the most straight route, i think every cruiser disregards the warnings and simply sails over it... until some day the volcano erupts and the sailors on top go in history with it i guess? but this was not the day. it was calm and we sailed right on top of it and then very close to the beautifully lush and green coast of grenada. what a wonderful site. and at the end of the day we arrived into the most charming cove called true blue on the south west of the island. the anchorage is protected from wind but rolly; but we actually thought it was soothing. needless to say we grabbed a mooring. we decided not to bother anymore with the anchor… too much effort. the entire mooring manouver took us maybe two minutes. one only try to grab the line and then back the boat with the engine to see if it will hold. success! easy and we know we can go to shore and the boat will not drag… what little pleasures we are enjoying lately… and with this easy maneuver taken care of, we were off to the restaurant to enjoy the best burgers and rum punch we have had so far!

two little birds

towards the end of the crossing the boat had very unexpected and unconventional visitors, they were a couple of land birds, a female and a male who were migrating probably from africa towards america. they must have been very tired when they decided to make a stop over for almost two days on board, specially as they had just passed two full days of squall after squall. through the time that they were on the boat they were very friendly and allowed peter and esteban to touch them, play with them and even feed them dead aunts and water.

it was easy to tell which was the male and which was the female. the female was poking the male on his head and feet trying to get the male ready to go flying again. she was the most energetic of the two, telling him, “come on, time to move again…” and giving him encouragement. the male was tired and was probably old and sick, his attitude was more, “…leave me alone, let me rest… i am tired and cant go on….” they communicated with each other, touched, played and flew around each other. they even showed affection. it was wonderful to see the couple interact.

sadly, after over 24 hours of watching this love affair, the male died at dawn. it was devastating. the crew had the moral at its lowest. it was really heartbreaking, and unfortunately the worst was yet to come. in a effort to protect the widow female, esteban threw the male overboard so she did not have to see her dead partner’s corpse. this did not help much as she immediately noticed he was gone, and right away her attitude changed. she stopped being the vibrant bird with the “let’s go flying again” attitude. instead she grew sadder by the minute; and after mourning him for 8 hours straight, she gave up and also died. this was tragic, probably the lowest point of the crossing. peter thought it was a love story, exactly as i am writing it here. husband died and then wife could not take the grief and went to a better place to join him. esteban on the other hand had a more hypochondriac version of the accounts. he though to himself how unlucky they must be to get, in the middle of the atlantic ocean, two animals infected with the bird flu who came to die on board and spread the disease. he was then looking for symptoms of the flu, which of course none of them had. but i tend to agree with peter. i think it was a love story; a very beautiful, romantic and sad story.

crossing the atlantic

with a fixed sail esteban and peter left cape verde towards the caribbean on december 1/11. a 2000 nautical mile journey of only sea and some rain in between. the crossing was uneventful for the most part, which is good news; mostly following seas and many wind gusts. some days the gusts came every hour with torrential rain and dark skies. few electrical storms though. with the many rainy days the rainbows were spectacular; something not seen anywhere before.

the food was plentiful with a total catch of 10 mahi mahi, the last one being so big that it lasted for an entire week of food supply. in total they saw only four other sailboats which is not that many considering it is a busy shipping lane and it was also the time of the arc. the arc is a sailing rally of over 250 sailboats which for some inexplicable reason decide to depart all at the same time from the same port in the canaries, and sail together the entire leg, to exactly arrive and overcrowd the same port at their destination. knowing they would be sailing around the same time as this rally, it was rather surprising they did not see other boats.

the wind was constant always coming from the stern making them sail wing on wing; with the head sail to one side and the main sail to the other; capturing all the wind from the back. there were only a couple of days with no wind at all, and our beloved yanmar, as always worked marvelously. there were also a couple of days with wind from the nose. very bizarre and uncomfortable, but at this point in the journey nothing surprises us about the wind and the direction where it comes from.

as far as living together in so close quarters, i have heard from both esteban and peter that it was fine. they enjoyed each other’s company and had a good time despite some of the boring parts of a long crossing. this is an outstanding result considering what we originally expected and wanted from a crew. because i was not going to be on board, my only condition was that it was a man. esteban’s expectation was that it would not get sea sick. we thought this was best, to have little to no expectations. and at the end, we never imagined that we would end up with a great chef, an experienced sailor, and overall an excellent man who has become a very dear friend.

bye bye main

i guess it would not be a proper ocean crossing if we did not have at least one minor incident. and so we did, or they did, i should say. last tuesday, only 3 days after having departed, and during the night (everything always happens at night) the main sail ripped in half, from one end to the other, rendering it completely useless (sadly after having paid in gibraltar some sterling ponds to restitch it….). losing the main with over 2600 miles to go is not a minor incident … so they changed course and headed now for mindelo in s. vincente, cape verde islands, off the african coast some 800 miles south of the canaries. still on the way, so luckily this is not a big detour. there are not that many facilities in the cape verdes, but it was the best alternative considering that returning to the canaries would have meant sailing against the wind. i also checked on line and this is the most visited island by other cruisers; something we would generally avoid; except this time, because we hope to find some sail repair facilities (wishful thinking perhaps), but the odds improve if we go to the most visited island, we think.

with the new course in mind, but still considering that there may not be sail lofts or that the sail is probably beyond repair (which might very well be the case), i retrieved the original old main sail we had in storage. luckily for us, our good friend jerry who had taken this old sail to texas had brought it back in case we needed it. who would have thought that that case would be a reality (I guess he thought it would, someday.) so after inspecting it and going to the sail maker in fort lauderdale to inspect it again, it was shipped and it is now on its way to the cape verdes. i just checked and it is within the DHL network traveling to meet the boat soon and continue the journey through the atlantic.

transatlantic crossing

the 2011 atlantic hurricane season is almost over. it is actually officially over on november 30 but historically the last days of the season have been rather quiet, so we hope this year is not the exception. the boat and crew were ready and they finally set sail on sunday november 20. a westbound sail through the atlantic ocean with 2900 nautical miles of open sea, great sunrises and sunsets, hopefully many fish and unfortunately a lot of freighters and other sailboats to be on the lookout for.



the estimated landfall should be sometime around december 15 in the west indies where I will be waiting to rejoin my husband in barbados at last!! peter and esteban will sail around 25 days at an average of 120 miles per day. This is the last of the long crossings of our circumnavigation. I am anxious and very happy to know that they have finally departed.

until the next post, this time from the caribbean...!

departure at last

on november 7 at 4:00 am they departed at last. the weather conditions were not prefect but they did not want to wait any longer. the more you wait this time of the year, the harder it is to leave. we watched the weather patterns and there are strong gales forming every week. so with a not so great day, and very cold weather they finally left and unfortunately had a very slow progress leaving the strait. there is normally a strong current flowing from the atlantic towards the med of an average of 2 knots. in addition every time the tide rises, the speed of tide against increases. so, to have the weaker current against, one must plan the departure carefully to hit the worse 10 miles of the strait of gibraltar at exactly 5 hours after high tide, or when the tide is coming down. i helped with the calculations from shore but unfortunately the progress was never more than 2 knots. maybe we missed the good timing, or we simply were doing the best possible and it could have been worse. we will never know; but the good news is that they left. the route followed the Spanish coast and then after cutting across the strait they would continue hugging the moroccan atlantic coast for a few days. for me, being the first crossing not being on board it was very difficult. i was constantly thinking about the progress of the boat and following the weather closely and tried to communicate whatever i saw. in the meantime all was good on board, they caught several fish, mostly tuna. peter got a very good looking fish which he liked so much that he put back in the water. after some hours esteban got another of these pretty fishes, which turned out to be a mahi. this one they ate. after peter ate it and liked it so much, esteban says he will not put them back on the water again, no way. they are better looking in the pan!!

sailing towards sicily

we had a very pleasant 3 day sail towards sicily accompanied with dolphins. only in the last five hours when we crossed the gap between the tip of italy and sicily the weather turned bad. the winds blew at force 7 at least (35 knots) and the sea became nasty. the boat was with minimum sail and was healing a lot and of course we were soaked, specially esteban who was at the helm. it was quite the little storm. nothing happened to us or the boat but we started feeling a bit scared of crossing the messina strait in a few days. we had already read that it was bad, but with a lot of wind and from the wrong direction, it could be really really bad… but we continued towards sicily and decided to worry about crossing the messina strait to the north later.

sailing up the red sea

after port sudan we continued north for roughly 300 miles until our port of entry in egypt. we had dead clam seas and also gale force winds. we also saw the most amazing amount of sand floating on the water for miles and miles. it literally looked like the wind had blown all the desert into the sea. while waiting for the winds to settle we stopped at amazing places where the water was so clear that we could see the bottom and even the fish under the boat. sailing these waters has been a beautiful experience and luckily for us, not that hard to sail up north despite the known strong head winds. I guess we got lucky with the winds and only had a few days of really strong winds against, but for the most part the majority of the red sea has been very benign to us!

more fish than we can eat....

another bonus of entering the red sea is the fish!! we have caught tunas, wahoos, mackerels, barracudas and other species which we do not recognize and are not in the guide. we have eaten as much fish as we desire and have even picked our favorites and thrown back to the ocean what we will not eat. our diet has greatly improved. it is healthier and tastier than the cans!!! we need to be fast thought. it seems we have competition. when we do not bring in the fish fast we will loose ot to the sharks and will only get a piece of the head...

bob el mandeb

this has to be the place where we encountered the strongest winds of our entire trip (so far at least) and luckily they were from behind. It was blowing so strong that we were cruising at 8 knots with hardly any sail out. we now never know the actual speed since our wind indicator broke a while ago and as we find it not indispensable at this time of or trip we decided to continue sailing without it. So for a while we have not know the speed of the wind. It either blows to little in which case we motor, or just about enough to have all sails out or too much that we have to reef… here it was definitely too much, to the point we had to be with almost no sails out. we enjoyed this windy conditions for a change. We have had far too many days of light winds for the last months….


going through this strait meant we officially entered into the red sea leaving the pirates behind!! Good. We accomplished what seemed to be almost impossible back at the anchorage in the maldives, and we had done it in one piece! This was an important moment of our trip and where we definitely felt a weight being lifted of our shoulders. We finally stopped looking around for pirates on every vessel we saw… it was a good welcome back to our old sailing style which we have grown to like so much!

the adventure started

we left the peaceful waters of the maldives early one morning with little wind and motor sailed nicely for almost 24 hours. after this the winds started to pick up and blow stronger from the north, something we ended up having for the entire rest of the trip until muscat. but what was unbelievable is that sometimes we actually had to sail west, and when we did, the winds came form the west as well… so we gave up. The direction seemed to be coming from wherever we wanted to go… so we patiently tacked our way up the indian coast. on the way we had a very scary encounter with a big ship at night and with no lights… our hearts were beating like crazy… how to know if this is not a mother ship of the pirates, or simply another vessel just as scared of them as we are simply trying to sail across safely??? well we never knew. and the same happened with every single fisherman that approached us. It is impossible to determine who they are and their intentions. so for the entire trip we were stressed and scared.

to top this situation off our water maker broke, so now we had no fresh water on board and we now needed to make more frequent stops in ports just to fill up our water tank. with this new need we decided to stop in malpe a fishing village in india.


we had a very nice welcome by all the people we saw and were able to get diesel and water and some food in order to continue north, but generally our first impression form this country, which by the way only deteriorated as we moved north was of disappointment of how filthy everything was. maybe we were simply unlucky and stopped at the dirties places of india or maybe india is in fact dirty all over. Whatever it is, we were shocked of the living conditions.