Saltair Afloat

Seth’s catch up

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are in the Tuamotus! Yay! My last real blog was from before we started the World ARC, so, let me catch you up quickly in case you haven't seen my parents' blogs.

First we left St Lucia on a 5 day passage to Santa Marta, Columbia where we did a driving tour, tubing down a river (like rafting but in a rubber tube) and won our division (we got a little boat shaped domino set).

Then we did a two day passage (our roughest so far) to the San Blas islands where we had a beach barbeque with all our friends, snorkeled a really cool wreck, and bought some cool Molas (hand woven tapestries made traditionally by the local women).

When we were done there, we did a small overnight trip to Shelter Bay Marina at the entrance to the Panama Canal, where I finally got a good burger at the marina restaurant (I'm getting hungry editing this), visited the new Panamax locks (newer locks in the Panama Canal that were built for much larger ships), and started a paper mola making contest with the other kids.

After some waiting we finally went through the Panama Canal, spending a horrible night side tied to a massive rubber buoy in lake Gatun (the lake in the middle of the canal), then made it to La Playita marina on the edge of Panama city, the first real skyline we have seen since leaving Manhattan.

Next we went to the Las Perlas islands where there was another prize giving, where we then departed for the Galapagos islands the next morning. There, we did multiple snorkeling tours during which we saw turtles, octopi, and and sea horse (the last two I had never seen in the wild before which was really cool); did a 5 hour long hike to the top of a massive volcano (the last hour of it was pouring rain, I honestly couldn't tell if we were going uphill or downhill (we were going down hill)), then did a surfing lesson with all the other kids right after.

We then left for the longest passage of the ARC (when I say ARC I mean World ARC), as well as my personal longest passage, 19 days (one day longer than the Atlantic crossing which was 18 days long) to the Marquesas. We landed in Hiva Oa, did a quick car tour, went to Tahuata where most kids were congregating for some water fun, then went to Fatu Hiva, a beautiful island where we did a waterfall hike, bus tour, and a dinner at a local house all in the same day, from there we headed north to Nuka Hiva, where there was another prizegiving, then went to Ua Pou. And finally we did the passage to Raroia, where we are now, in the Tuamotus.

After we arrived we went to a beach meetup with a big bonfire (played with fire (safely, of course) because it's fun (DO NOT TRY AT HOME unless, of course, your home happens to have a large sand bar or another safe place to play with fire)). One of our fellow ARC kid boats, Misfit, (they're a Catana 65, meaning they are super fast and they have lots of room for toys) pumped their inflatable sailing dinghy (a TIWAL) so I spent a lot of time on that two days ago. Yesterday we also put together our foiling gear and I went wing foiling (there wasn't enough wind for my dad (I was using a five, and my dad tried a friend’s seven (wing area in square meters) but it just wasn't enough)). Then last night, we did a beach barbeque with all of the kids boats in the anchorage.

That's pretty much it, this has been a three day writing project for school, and it was originally going to be an essay on atolls, but… let's just say I got a bit sidetracked, so that might show up soon, too. Anyway, bye.

Unloading Cargo in the Galapagos

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Unloading cargo in the Galapagos Island is not an easy process. We have been to two islands so far and each island has a distinct process.

On Isabella, the barge “Isabella” anchors in Port Villamil harbor and is unloaded by hand onto smaller barges that transfer goods to the pier where they are again unloaded by hand. The process typically takes 2-3 days and the barge comes approximately every two weeks.

AC Isabella in Puerto Villamil, Isabella Galapagos

On San Cristobal, a large container ship will anchor far outside Puerto Baquerizo Moreno and containers are transferred by crane onto trucks loaded into a barge. We were anchored next to the concrete pier where the trucks are unloaded and or to watch the process over and over.

We observed he unloading of one of those ship from Saltair, there were four trucks used in the process, two of them waiting ashore and two on the barge.

waiting loaded trucks waiting on the pier. The emptied containers are going back to the cargo ship

Barge returning from the cargo ship with two empty trucks

Empty trucks driving off the barge

Loaded truck backing up onto the barge

heading back to the cargo ship

Back on the cargo ship the containers are loaded/unloaded on the truck using the crane of the cargo ship.

The workers on the barge were super friendly and waved as they went by. They live onboard. If you zoom in the next couple photos you will notice the sign for the shower (Duchamp), the hanging laundry and a bunch of bananas at the stern.

Panama Canal Transit

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After waiting for a week for our transit date in Shelter Bay Marina, near Colon in Panama, we were assigned an afternoon time slot on Feb 7th. Timo and Hilari have been onboard since St Lucia and will leave us after the transit. We will be welcoming new crew for the next leg. One of them, Jeanette, joined us as the fourth adult line handler required for the transit and wrote this guest log.

About half an hour before we untied the lines I arrived at Shelter bay marina with a bag of wet clothes from the morning laundry that soon dried on deck. Knowing it might be a small chance to join a little earlier than planned, I got a last minute call from Adam and then there was simply no time to spare. Every boat on the canal is required to have four line-handlers plus the skipper and one person had to give up his spot. Lucky me!

A two hour taxi ride got me to the dock just in time. Saltair was already properly prepared with rented huge red fenders and the long thick blue lines that would keep us in place in the locks.

There are two sets of locks, each with three steps. The first part taking you up from the Atlantic and the later returning you down to the Pacific. Assigned the role as "passenger" I was happy just to be onboard for this iconic passage. It later turned out "passenger" could mean both being a "roaming fender" (the person who places an extra fender wherever it might urgently be needed) and a proper line handler, but first we anchored to await our advisor. All boats need an advisor onboard for the whole canal transit and they handle all the communications for entering the locks as well as telling the crew how all the practical stuﬀ works.

As we were going to be the middle boat of our ‘nest’ we got (somewhat confusing) instructions about how we were going to raft up with the two other boats before the first lock. With an almost equally large Hallberg Rassy on port side the masts came a bit too close at first but soon we were sorted out and ready to tie up a smaller catamaran on our starboard side. It looked like it was going to be an easy ride with no line handlers needed at all for us! At least easy for all but Adam at the helm.

We then entered the first lock in our nest. Three boats trying to maneuver together with help from the advisors. Still we ended up doing diﬀerent things, making it a bit hard to stay centered and straight. The quite turbulent waters as the lock fills up, the wind pushing the boats, and the catamaran being much shorter made it a bit diﬃcult to keep stable.

As we entered the second lock we were told that we should manage the starboard bowline ourselves (relieving the catamarin of that duty) and Timo did a great job as line handler.

When we made it out of the third lock it was already dark and all of us were looking forward to a calm night in the Gatun lake, before the next part of the transit. That did not quite happen!

It turned out we were supposed to have the huge mooring buoy amidship with the other HR on the other side of it. And we got instructed to tie up stern to the wind, which resulted in one of us at all times being the windward side, pushing the fenders up which required attention almost all night.

In the morning a new advisor came onboard and we learned we would only nest with the catamaran, Sea Pearl, for the day. Having a time scheduled we also had a bit of time to kill so we set oﬀ without a rush.

We had a pretty landscape along the way, met enormous cargo ships and watched lots of dredging.

But our lockage time got changed along the way and we were running early for the new one so our advisor actually made us turn around and motor back to kill more time.

When we finally got to enter the lock we realised we would have a cruise ship with a lot of audience behind us and with only being two boats we were now up to handle three lines. No room for mistakes! And we did okay, but had a tricky time catching the retriever lines since we got pushed far to starboard by the wind and they had to throw them quite far for then to reach us. As you are never attached to the lock walls you get thin lines thrown to the boat that you attach to the thick blue borrowed ones, so that the staﬀ at the lock can pull them oﬀ your boat and tie them up. Then we have to adjust the length of the lines from the boat. Imagine two or three big boats pulling in them it is a little bit of an eﬀort and requires coordination from the line-handlers. Still we made it out safely and yet again it was dark before the pilot boat came to pick up our advisor and we could make it to the marina. But hey! We made it to the Pacific!

- Jeanette

Bridge of the Atlantic

Rafting with Bluewater Mooney (HR 54) to start our 'Nest'

Adam concentrating on driving the nest

Our cargo ship companion for the ascending locks into lake Gatun. The small boats are behind.

Seth setting up the GoPro for a time lapse With Hilari's help

Saltair and Bluewater Mooney in Lake Gatun on the giant mooring

Day 2 - Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks. Hilari and Jeanette line handling on the bow. (Since the catamaran was so much shorter we had two bow lines)

Screenshot of the live cam in the Miraflores locks. Saltair and the catamaran are in the front with a large passenger ship behind! Quite the audience.

Finally in the Pacific! Beautiful sunset shot by Seth of the Bridge of the Americas.

In between oceans

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last evening we went through the first set of locks of the Panama Canal - the Gatum Locks that brought us out of the Atlantic (Caribbean Sea) and into a fresh water lake - Lake Gatum.
Later today after traveling 51 miles (82 km) we will go through the Miraflores Locks to go into the pacific!

we create a nest of boats that go together. We were the center boat with fellow WARC Hallberg Rqassy 54 Bluewater Mooney

we transited behind this tanker in the locks

Seth setup the Go Pro to do a time lapse (will add a link) and was changing the battery. It took a couple hours to go through the 3 chambers

WARC Leg 1 St Lucia to Santa Marta

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We do need to be a little better about updates to our blog! So much going on as we are sitting in Shelter Bay Marina getting ready to transit the Panama Canal and sail to the Galapagos.

The first leg of the trip from St Lucia to Santa Marta Columbia went well and we finished under 5 days. The arrival in Santa Marta is in a wind convergence zone and as expected winds increased greatly as we approached around 10pm. We saw winds in the 32-36kts range with some stronger gusts. As we were approaching a fellow WARC (World ARC) boat issued a pan pan (a radio message issued by a boat to declare they have an issue) . We and another boat, Bluewater Mooney (HR 54) were the closest and we altered course and stood by the other vessel until they were able to get their situation under control and safely come in the Marina (about 30 minutes away). With high winds and large swells, there was not a lot we could do but standing by is always comforting to the boat in distress!

Adam and Timo in the 'man cave' during the passage.

Seth on the VHF talking to his friends on Chillalot

We docked in the Marina in the early morning and had a good night sleep.The next morning we checked in (customs and immigration) and registered in the Marina Office. We were impressed by the security to the docks (fingerprints) and bathrooms (face recognition).

Seth in the marina while we wait to check in. Great breakfast at the marina cafe.

There are a lot of stray cats in Santa Marta.

Santa Marta is a very vibrant town. It was the first Spanish settlement in Columbia and is surrounded by the tall peaks of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. its is the highest coastal range in the tropics reaching 5700 m (18,700ft) just 42km (26 mi) from the sea. The snow capped peaks, Pico Simon Bolivar and Pico Christobal Colon are visible on clear days.

Motorcycles are the family car for some. Crossing the street is an art!

The economy is based on tourism, trade, port activity, fishing and agriculture. The main products are bananas, coffee, cocoa and cassava.

A sunset, many gather on the boardwalk for pictures and selfies

I hope this young lady does not mind my posting of her quinceañera picture! She was resplendent.

After cleaning the boat, putting away the sails and lines and checking the rig (pulling Adam up the mast to make sure everything is as it should) it was time to start exploring.

The WARC had organized a tour of the city of Minca, a small town of about 600 inhabitants located 15 km (9.3 miles) southeast of the city of Santa Marta, in the department of Magdalena. We boarded four wheeled drive cars to go visit first ‘La Victoria’ a coffee plantation founded in 1892 by a German couple. Today the farm is more a coffee museum, still producing enough coffee for their restaurant and to sell to tourists. Still owned by descendants of the original founders’ they pride themselves in traditional methods and in taking care of their workers many of whom have houses on the plantation.

original truck...

Kids enjoying cake at the end of the tour.

After the plantation, we went to see and swim in the ‘Marinka’ waterfalls and had lunch in a local restaurant.

On the hike up to the waterfalls there were lots of bottle cap sculptures and benches! Very colorful!

We also booked a tour to visit the archeological site of Taironaka and go tubing down the San Diego river. Taironaka is a nature reserve in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. The landscape is lush and tropical, with paths through the forest and along the banks of the San Diego river.

The ancient Tayrona civilization once lived here and the ruins of their settlements remain to this day, with houses arranged around terraced stone circles according to social hierarchy. There's also a reconstructed Tayrona home and a small and informative museum.

Our guide Juliette did a great job mixing history and ecology and being French was also open to answer some of our questions about the political history of the region. This would warrant a full other post…

After the educational part of the tour, we slowly drifted down the river in tubes, cooling off and trying to spot as much wildlife as possible, howler monkeys, king fishers, heron, egrets, eagles. It was particularly fun to do this on a Sunday when many local families where also swimming and picnicking on the banks of the river. The sea and beaches are really rough and the surf so strong that swimming is a lot safer and calmer in the many rivers coming down the mountains.

Floating down the river.

Nice little cayman napping on shore...we did not see it until the return trip up the river in a boat!

We ended our stay in Santa Marta with the prize giving dinner for the first leg. The fleet is broken up in three categories, two for monohauls, Cruising A, Cruising B and one for multihulls. While we did not arrive first, on corrected time, we ended up first in Cruising A which was an unexpected surprise. Prizes were really nice, local handicrafts, ours is a wooden domino game in a sweet sailboat themed box. Definitely a keepsake.

The kids were recognized at the start of the prizegiving.

Kids from Imi Ola, Living the Dream, Chillalot and Saltair. A couple of the other family boats were not able to attend.

Afew more pic of some of our colorful and flavorful meals.

Breakfast at Serena.

Dinner at Ouzo.

Avocado toast in the marina.

Tacos at 'La Immortal'

Next leg is Santa Marta to Panama via the San Blas Islands. A short leg but with quite the wind and seas.

Happy New Year and Start of the World Arc

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

What a difference a year makes! Last year after finishing our transatlantic crossing with the ARC 2023, we had a long list of boat issues to resolve and we felt very overwhelmed. We were wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. Ultimately we decided to delay our circumnavigation and today after living onboard for close to 18 months we handle most challenges with better grace and we feel much better prepared , particularly mentally.

Seth at the start of our World ARC. He has grown so much in the last few months.

We joined the World Arc Rally 2025-26) in St Lucia on January 5th after a couple weeks in Guadeloupe and Martinique. While in Martinique we managed to resolve a few more boat problems and were able to provision for the months ahead.

As a bonus we ran into and spent time with a few other cruisers we met along the way - SV Kepler, SV Incognito and SV True North.

Seth and his friends from SV KEPLER

Christmas Day with Dale and Jay (SV Incognito)

My brother Jean Matthieu and my sister in law Floriane also came to spend a week with us in Martinique and we rang in the new year together . It felt like a mini vacation with some exploring and some beach time.

Seth and Jean Matthieu

Jean Matthieu and Floriane

JM and Floriane enjoying lounging on our new beanbags on our sail to Anse D'Arlet

beach time and ice cream

In St Lucia we spent the days leading up to departure doing final preparations and meeting all the other boats and crew participating in the first half of the rally! Seth is particularly excited as there are 6 other family boats with 13 kids ranging from 7-15. He went to do a zip line tour on Thursday and had loads of fun.

some of the kids on the World Arc 2025-26

Seth playing with friends from SV Chillalot at the Marina pool in St Lucia

Timo and Hilari are on board with us until Panama and as always we really enjoy spending time together.

Hilari (above) , Timo and Adam at the start

I am writing this blog on my first night watch. The start of the St Lucia to Santa Marta leg was at noon today January 11th with enough wind to start under sail. It was great to see the 32 boats starting.

Winds are pretty light with calm seas and we enjoyed a nice diner at sunset with some dolphins swimming around! The moon is high and bright and so are our spirits.

Seth and I on New Year's Eve in Martinique

First time foiling

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As part of my boatschooling, I have been working with a writing and reading tutor who has been giving me writing assignments. This is the first of them. The assignment was about the first time I had done something, and I chose tow foiling. Here it is.

As I went downstairs to put on my bathing suit, I got the same excited feeling I always got whenever I was about to hop on a foilboard. By the time I was up on deck again, I was nearly bouncing. My dad was sitting on the swim platform holding the dinghy painter in one hand and the board in the other, waiting for me. I put on my impact vest and helmet, lowered myself onto the board, and grabbed the tow line that was floating in the water in front of me as my dad got onto the dinghy and started the outboard. He put it in idle forwards, then started accelerating slowly. I could feel the foam grips digging into my knees, chafing on my skin. When we were doing about 2 knots, I hopped up on my feet, and started gently pumping the stern of the board up and down. Nothing. I signal a thumbs up, which signifies “A bit faster”. We accelerate a bit more, I try again. Nothing. Another thumbs up. My dad accelerates a lot more than before, and I can feel the foil gently pushing upwards. I lean forwards, then back slowly. I start grinning as I lift slowly out of the water “I am flying, I am literally flying” I think to myself in awe. It feels… relaxing, surprisingly. The sound is astonishing, just a steady gentle “whoosh”, from the board. If it weren’t for the sound of the outboard I could comfortably have a conversation with my dad. “Splash!” The board flies up in front of me then breaches and falls back down again, powered by my jumping off the back of the board, the safest way to fall. The water isn’t really that cold, but the sudden shock of landing in the extremely wet water reminds me that I am above a large mass of water. I grab the board, and paddle it over to the tow line. I can feel the new tightness from the water on my rashguard. “Crash number one!” I call to my dad. I stand up on the board with the towline, this time not even waiting for the dinghy to start. My dad says, “You were definitely up. ready to go again?” “Yes,” I respond immediately. My dad starts the outboard and I try again.
The end

Me tow foiling

Antigua Arrival!

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We arrived in Antigua at 3:30 am Sunday morning and dropped our anchor outside Jolly Harbour. From Bermuda we sailed 954 nm over five days and 15 hours, making an average speed of 7.1 knots and an average of 170 nm per day. Not at all an impressive performance for an offshore boat like Saltair. While we had some fantastic sailing at times, our route took us through two windless troughs stretching between Bermuda and Antigua which forced us to motor for over 50 hours (40% of the passage). We also suffered through several days of unexpected adverse current, slowing our progress by 1 - 1½ knots, or 15-20% of our boat speed.

The reality of the passage was quite a bit different from the expectations set by the the various weather models (and the forecaster with whom we consulted) that we use before departing. When we left Bermuda we thought we’d be arriving in under 5 days with just a handful of motoring hours. Those expectations slipped by a few hours each day for the first few days and then were decimated on the final few days as the second trough developed and the unexpected adverse current began impacting our pacing.

The final 20 hours were some of the most frustrating hours we’ve seen on the boat. The first squall came through at 6am on Saturday morning. And then they kept coming… squall after squall after squall. Each one brought an up to 80 degree wind shift and was followed by an hour or more of no wind. In the wind shifts our destination went from an “easily-fetched at a comfortably-fast close reach” wind angle to directly upwind (not attainable without tacking back and forth), forcing us to sail away from our destination. In each windless aftermath we put away our sails and started motoring. As the wind slowly returned we started with full sails and then began reefing both main and genoa as the wind velocity built back to the 15 - 18 knot range. But then the next squall hit and it started all over again. This wasn’t the idyllic cruising life that we all signed up for and it became exhausting quickly!

As we got into the Caribbean we found that commercial shipping traffic picked up considerably. Most vessels were visible well in advance on AIS, an automated ship-to-ship tracking system through which each vessel continuously and automatically broadcasts its position to all other vessels within radio range. But on Saturday afternoon we looked astern to see a massive container ship crossing our path at a range of under a mile. He snuck up on us without broadcasting on AIS! We were curious if he was travelling in “silent mode” because he was transporting illicit cargo so we hailed him on VHF to let him know that his AIS was off, wondering what his response would be. He apologized and promised to “reset his system.” We were unconvinced of his sincerity until ten minutes later he hailed us back to ask if his AIS was working. When we told him it wasn’t, he asked that we let him know if we started receiving his signal. Another ten minutes later he appeared on our screens and we let him know. He was most appreciative. Either a very elaborate ruse or an honest system malfunction.

With the frequent passing of commercial traffic we took the opportunity to run some tests of our Echomax Active XS radar target enhancer. This is a collision-avoidance device that monitors the X and S bands used by ship-borne radars and transmits an enhanced radar signal whenever an incoming ping is detected. The effect of this is that our boat’s radar profile is enlarged, making us visible at a significantly greater range. Our first test, with a ship that was five miles away was unsuccessful. The ship reported no change in our radar signature whether the device was on or off. After a quick consultation with the vendor, we concluded that at 60’ overall length with a thick 100’ high aluminum mast, our radar crosssection in the 2-3m sea state was likely large enough without the RTE that the ship’s radar wouldn’t necessarily be able to see its effect. We then tried again with a ship at 13 nm and found that we appeared only with the RTE powered, satisfying us that it was working as designed.

On Sunday morning after a few hours sleep at anchor, we motored over to the customs dock in Jolly Harbor for clearance into Antigua. Our process was far from smooth, due to some peculiarities of Antigua’s clearance process and my own inattention. Antigua has decided that they want the home address for every person on the manifest so I had to go back to my computer to collect and enter all of that information. Then, after all the paperwork was printed and signed, the customs agent realized that Seth is only 12 but was listed as a “crew member” and not a “passenger.” Antigua is the only country we have come across that doesn’t allow a minor to be listed as “crew” as it would violate their child labor laws. So back to the boat I went to delete and reenter all of the information yet again. (This change forced us to pay an additional fee for Seth-the-passenger that isn’t payable for Seth-the-crew). Then after we thought we were done, we discovered that Antigua’s port authority accepts only cash, no credit cards. After yet another walk back to the boat, we were finally cleared in some two hours later.

The crew made good use of the time I was dealing with customs, completing a thorough post-passage cleaning of Saltair’s interior. They even got started on an exterior cleaning as well! Once cleared in, we got settled into our temporary home in the Jolly Harbor Marina and quickly tackled the exterior cleaning. It is amazing how quickly things get clean with four active scubbers!

Our final task before lunch was for me to go up the rig to inspect everything before dropping and putting away our code zero reaching sail. This is where our day turned for the worse as I discovered that the brand new headstay extrusion, installed by a rigger in Annapolis just 30 days ago, had somehow separated between two joints. The extrusion was now being held together by the torn-off bolt rope on our genoa. The entire headstay would need to be removed to effect the repair, which would require parts from the US or Europe. This was catastrophic news for us as we have but 30 days before we are due to leave Saint Lucia on our adventure to and across the Pacific.

We spent the rest of the day in despair as we couldn’t understand how this could have happened. One typical cause for extrusion damage is a halyard wrap, in which a halyard gets wrapped around the swivel at the top of the stay, preventing it from turning. With the bottom of the extrusion turning from the furling motor and the top frozen in place by the wrapped halyard, something needs to give. But we were certain that this didn’t happen in our case as we could account for the two possible halyards at each point in our passages. And after all of the other issues that we’ve had with the headstay furling system over the past 18 months, we’ve taken to treating the system with extreme care, fully depowering the sail before furling or unfurling it and never adjusting halyard tension from some modest, base level. So we were at a complete loss. Before turning in for the night we composed an email to both Selden and Hallberg-Rassy in Sweden seeking their assistance. Then, exhausted from the passage and the emotionally trying afternoon, we turned in for the night.

We woke the next morning to find a helpful email from Selden Sweden offering up the possibility of an installation error by the vendor who performed the work in Annapolis. Later in the morning, Selden USA took over the problem-solving to help us find a vendor to make the necessary repairs. They also began working to assemble the needed parts for shipment to Antigua ASAP. I lined up a sail loft to repair the genoa and they arranged for a rigger to come remove it from the boat, now a non-trivial task given the torn bolt rope near the sail’s head.

Resilience is one of the consistent themes of our cruising life. For each star-filled night, day of dolphin-filled seas or hour of fast, fun sailing, there invariably comes a moment of utter frustration and despair as something stops working and our well-laid plans fall apart. But having suffered countless of those moments over the past 18 months, we have learned to roll with them. We suffer the pain and anguish for a bit and then we quickly move past it and into problem-solving mode. That’s where we are today. Hoping that the next post here will be a happy one as we’ll be in our final preparations for the beginning of our World ARC adventure.

These low, dark clouds forbode our entrance into the first windless trough.

Bob making an hourly log entry during his night watch.

Indrek enjoying our bean bag lounges, the newest comfort addition to Saltair!

Seth was super helpful this passage, serving regular watches and helping out around the boat! Here he is keeping me company during my 9 - midnight watch.

You can't have beautiful sunsets or rainbows without clouds!

This is the small ship that snuck up on us without AIS! Who would have thought?

Squall after squall after squall! They are easily seen approaching in plain sight during the day and on radar at night. With some careful navigation you often can make small course changes to avoid them, but they still have a tendancy to mess with the prevailing wind.

Seth intensely concentrating at the helm, trying to break our speed record!

A rubber ducky?

Snoopy?

Our official crew photo for the passage! From left, Indrek, Bob and Alex!

Frustrating Day, Spectacular Night

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It is a breathtakingly beautiful night. After a day of showers and clouds, the skies have cleared leaving nothing but the infinite universe of stars with a few planets interspersed. Jupiter is in its opposition (kudos to Rowboy for pointing that out in a comment to my last blog post) making it one of the brightest objects in the sky. We can see all of the familiar constellations of the northern hemisphere, Orion, Ursa Major, Cassiopia being my childhood favorites.

We are now 530 nm from Antigua, having traveled almost 400 nm since our departure midday on Monday. Today was a frustrating one as the winds have not performed as expected. We motored all last night through a trough of showers and light winds expecting to find strong northerlies on the other side. Instead we found weak winds from a mediocre direction with a big swell that kept shaking the wind from the sails. Our options for dealing with this were all bad ones — sail far from our course, suffer with the slatting of sails or motor. At various points in the day we tried each, none giving us any satisfaction. As we approach midnight I note in our log our daily mileage and it is a somewhat anemic 162 nm. Our hopes for a Saturday landfall in Antigua will require better days than this one!

While the day was frustrating for its unpredictable up and down and shifty breeze, it certainly wasn’t uneventful. During a period of stronger breeze we went to set our spinnaker pole in order to pole out our headsail, only to have the pole come detached from its fitting on the mast. It is difficult to convey the danger of this situation as the pole itself is 25 feet long and a beast to handle even when the boat isn't moving. The “inboard end” is supposed to always remain attached to a car that slides up and down on a mast track, leaving only the “outboard end” for someone to walk forward with when deploying it. But in our case as we were preparing to deploy it the inboard end came free of its fitting 25 feet up in the air so the pole was simply leaning agains the mast with its full weight on the deck. This, as the boat was surfing down waves and rocking back and forth. Ugh!

As soon as we realized what happened, we began pressing against the pole to hold it against the mast, thus keeping it from toppling over. We then jury rigged a support for the pole as we prepared to “walk” the pole to the deck, as you would walk down an extension ladder. But before undertaking this we realized that our likelihood of success without damaging the boat, the pole or one of us was slim. The safer alternative was for me to go up the mast to reaffix the pole to its mount and then use that system to lower the pole safely. But this meant going up the rig of a rocking and rolling boat, which brought its own challenges.

Fortunately, the work aloft went smoothly and in 15 minutes we had lowered the pole safely to the deck. Upon inspection of the pole fitting we believe that we may have incompatible fittings on the mast car and the pole end. When we took delivery of Saltair Hallberg-Rassy informed us that their order of a new pole for us was somehow lost and instead they offered us a pole that been in their inventory for some time, designed for another model boat. While the fitting on the pole appeared to work with that of the mast car, the pin that secures the two parts together now appears undersized and is prone to unintentional release. We will need to investigate further before setting off for the Pacific.

Once the pole was re-secured and raised we used it to set our genoa in a wing-on-wing configuration. This worked quite well for us for a few hours when the breeze was up in the mid-teens, but then it lightened and once again we were left struggling between bad options. As the afternoon wore on we finally put the sails away and started the engine.

But just as the sun was setting the breeze finally picked up and shifted to the right as forecast, allowing us to turn off the motor and resume sailing in the right direction. And what a beautiful night of sailing it has been! With the wind shifting to the NE we finally have a sufficiently hot angle (to the wind) to keep the sails full and the boat moving at 7-8 knots. There’s still a bit of adverse current slowing our progress but given the frustration of the day, we’re happy to suffer the current for these otherwise beautiful conditions.

Underway from Bermuda

Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It is 9:30pm on the 2nd of December and we’re roughly 75nm south of Bermuda, our home for the past four nights. As you can see from the tracker at the top of this page, we left Annapolis a week ago Saturday (November 23rd) in a rip roaring 25-35 knots on the beam, screaming down the Chesapeake Bay with a triple reefed main and our rarely used cutter. The fun fest ended about 80nm in when the breeze died on us and shifted aft, significantly slowing our progress.

We passed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel just after midnight and set our course for our Gulf Stream entrance waypoint. On Sunday afternoon it was fun to watch the sea temperature rise from the low 60’s of the Bay to near 80 as we approached the Stream. It was also nice to strip off our long underwear and multiple layers as the air temperature rose into the high 60s, even at night.

The rest of our passage to Bermuda was otherwise uneventful. We completed the 800nm passage in just over 4 ½ days, making for an average of 7.3 knots or 174nm/day. We wound up motoring for a total of 24 hours, mostly on the second day when the breeze was due aft and not strong enough for sailing.

This was our first passage on Saltair without Guillemette aboard, as she was still recovering from her recent surgery. While not joining us for the passage, Guillemette fully stocked the boat with delicious meals and snacks galore. Our crew for the passage consisted of Alex, Bob and Indrek, as well as Seth. While each was unknown to us when the joined us in Annapolis, we’ve found that we get along quite well.

We arrived in Saint George’s around midnight on Wednesday and spent our first night at anchor. The next morning we cleared customs and secured dock space in the marina. After a few hours of boat cleaning, we enjoyed a lunch at the local pub. We celebrated Thanksgiving together that evening, enjoying a variety of turkey and fixings that Guillemette had provided.

Our stop in Bermuda was made necessary by early winter weather systems that made a direct passage to Antigua infeasible. We had planned to leave Annapolis much earlier but Hallberg Rassy messed up our order for a warranty-replacement anchor chain and instead of having it in Annapolis for our arrival in early October as planned it wasn’t delivered until mid-November. And then I caught Covid (my first!), delaying us further.

Once in Bermuda we had several days before the winds were to turn favorable so the crew set off in various directions to explore the island. Seth and I took some time to catch up on boatwork and schoolwork and we enjoyed walking the shore loop around Saint George’s. On Saturday we took the bus to Hamilton from where we caught the ferry to the Dockyards. While the Dockyards were disappointing (a tourist attraction catering to cruise ship passengers), the nearby National Museum of Bermuda was excellent.

We both learned a lot about the history of the islands (Bermuda is actually an archipelago of 181 islands and islets!). We were surprised to learn that the islands had no indigenous people but instead was occasionally inhabited by shipwreck survivors. And it wasn’t until the early 1600s shortly after the Sea Venture, the flagship of the third British mission to resipply the Jamestown colony shipwrecked, that the British decided to establish a permanent settlement. The Sea Venture survivors, amazingly, used the island’s vast resources to construct two new ships and then loaded them with food and supplies in order to complete their Jamestown resupply mission!

All of that brings me back to tonight. I’m on the 9 to midnight watch. Our breeze has been building since our departure and is now in the 14-18kt range. We have two reefs in the genoa and I just took a break from my writing to put a second reef in the main. We’re a tad slower with it but still averaging 8.5 knots. The sky is clear and moonless and we can see the milky way. It is a beautiful night for a sail.