Turks and Caicos and the passage up

So the morning after Matt arrived, we decided to get going (partially because the wind picked up and the anchor started dragging). The weather was not perfect, but was supposed to clear as the day went on, and the next few days were supposed to be nice...supposed to be! The first day was pretty uneventful crossing the Mona Passage. The highlights were mostly the good speed we were making, and the dolphins that swam with us...unfortunately while Emily was sleeping in preparation for her shift.

That night the wind died a bit, so we motor sailed most of the night, but by morning we got enough wind back and turned the motor off. By this point though, we were all pretty tired. We weren't sleeping enough it was clear, and we realized that the shift schedule had a flaw. It actually gave us less sleep than if Matt had not come down (but it meant that nobody was ever alone in the cockpit). The schedule started out like this. One person slept, two people sat in the cockpit, with the person who slept last doing the active shift, and the other one just standing by and keeping them company. 4 hours later, that person would go to sleep, the person who had just slept got on active, and the person steering the last 4 hrs sat on standby. That meant we would be up for 8 hrs, and then sleep for 4 hrs...twice a day...which meant only 8 hrs of sleep and 16 hrs up. So we changed it to overlapping 6 hr watches, where for 2 hrs of our watch we were alone in the cockpit, and still only at the helm for 4 hrs. But then we would get to sleep for 6 hrs straight. This proved to be a very good system.

So now that we switched to that things got better, and at times we would all be up and be able to eat together, or just chill, play some tunes on the radio, etc. During this day, we hardly could make out the coastline of the DR...basically it was just water from a few hours out of Puerto Rico, until we arrived in the Turks and Caicos. During the days we were making good time. Occasionally we'd have to change course with the wind to either keep going wing and wing, or a broad reach 40 degrees off the wind. That second night required some motoring again, along with frequent radar checking as several container ships were passing us during the night and into the next morning.

This third day was where it got interesting. The wind slowly picked up all day to the point that we were making 7 kts steady and more surfing the increasing waves. But going dead downwind is deceptive...you don't realize how strong the wind is or how high the waves are. We cruised all day downwind and late afternoon it was about time to make our final turn to the north to head up to the turks and caicos for a morning arrival on Grand Turk. Well, as soon as we turned to the new heading, it was clear we were in for quite a night. The wind was blowing 25 kts...we were double reefed on the main and had 50% of the jib out...on a broad reach. The waves were mostly over 10 ft with the occasional wave probably up to 15 ft. This meant that we would have to hand steer most of the night...the hardest time to do that. The autopilot just does not work well with those kinds of swells. It's strong enough to do it, but the delay and lack of feel for the sea means our heading oscillates so much that we could jibe accidentally. So Emily had the difficult task of hand steering for her shift beginning just before sunset, while I tried to sleep. I got a little sleep that night, but I remember having to grab the mattress at times to keep from sliding off the bed. Not rolling...sliding! Matt was up the whole time with Emily, though was not feeling so hot. But thankfully he stayed up there because I didn't want anybody doing a shift alone in that weather. Emily hand steered through these waves for almost 6 hrs straight! Amazing.

To make a long story short, we plowed through the night...making great speed, but uncomfortably, and everyone was getting pretty exhausted. Finally around 8 am, which was when my shift would end and I would go to bed, we saw the first signs of land, and soon after we got to the leeward of the bank and the waves settled way down. We arrived at Grand Turk to check in. We dropped anchor, and had an early morning beer to celebrate a 350 mile passage! Then Emily passed out, and Matt and I dingied to the beach, walked to customs, checked in, and went to the closest beach bar and finally relaxed.

Thanks again to Matt for coming. He made this trip much easier for us and put up with about 70 hrs of constant rocking and rolling, and crappy meals...fighting fatigue at 4 in the morning, etc. The picture of both us after arriving at Grand Turks does not show my gratitude...it only shows my exhaustion! On that note, thanks to Emily for stepping up the plate that last night and navigating this beast of a boat through some fairly rough weather!

Now that I spent so long on the passage, I'm too tired to say much about the Turks and Caicos, so here's the quick synopsis. We still had about 100 miles to cover to get Matt to Provo where the airport is...on the farthest island west from where we were. So we sailed every day to get there. First we went to South Caicos which had a gorgeous anchorage, we met a guy on a catamaran who was doing sea turtle research, and met a crazy local in town who hung with us all night. The next day was a long sail where we motor sailed much of it to make the necessary 6 kts to get in with enough light to see the reefs...which we never saw anyway. Then the next day was a short but sweet sail to Provo in calm water and nice winds. After a tricky passage, we anchored off the marina, and went in and just relaxed. The next morning, after Emily schooled Matt in some poker games, we dropped Matt off and a taxi took him to the airport.

Too bad, because he missed an amazing experience. We then met up with the turtle research boat, and joined them snorkeling in and area they knew would have turtles and you can see from my photos that we found them. Just two of them, and they were small, but one was so tame that he let us hang out just a few feet from him while he ate for an hour straight! That was a great experience. The rest of our time in Provo was shopping, thanks to the cat who were so nice and gave us their food (since they were leaving too) and let us use their car to go to the grocery store.

The last day we sailed over to the farthest point west to make for an early passage to Mayaguana in the Bahamas the next morning. That will start another section for another day! Meanwhile, here are a few photos: