Let the Adventure Begin

After 98 hours and 16 minutes of sailing, we’ve made it to Curaçao! Let’s break down our trip day by day… as we definitely made some spontaneous decisions along the way. Our apologies to anyone tracking us on Marine Traffic and wondering what the heck we got ourselves into!

Sunday: Crazy packing day. Can’t believe we actually made our deadline! Paul started the day with an early 6:00 AM morning dive with Jared at La Belle Creole on French St. Martin. I did some last-minute errands and provision shopping, and we met back at our apartment around 10:30 AM. Packed like CRAZY and got everything out of the apartment to get into the boat – couldn’t have done it without Jared and Sabz! We went to immigration and customs, and cleared out of St. Maarten after having spent two incredible years here. This now gave us a 24-hour window to officially leave St. Maarten and start our journey to Curaçao. Had a wonderful brunch with Jared and Sabz at Reveil Matín, and then a whirlwind of loading stuff from the car to the boat via dinghy. Managed to make it to Sint Maarten Yacht Club to say goodbye to our island family, and even pushed back our departure from the 4:00 (outbound) bridge to the 5:00 (inbound) bridge. Left through the 5:00 bridge (with lots of emotions and tears!) and anchored in Simpson Bay for the night. Went to Buccaneer Beach and met up with some friends for one last beach fire, and released some ‘happy wish’ Netherlands lanterns we found on the boat. A few of them disappeared amongst the stars, but one crashed down into the ocean (omen?). Tough to say goodbye!

Monday: Pulled anchor at 3:45 AM and loaded the dinghy onto the foredeck. So far, so good – left St. Maarten with a beautiful sunrise and fair weather behind us. We originally had planned to sail to Antigua for the first night, and then progress down through the islands (St. Maarten – Antigua; Antigua – Dominica; Dominica – St. Lucia; St. Lucia – St. Vincent; St. Vincent – Curaçao). However, being close hauled with an extreme heel was not the most comfortable point of sail. The boat felt like a hot knife slicing through butter, as our speed reached upwards of 8.5 knots. Already pointing as hard into wind as we possibly could, we realized that we were not going to make Antigua on a single tack or in the time we were hoping, and decided to get a better angle to just go to Dominica instead, skipping Antigua altogether. We hummed and hawed about it, but then the wind shifted another 20 degrees, and we decided just to sail away to Curaçao! So we did a complete 180 degree shift from our original plan… we decided to sail where the wind took us! We mentally prepared ourselves for the logistics of a 4 day / 4 night sail ahead of us. On Monday we saw the most of our islands before beelining it into the Caribbean Sea – leaving St. Maarten, we saw St. Barth’s and St. Kitt’s & Nevis before heading into open ocean. We reached a speed of 10.3 knots – our greatest yet! We were FLYING! First overnight sail on the boat brought three flustered flying fish into our cockpit, which Paul scooped out and sent back to freedom. Less fun – our spinnaker pole (which was holding out our genoa headsail to the starboard side to help gain speed) completely broke both off the mast and off the attachment to the sail. It was super windy, rainy, and complete pitch dark. Of course it happened on my watch while Paul was sleeping… “Paul, wake up! Something’s wrong!” A bit stressful, but Paul handled it like a champ! I have to say I’ve NEVER been so happy to see him come back into the cockpit after being out on the foredeck. The rest of the night was chill! We took 4 hour shifts on and off to be on watch overnight beginning Monday and continuing throughout the trip.

Tuesday: Set up our marine BBQ and cooked a few racks of ribs – the first hot meal since Sunday brunch with Jared and Sabz. Delish! I found out that I can read my Kindle without getting seasick – GAME CHANGER! Finished “The Talisman” by Stephen King & Peter Straub and immediately started in on the sequel. An uneventful night sail with no more flying fish friends.

Wednesday: LOTS of boat naps throughout the day. We probably spent more time asleep than awake! It’s been a full 48 hours since we’ve seen any trace of other human beings… has the apocalypse happened? Has everyone turned into zombies? We’d have zero clue. Tuesday and Wednesday definitely blur together! Tons of shooting stars and bioluminescence on the night watches.

Thursday: Finally saw another boat on our chart plotter’s AIS! We ended up spotting two cargo ships – waaaaayy far away. Still no pleasure crafts or sailing vessels seen since St. Kitts. This was an interesting day of sailing. It started out almost as if we had some doldrums, with really light winds and slower speeds than we anticipated even with our full main sail and head sail out. Not too eventful during the day – lots more naps and Kindle time! As the sun started to set, we did notice some not so friendly looking clouds building up to our port side. We decided to reef our main sail to the lowest point, so we had a very small sail, and we completely furled in our genoa headsail. It’s a good thing we did too, because we experienced winds gusting over 30 knots, and consistently between 25-29 knots. Even with our tiny baby sail out, we were still moving between 4.5 and 5.0 knots. It ended up sounding and looking a lot worse than it was. I think we ended up being in the right place at the right time; there was lightning striking all around us, but the area above our boat had zero clouds and a beautiful starry sky. However, with the combination of winds and lightning, sleep was not an option.

Friday: We made it! We arrived in Curaçao around 4:30 AM and timed our arrival for first light around 6:00 AM so that we could navigate the trickier channel into Spanish Waters. Coast Guard contacted us right away via VHF to coordinate where we would be anchoring, so we could have our COVID tests taken and immigration paperwork done right on our boat (super convenient, and a pleasant first-ever COVID test). We anchored in a beautiful little cove surrounded by mangroves and cacti (perfect!) and spent the day fixing everything that fell apart over the 4 day sail. It’s looking more and more like home! So far in our ‘quarantine cove,’ we’ve seen a turtle friend and freedivers catching a bounty of lobster. “Showering” off the back of the transom made me feel like a human again! Basically, you jump in the salt water (swimsuit optional, but check to see if you have neighbours first) and shampoo, body wash, conditioner, etc. Then take a quick 10-15 second rinse with the fresh water from our water tanks. So refreshing, and such a view! We had our first dinner on board where we were actually stationary, such a treat.

We will be sure to update you all as much as possible throughout our adventures. We’re looking forward to seeing what Curaçao holds in store for us, and happy to take a mini sailing break in the mean time! Sending lots of love your way, faithful reader!

XO

Toni & Paul