In The Bahamas Until May 2011

I updated my regular website on March 23 with stories and pictures.  Go to  http://www.svaquila.com/

We're in the Bahamas

I don't plan to use this blog as my regular update site. But I haven't had internet access in such a long time, and I can update this blog from my SSB. I haven't been able to update my regular website at www.svaquila.com, so I thought I would just post this update to let everyone know that we are in the Bahamas now. I'll update my website with stories and pictures as soon as I can find a good internet connection. We are checking out the Exumas in preparation for our grandkids visits in April.

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Moving On Up The Islands

Enjoyed Antigua, Barbuda, St. Martin, and now we are anchored at St. John USVI.
Details and photos of all our travels are on our website. www.svaquila.com

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Anchored in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua

We're feeling euphoric right now. We enjoyed a great final day of spinnaker sailing, doing mostly 7-8 knots. We dropped the hook at 3 p.m. in Falmouth Harbor under clear blue skies. We had been warned that having a pet on board would be a problem here. But there was nothing to fear. We checked the 'pet on board' box, they asked what kind, shrugged and stamped us in. That was it. They didn't even ask to see her papers! We bought fresh produce, returned to the boat, enjoyed happy hour in the cockpit as we watched the beautiful Caribbean sunset, ate a great big fresh salad and now we are ecstatic to know that we can sleep in our comfortable bed tonight snuggled together (rather than hot bunking in the sea berth on the off watch). Oh! Life is good!

I want to send a special thanks to s/v Solstice, Shirley for helping me set up this blog and John for the SSB refresher course. Thank you Herb, Southbound II, for the daily weather forecast and routing advice. A great big thanks to Mary on s/v Berkeley East for the funny daily news updates. Kudos to Jim on s/v Orinoco, who at age 71 is solo sailing across the Atlantic continuing through the Panama Canal and up to Canada. Heartfelt sympathy to Terry and Deb on s/v Wings, who on this ocean crossing learned that their home burned down on News Year Day. A very special thank you to our kids and grandkids for your love and support of our crazy lifestyle. We love you.

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Almost There

With the spinnaker up, we've been able to maintain reasonably good speed. The wind is getting lighter and the seas are calming. It's 6 p.m. Thursday, local time. With less than 120 miles to go, there is no reason not to reach Antigua by tomorrow afternoon. With less worry about conserving water, we both took real showers today (rather than bird baths and navy showers). Mike even shaved. We're ready!

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Whales!

Whales have been surfing with us for the last 2 hours. Fantastic! We sailed nicely through the night without squalls. Put the spinnaker back up this morning and even broke our speed record this afternoon. However, as evening approaches, we are losing our wind. The weather forecast calls for lighter winds for the next few days. Maybe we won't reach Antigua by Friday after all. We're going to leave the spinnaker up tonight. Keep our fingers crossed that we don't find any squalls in the dark of the night. I spoke too soon about Mike's energy level. He didn't feel good at all last night and went back on the sauce (Nyquil). He's been sleeping a lot. Good. Maybe now he'll get well.

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Better Today

It wasn't so bad today. We flew the spinnaker for most of the day playing hide-and-seek with the sun, race-the-black-cloud, and dodge-the-squall. Then the wind got too strong for the spinnaker and now we are making good speed with the genoa. We still have the swell, but it's not so confused anymore. If conditions continue this way, we should be in on Friday. Mike is still trying to get well. He doesn't have much of an appetite and he has a hacking cough. But his energy is good. He still does the night watch until 2 a.m. Then he's back up again between 6 and 7 a.m. He takes a nap in the afternoon. I tell him to sleep longer, but he can't. Man, I sure can!

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Tired of the Swell

Shortly after my update yesterday, we had to douse the spinnaker. We had squalls during the night and really choppy seas with large sloppy swells close together hitting us on the beam. We've been slamming side to side with sails slapping and snapping for over 24 hours. I'm so sick of these sea conditions! Why can't this be the flat smooth downwind trip we hoped for? The weather report shows our conditions will continue until Thursday. 20-25 knots of wind, squalls, and large swells. It's exhausting.

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Caught Another Fish

After several days of trying, we finally caught another mahi mahi. This time I tried my hand at carving it up. Yuk. I don't mind skinning and cleaning up the fillets, but I really didn't like sticking the knife into it while it was looking at me. I don't think I can do that again. (shudder) We flew the spinnaker all night last night. It was kind of scary because it was so dark and the wind was blowing pretty hard. We were flying along at 8+ knots. There is no moon at all and clouds were blocking most of the stars. It was pitch black and we even had a little rain. I'm so glad we didn't run into a squall. We're still spinnaker sailing today, making about 6 knots. As of this moment we have 650 miles to go.

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A New Year Begins...

..and I'm homesick! I would give anything to be in California right now. To talk to and see the very handsome Blake growing into such a nice and attractive young man; to watch rakish and charismatic Garrett excel in sports and school; to laugh with my beautiful sweet Paige and marvel at her intelligence and quick wit; to be so proud as we see pretty Kailyn exude confidence, skill and fearlessness in everything she does; to watch cute little Brady advance through the early stages of development from baby to little boy; to listen to entertaining work stories of fire fighters, police and school teachers from Lance, Sean and Keni; and best of all, to spend hours laughing and psycho-analyzing the world with my daughter Kimberly. Instead, I'm in the middle of the ocean with the love of my life, and that ain't bad. But we are both missing our family.

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Man Down! (with the flu)

Poor Mike. He got bit by the flu bug and was down for the count yesterday and all night. Lucy decided to throw up during the night, too. I guess they are sympatico. Everyone is doing much better today. Thank goodness the seas are calm and the weather is perfectly clear. I had no trouble at all doing an all night watch. The stars in the sky were fantastic and the sailing motion was gentle. It has been so wonderful to sail so much. We usually have to motor much more. In fact, we have only had the motor on for a total of 10 hours in the past 10 days! We raise our glasses in a toast to everyone for a very Happy News Years Eve! (Me=water, Mike=Nyquil) p.s. Don't worry about Lucy, she's spunky as ever.

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Halfway There

We have crossed the halfway point! We should be making landfall in Antigua in about a week, hopefully. We've been flying the spinnaker since yesterday with gentle seas and a 10-15 knot wind. Nice. We saw a sailboat on the horizon yesterday and then we saw another one this morning. Other than those two boats, we haven't seen anyone since leaving Cape Verde 9 days ago. We've had a relaxing day and we hope conditions remain this way.

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Caught Mahi Mahi

Yea! We caught a mahi mahi that will feed us for a couple of days. Of course, we had the usual blood bath on deck. What a mess. We headed south during the night to get down to more comfortable seas. It's not flat, but it is more comfortable. All the squalls are gone, and the sky is clear. Flying the spinnaker today and heading northwest again.

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A Squally Night

We got hammered last night with rain and squalls creating periods of pandemonium. We were up all night. The wind whipped away one of our window covers, the line that secured the radar reflector snapped, and the mainsail ripped. The rain was coming sideways, the sea was turbulent, and the wind couldn't decide which way to blow. Lucy was sliding around the cabin, legs akimbo as she skate boarded from one side of the cabin to the other. General chaos. We got the main furled past the rip, so we can only sail with it double reefed for the remainder of the voyage. That's a shame because it will slow us down without the full main. We saw the last of the squalls by mid-morning. Exhausted, we've been sleeping today. Lucy, too. The sky is clear today, but the sea continues to be choppy, with 15 foot swells every 5 seconds, wind waves and a large cross swell that we slide down the face of, kind of sideways. It sounds worse than it is, but still ... it's not the most comfortable. However, we are still in good spirits, eating well and able to laugh off any adversity (eventually).

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Mike's Birthday Today

We had rain and squalls throughout the night. The clouds breaking up created a beautiful sunrise this morning for Mike's 63rd birthday. He even got a rainbow from the west. That's a good sign because that's the direction we are heading! We enjoyed good sailing all day, but now it looks like we're going to get hit with a wall of squalls that are approaching. The wind is between 15-25 knots. The seas continue to be large and confused. No luck with fishing today. p.s. Lucy keeps us laughing. She's a riot.

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The One That Got Away

Something really big took our lure and all the fishing line! It would have fed us for a week. Needless to say, we had beef stew for dinner. We flew the spinnaker all night. The trade winds are building today, so we are sailing with the main and genoa making over 8 knots of speed with 20 plus knots of wind. Woo-hoo!

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Merry Christmas!

We are missing our family on this day. Wishing we could be spending it with them. We tried listening to Christmas music for awhile, but it made us melancholy. So we are flying the spinnaker and listening to The Eagles. Yesterday, I watched hundreds of blue flying fish skip across the water all day. This morning, we found several on deck. We've got the fishing line out and hope to catch something good for dinner. If not, I'm defrosting a beef stew that I made before we departed. We've got blue sky, sunshine and the wind at our back. Wishing everyone a beautiful joyous Christmas day! -Mike, Linda and Lucy

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Ziggin and Zaggin

It's Christmas Eve morning and we are heading as westerly as we can, as well as remain under sail. Yesterday we wasted a lot of time going south to keep the spinnaker flying, then north again to get back on course. Overall, our distance-made-good to our destination wasn't too impressive. We got a lot of exercise though getting the spinnaker up and down twice. We struggled to get it down in 20 knot winds. That's always fun! (not) We've still got the swell that keeps us rolling side to side. We stagger around the boat like a bunch of drunks, including Lucy. But we're all doing fine and getting into our routine. We eat dinner early so I can sleep until 1 a.m. or so while Mike reads his Kindle in the cockpit. Then he sleeps until almost 6 a.m. I listen to my iPod while I'm on watch. I've got 14,000 tunes and I'm doing a random shuffle. A very entertaining variety. I'm up to song 700 now.

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Spinnaker Sailing

We've been under sail since we left the harbor yesterday morning (about 26 hours ago). The seas are a little confused so we are bouncing a bit, but the wind has been 10-20 knots from the stern and we're making good time. The moon was full last night and today it's sunny and clear. About an hour ago, we put up the spinnaker. Fortunately, we were able to have the broken piece fixed in Mindelo. A boat sailing near us hailed us on the VHF to tell us we looked beautiful!

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We're Underway Again

Wednesday morning and we're throwing off the docklines and heading out of Cape Verde across the Atlantic Ocean! Our water maker quit, so we have to survive on the water we have on board. My washing machine quit, with a full load of clothes inside, so we had to flood the port cabin to release the water and get the clothes out. Other than that, all is well and we are off!

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Land Ho! Cape Verde Islands

It's Sunday afternoon and we are anchored in Mindelo, Cape Verde. We motored all night under the full moon. Today we've got beautiful sunny blue skies. And it's hot! We spoke with other boats arriving in Mindelo and it looks like we'll all be heading out on Tuesday as the trade winds are predicted to fill in by then.

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Heading to Cape Verde

It's Saturday morning at 11 a.m. We are going to Mindelo in Cape Verde. We've got 150 miles to go. Will arrive Sunday evening. We had great sailing yesterday. AND we caught a fish! Reeled it in and cleaned it while heeled over, without even slowing down. It was yummy and a nice change from the shoe-leather-chicken we've been eating every night. Before starting this voyage I loaded the freezer with pre-frozen double packs of skinless boneless chicken breasts. I thought I was being smart by not having to package and freeze fresh chicken. Unfortunately, each pack that I have defrosted so far has been freezer burnt. Grilling is out of the question. So I've been cutting them up in little pieces and making stews for dinner. I can make a pretty tasty stew, but the chicken bites are like chewing on an eraser. The fresh fish was delightful! We lost our wind last night and have been motoring ever since, but we don't care. We can refuel in Mindelo.

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Decision Time

It's Friday, 10:30 a.m. We've been sailing at 6-8 knots on a beautiful beam reach since 1 a.m. Fantastic! We're 267 miles from Mindelo, Cape Verde. After listening to the weather report tonight from Herb (the weather guru), we will decide if we should stop there. Right now, we're leaning toward a yes. The forecast calls for no wind at all this weekend through Tuesday. If we push south of the islands, we'll hit squally weather. Decision: Do we sip bubbly with friends at Mindelo? Or do we motor along with no wind? Or do we move down into the squalls just to find the wind? My vote is for the bubbly!
Current Position: 18.25N 020.31W - You can see where we are by clicking on the position link on this page

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Day 6 - Moving Slowly

We're only making about 4 knots of speed in very light winds. Sailing when we can, motoring when we can't. By Friday we need to decide if we are going to stop at the Cape Verde Islands for fuel. After that, it's 2400 nautical miles of open ocean to our Caribbean destination of Antigua.
p.s. Congratulations to grandson Garrett Austin for his Super Scholar Award! We're proud of you!

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Becalmed

Our fast sailing ended yesterday afternoon when the wind died. We've been motoring in very light conditions for the past 26 hours. We just turned off the engine to get a break from the engine noise. We just hate wasting all our fuel so early on! So we are drifting along at 2.5 knots on flat calm seas under blue skies with some fluffy white clouds. We check in with the "Rum Runners" SSB radio network each morning. Over 30 boats checked in this morning. The majority of them are planning to stop over at the Cape Verdes Islands to get more fuel before heading west across the ocean. We had not planned to stop there and we don't have any charts for those islands. We've got a couple of days to figure out what we're going to do. It may take us a LONG time to cross this ocean! BTW, saw dolphins beside us yesterday and whales last night under moonlit skies. Magical.

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Favorable Winds

We motored at 4.5 knots all day Monday with practically no wind at all. We found NE wind at 8 p.m. and have been sailing downwind at 8 knots of speed for the past 14 hours. Yeah! We need to continue going south toward the Cape Verdes Islands to stay out of the path of a forecasted system which will hit us in the face tonight if we try to make any westerly progress. All on board are fine. Thanks, Mary, for the fun news!

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Motoring Slowly in Light Winds

We are motoring slowly along in these very light winds. We have a 4 to 5 ft. swell on the beam which keeps us rolling. It's a bit irritating. But the sun is shining today and the night was full of stars last night (I had the 1-6 a.m. watch). One bit of excitement yesterday when we tried the spinnaker. We had perfect conditions for it and it was only up for about one minute when the shackle at the top of the sail snapped. We watch in horror as the massive sail fell into the sea. Mike was able to muscle it back on deck and stuff it back in the sail bag. We're screwed if we can't figure out a way to jury rig it. We were really looking forward to using it a LOT on this voyage.

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Motoring Slowly - No Wind

Reporting in at 11 a.m. Sunday. We got underway at about 11 a.m. on Saturday. Wind was hitting us on the nose at 20 knots, so we tacked back and forth until we could clear the island. Then we sailed all afternoon before we lost the wind. We've been motoring for the past 18 hours. Going slowly because we don't want to waste our fuel so early in the game. We're heading southeast in order to catch the wind. I had my day-one-drowsies and slept for the first 15 hours, then I took the watch at 2 a.m. so Mike could sleep until 6 a.m. Beautiful night sky! Lots of shooting stars.

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The Voyage Begins!

We're just a few hours away from casting off our dock lines. The weather isn't perfect, but it's good enough to go. We will be motoring for at least a couple of days heading directly south hoping to catch some wind. Maybe in a few days, we will be able to go more to the west. Our friend Jim on s/v Orinoco will be heading out at the same time, as well as quite a few other boats who have been waiting for our nasty weather to clear up. Some of our other friends are waiting until next Wednesday to begin their voyages as the winds are forecasted to be even more favorable then.

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More Bad Weather

Continued strong southerly winds will prevent us from departing the Canary Islands until Sunday, December 12 (maybe).  Looks like we'll be spending Christmas at sea, as the 2800 mile crossing will take about 3 weeks.

Delayed Departure

Gale force winds and rain will keep us here in Marina La Palma for at least another week. We got hammered last night with winds up to 65 knots and buckets of rain. Another system is on the way.

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