Passage: North Carolina, USA to St. Thomas, USVI

November 4-12

(Part II will include the best pictures, including all the fun snapshots and some beautiful landscape photos.  Be sure to check it out as well.)

“Who can say what the ocean is, what sailing feels like?  When a cat’s paw comes stealing on a calm day, dark and gleaming over the breathing sea, and my boat begins to move, to trail her V, to come to life-what is it but a caress, a magic touch, a stirring.  When the wind heels her to the chainplates, when the wind screams so that she must bow her head and give with a blast in order to live, it is a passion exceeding sense or logic or understanding.  The ocean is like love, immense, omnipotent, moody, nothing, everything.”  Elliot Merrick, Cruising At Last

Well, we did it. The emotions following our passage are still sinking in.  Distance sailing is like any other endurance test.  You prepare for it.  You think you are ready.  You tell yourself that you can do this.  How bad could it possibly be?  And then you set out, and things get hairy.  Exhaustion sets in.  You are convinced that the pain will never end.  You are convinced that you will probably die out there.  And then, somehow, after hours, or days, you find yourself closing in on the end.  You get an incredible rush of energy.  You suddenly feel like you could do the whole thing over again if you felt like it.  The finish is here.  You stop moving.  And, as the adrenaline wears off and your body reminds you that it is NOT HAPPY with what you just did to it, you swear you will never, ever contemplate such shenanigans in the future.  But just like White Castle and childbirth, the memory fades a bit, and someday, you think, “It wasn’t soooo bad.  I could do that again…”

Our voyage was, in many ways, not typical of the endurance tests I have completed in the past.  I have done long distance sailing races, though none this long.  I have cycled long distances, but even my century ride only lasted a single day.  And yet, I found this trip to be the least taxing, both physically and psychologically.  Our trip lasted 8 days, 1 hour, and 15 minutes.  We traveled 1,441.08 miles from Morehead City, North Carolina to St. Thomas, USVI.  Our route took us south, then east across the Gulf Stream, and then southeast until we hit the tradewinds, which took us south to the islands.  (Due to the fact that our passage was long with lots of hard work and exhaustion, my memories do not seem to be in chronological order.  Bear with me and forgive any inaccuracies when I mention times and days.)

We had a crew of 6 people: Chris, me, my dad (Bruce), and the kids: Bryson, Reese, and Porter.  The kids kept normal hours, sleeping at night and playing/eating/reading/etc during the day.  We had to skip boatschooling for the week, because I was busy sailing and the seas were too rough for them to work anyway.  My dad and I were on a watch schedule: four hours on, four hours off.  While he steered the boat, I was resting, and vice versa.  Chris was a floater and was available anytime either of us needed him to assist with sail trim, course changes, or other issues.  He spent a lot of time checking the weather, examining our course, and fixing things as they broke.  He also did all the hand steering whenever the weather got rough.  In fact, now that I think about it, I didn’t touch the wheel once during the whole trip.  That’s hilarious!

It takes a full day and a half to get used to being on a long passage.  In this case, it was trial by fire, because within the first day, we hit the Gulf Stream, which was a disaster due to Hurricane Sandy and the impending Nor’easter, as well as other magical, mysterious meteorological factors that I don’t understand.  As a result, the Gulf Stream had 10 foot seas, in a confused pattern that created a pyramid effect.  Rogue waves measured at least 15 feet.  We were all a little seasick, except my dad, who would eventually earn the Iron Stomach Award.

Add to this joyful situation some squalls (heavy winds and rains with lightning and thunder) and you’ve got yourself a gen-u-ine ocean passage.  The foul weather gear was out.  The lifejackets were donned.  We were tethered to jacklines while up on deck.  All three kids and myself got sick over the side and the hours dragged.  Eventually, we left the Gulf Stream and the conditions got better.  I decided to apply a seasickness patch, and I was thrilled to find that the results are immediate and complete.  I felt fine for the remainder of the trip.

We had to motorsail on the second day for a bit to settle the boat through the confused seas.  On the third day, we motored for a bit when the winds died down to 3 knots.  At that point, “Time” gets a little fuzzy.  What is a day when you are up three times and asleep three times within 24 hours?  I remember we enjoyed sunny skies and calmer weather at one point as well as some on-board entertainment.  My dad and Kathy had put together a “mutiny” skit that he and the kids performed, complete with costumes, pirate names and scrolls.  It was hilarious and really boosted all our spirits.

That night, the conditions worsened  and we dealt with more squalls.  At 0530, our storm jib halyard broke, again. (It broke on our last passage.)  In exactly the same spot.  It was all hands on deck in the dark while dad steered and Chris and I pulled the sail out of the water, unhooked it, and lashed it down to the deck.  The morning brought more squalls, but the winds became steady and we were making great time.  As rough as the seas were, I was hanging in there psychologically.  I knew that the stronger the winds, the faster we would get there.  The more the better (up until 30 knots, and then I start getting a little scared).

We enjoyed chicken and rice one night, which Kathy made for us and froze before the trip.  All we had to do was heat it up in the oven.  We had a visit from a flying fish, who flew right into the cockpit.  They are very small and cute.  I also spent an hour combing windblown knots out of Reese’s hair.  We decided at that point to keep her hair in a ponytail under a hat for the remainder of the trip!  Each watch was filled with random moments like this scattered amongst hours of just driving the boat.

Two more days went by and we finally got to fly our new spinnaker.  We also got to broach with our new spinnaker.  Broaching was not nearly as terrible as on the raceboats we are used to, but it is disconcerting nonetheless.  The winds were gusting to 30 knots, so we decided to take it down.  Good thing, because we had 30 knots throughout the night with 8-10’ seas.  It was scary being up on deck by myself that night.

Speaking of night watches, my watches were 0800-noon, 1600-2000 (4pm-8pm), and midnight-0400.  Unlike Chris and my dad, when I was off-watch, I was IN BED.  If I haven’t mentioned my penchant for sleeping (ha ha) then I will tell you now that my body loves getting nine hours of sleep a night.  Preferably all in a row.  The quality of sleep you get on a watch system is clearly not great.  Because I can get seasick, being down below decks was not always comfortable.  Sleeping in my cabin, up forward, was out of the question.  The front of the boat is the worst place you can be.  The movements there are more intense than anywhere else on the boat.  So I had to sleep with the kids in their cabin, or lie perched on the couch in the main saloon, which was not very comfortable when on starboard tack, and impossible when on port tack.  Because I had to be ready to be on deck at any moment, I had to stay in my sailing clothes 24/7.  Add to this the dank, wet, hot conditions down below, and sleeping became a true challenge.

One of my favorite moments from the passage was hitting 1,000 miles.  It takes about 10 minutes to go one mile on our sailboat, as we average 6-7 knots in decent wind.  I had been staring at our trip meter for days and couldn’t wait to see it turn to 1,000.  In addition, my dad, the kids, and I would all qualify to join the Ocean Cruising Club at that moment, since they only accept members who have done a non-stop ocean passage of 1,000 miles or more (Chris qualified in 1993 when he completed the TransAtlantic Race).  We were all looking forward to this momentous occasion and we chose to send out two Message in a Bottles, a gift from the Batt family back at home.  We loved the idea of sending out a message from 1,000 miles out to sea, and hope that someone finds one of them and gets in touch with us someday.

We caught several fish on our trip: 2 mahi mahi, a blackfin tuna, and one that we couldn’t identify.  The kids loved being the first to yell, “Fish On!” when the reel started spinning.  We enjoyed our fish dinner when we got to St. Thomas.  The day we caught our first fish, I gave the kids a puzzle of the Fish of the Atlantic Ocean.  They enjoyed getting a little gift each day of the passage.  I hoped it would bring a smile to their faces and help with boredom.  As it turned out, they did great despite the rough conditions.  The biggest hit was the colored duct tape, which is the newest thing apparently.  The kids use it to make all sorts of origami-type projects.  It kept them busy for hours.  They also enjoyed the school supplies, which surprised me.

I know I have beat the water horse to death on this website, but we only have 220 gallons of fresh water on our boat and this had to last us the whole trip, obviously.  With 6 people, we had to be very careful with our water consumption.  We washed our hands with baby wipes and were conservative about all other water usage. 

But by Wednesday, I absolutely had to take a shower.  I hadn’t taken one since Saturday.  I took a salt water shower and treated myself to a ten second fresh water rinse on the swim platform.  On the second to last day, I knew we were going to have enough water, so I took a very short shower in the head.  It should have qualified as a full-contact sport.  I still have bruises from trying not to get thrown all over the place!

Still, the whole process was much more comfortable than in a race boat, which doesn’t have the amenities of a cruising boat.  Like a separate room for the head.  And real bunks.  I tried to maintain some semblance of my typical routine, like brushing my teeth right before bed and as soon as I woke up; eating breakfast at the beginning of my 0800 shift, and making a hot dinner each night.  We did manage this on all but two nights, which were way too rough to cook.

I liked the start of my watches.   I would come up on deck, food in hand, and take a look around.  I always had high hopes that we had miraculously traveled great distances since four hours before.  My dad would fill me in on what happened during his watch and I would sit down at the chartplotter to study the numbers.  What is our boat speed, wind speed, and wind direction?  What is our Latitude and Longitude?  Where are we on the chart? How far have we traveled and how many miles is it to St. Thomas?  If I zoom in one level, can I still see our boat AND St. Thomas on the screen?  By the time I finished playing with the chartplotter, I had usually burned up at least a half hour.  By the 6th night, I was having full-on conversations with the chartplotter.  Our relationship had gone to the next level, and I found myself saying, “Really?! So you’re telling me we still have 99 hours and 99 minutes to go?  Or do you just not have enough digits to tell me the truth?”  I decided to back off a bit and listen to some nice, relaxing music.

Then I would start looking around, as if there would be anything to see except ocean, ocean, ocean, as far as the eye could see.  And if it was nighttime, all I could see was nothing at all.  I think we saw four boats the entire time: two freighters and two sailboats.  On the last night, I came up on deck for my watch at midnight and my dad pointed to a red light in the distance.  A boat!  We used our knowledge of nighttime lighting to determine that it was a sailboat, headed in the same direction as we were, and slightly behind us, as we could not see his white light.  We decided to hail him on the VHF: “This is the sailing vessel Patronus, sailing south, 80 miles north of St. Thomas hailing the sailing vessel due east of us.  Come in,” and the skipper answered right away!  He sounded so clear.  It was the first voice outside of our own that we had heard in 7 days.  You would have thought we were the crew of the SS Minnow, making contact with rescuers after 7 seasons on Gilligan’s Island.  We chatted for a bit and discovered he was also headed for Red Hook, St. Thomas.  The whole situation was very entertaining and I had fun staring at his red light the rest of my watch, just for something different to do…

As that night wore on, I realized that I would only have one more watch and then I could sleep for the rest of my life if I wanted to!  We got to say “Land Ho!” before my dad took over at 0400.  We saw the lights of St. Thomas in the distance.   It was hard to sleep because everything was so grungy on the boat.  I was somehow more appalled than I was tired.  I just laid on top of the sheets and tried to breathe without smelling.  Everything we owned had been damp for 8 days and we couldn’t open any hatches/portholes because the waves would have gotten in.  It was a seriously bad scene.

When I got up at 0830 (Chris was up so I snuck in an extra half hour), the mountains of the Caribbean had sprung up all around us.  It looked absolutely breathtaking.  We were all feeling excited and were celebrating with pictures and video.  The kids were up on deck and perched in their favorite spot: up on the boom.  As Chris skillfully pulled into the dock in heavy winds, I thought about how much we had accomplished, how lucky we were to have such a smooth passage, and how wonderful it had been to share that experience with my dad.  Most of all, I was filled with intense pride.  Our children had completed a true ocean passage.  Not many people can say they have done that, and they were wonderful every minute of the way.  Despite seasickness, they did not complain once about a thing.  They kept busy, slept well, ate well, and played together constantly.

All that was left was to fill out our applications for the Ocean Cruising Club.  Oh, and take a real shower.  Do laundry.  Wash every single thing on that boat.  And sleep…. Only then will I remember that all this has led to spending our winter cruising the islands of the Caribbean.