Passagemaking: Puerto Rico to the Bahamas

Rob recently pointed out that for a sailing blog, I write very little about actually sailing. This is a fair point, but it is true what they say—sailing is boredom punctuated by terror. Most of the time we are just staring off at the vast seas and occasionally trimming the sails. But it doesn’t take much–a rogue wave, a squall, an engine pitch change, a pod of dolphins, a fish on the line—and things get exciting fast. read more

Mayaguana: Our Last Stop in the Bahamas

After topping off our fuel tanks at the Flying Fish Marina, we left Clarence Town around 10:00 am. Even though we replaced our fuel filter system and tightened all of the hose connections, we weren’t convinced that our fuel supply issues were fixed. This would be our first overnight sail and we expected to change filters and bleed fuel lines along the way. Sure we’ve left anchorages at dark before, but this would be the first time we’d watch the sunset while in route. The last thing we wanted to do was repeatedly bleed the engine fuel lines while underway in the dark, but there is only one way to test fuel supply issues—and that’s to run the motor. We planned to bail out into Atwood Harbor in Acklins Island if things became too difficult. All of our safety equipment was set up, we emailed out our float plan, and we had a backup plan if something went wrong. We were prepared for our first all-nighter. read more