{"id":2961,"date":"2017-12-22T14:31:22","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T18:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/?p=2961"},"modified":"2017-12-22T14:31:22","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T18:31:22","slug":"2017-passage-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/?p=2961","title":{"rendered":"2017 Passage South"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many boats left as planned on November 2nd and made a planned stop in Bermuda for fuel due to low winds in the forecast. We opted to wait for wind along with several other boats in the Salty Dawg Rally. We departed at 1508 EST from Hampton on November 6th four days later than originally planned. As we neared Cape Henry we were greeted by dolphins. I take them as a good omen that the passage will go well.<\/p>\n

And our passage to Antigua was relatively easy this year. We started with little wind but enough to motor sail down the coast towards Hatteras. We crossed the gulf stream without big seas or swell relatively speaking.<\/p>\n

We had an odd influx of moths join us as we crossed the Gulf Stream this year. They appeared out of no where and left in the same manner. I counted at least 7 on board and they stayed for about 24 hours.<\/p>\n

We also saw birds 200 miles off shore \u2013 the most unusual being 2 herons that looked like they wanted to land on our boat but we were in the process of putting up the Code Zero (big sail for light winds) so they circled once and realized people were on board and continued flying south. Amazing.<\/p>\n

The cat was sick a few times but didn\u2019t give up eating because of it. We were surprised how well she did for her first passage. As time went on she came to understand the routine and often joined whoever was at the helm at night.<\/p>\n

One night while she was at the helm with me she perked up and got my attention to notice a flying fish had landed in the cockpit. She was curious so I put the flashlight on it for her. I don\u2019t touch fish, so the thing had to suffer it out until P came on shift to throw it overboard. It entertained Sierra for a short while. She sniffed it once it stopped moving and just walked on by back to the inside of the boat.<\/p>\n

We had a few squalls on our last few days of passage but none with winds of more than 25 knots so even these were easy to pass through as they were also fairly small in size. I appreciate a good squall for getting the salt off the boat.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A typical squall at sea (relatively mild <30 knot winds)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had to manage fuel as we knew we\u2019d have little or no wind on our final days of passage. We did this fairly easily as we carried an additional 49 gallons of fuel, giving us 207 gallons of fuel for the trip. We had more than enough as we motored the last 2 days of the trip against mild winds from the south.<\/p>\n

Our trip took just under 11 days. We arrived in Jolly Harbour, Antigua at 9:30am on November 17th. We used the wind as much as possible to sail us until the wind went south. There was a point when we were easily headed to Puerto Rico at which we had to tack and turn on the motors again.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>
A whole lotta whole lotta ocean blue <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Typical <\/a>
Typical normal sunset at sea <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sometimes <\/a>
Sometimes sunrises are as dramatic as the sunset <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

We didn\u2019t have crew, just P and I doing our usual 3 hour sifts. My shifts 8-11 and 2-5, his 11-2 and 5-8.<\/p>\n

Highlights were falling stars at night. The Leonid Meteor Shower was scheduled to peak on November 17th, the day of our arrival. The night before, Nov 16, they were clearly starting as I watched many falling stars on my last night shift before arrival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many boats left as planned on November 2nd and made a planned stop in Bermuda for fuel due to low winds in the forecast. We opted to wait for wind along with several other boats in the Salty Dawg Rally. We departed at 1508 EST from Hampton on November 6th four days later than originally … Continue reading “2017 Passage South”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-passages"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/PB066839.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2982,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions\/2982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svbluesky.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}