Blog #7 Life at Sea

Yesterday we woke up to the sound of chicken and pigs making their way to the beach of No Name Cay. After a morning coffee, we followed in suit and took the dingy to the beach to feed and make friends the pigs. Afterwards, we sailed to Green Turtle Cay to fill up on gas and water for the last time until we make it to the US. I was surprised to see that boating gas stations are just like car ones. We stopped at a Shell gas station where I learned how to set out the fenders, so the dock wouldn’t hurt our boat, and then we learned how to fill up the gas and water tank. Next, Amelia and sailed to Manjack Cay without the help of Vince! We first raised the mainsail by centering the traveler, unzipped the sail cover, and attached the main halyard to the headboard, and then using the halyards we pulled up the sail and trim it to catch the wind correctly. Then we set up the screecher for the first time, which is an only slightly curved front sail. After a lot of practice and hard work we took a break with a paddleboard session and even did some yoga on the board before heading back to make dinner.

Today we started our day by taking the dingy out without Vince for the first time. Amelia and I both got the engine started on our first pull which was really exciting for the both of us. We took the dingy to shore where we saw a ton of Southern Manta Rays and three different types of sharks, a lemon shark, a nurse shark, and a reef shark. One of the rays even had a fish attached on the top of him and he was just going along on the ride. It was so fun to pet the rays and feed them. The sharks never got very close to us, but I didn’t mind that at all since the reef and lemon sharks can get very angry very quickly. After the animals had all had their breakfast and left the shore we headed back to the boat for our morning lesson on sailing. We did some Navigation 101. Vince taught us all about coordinates, how to find them on a chart, and how to find your location using other points in the ocean. We even practiced a few times and Amelia and I got our location spot on to what our location tracker said! After lunch, we set the mainsail and the screecher up again and practiced trimming the sails correctly using the tell tales. From Manjack Cay we sailed to Powell Cay where we anchored for the night. Before heading in for the day we set up the pool floaties for an afternoon float session on the water. We have been talking a lot about the route we will take to get back to the US. Our original plan was to make it all the way up to Charleston, but it does not look like the winds will be strong enough when we need them to be for that to happen. We have to balance time, wind, and the goal of getting as far north as possible to choose the time and route that we will be taking for the rest of our trip. Right now it looks like we are going to aim for Cape Canaveral.