Category: Sailing

Sailing Overnight Alone (and together)

Part of the reason we hired Jeff, the captain who came with us from Provo to Luperón, was that we were nervous about our first night sail. While that passage was not easy, and a few things went wrong, we made it fine. Next up: getting to the south of the D.R, by sailing overnight alone.

Long Passage For Two Sailing Overnight

The next passage, from Luperon to Samaná, was almost the same distance. And we knew we had to do it with just the two of us. Sailing at night is challenging, especially when the auto pilot isn’t working, which ours wasn’t at the time. Someone has to be at the wheel the entire time. So shift work is required.

Domino On The Boat

I’ve mentioned Domino here and there in our posts but have not given her the full attention she deserves. People want to see more of our faithful traveling cat. Which is understandable as she is very cute. So this post contains photos of Domino on the boat. Don’t worry, she’s faring well since her first month on board sailing vessel Sava.

Sailing with A Cat

We haven’t had any issues with Domino in any of the countries we’ve visited. Either they haven’t asked about pets or when we’ve said we have a cat, someone will come to check her out but no one ever has. We have papers confirming her latest shots, but haven’t needed them yet.

Meal Times Must be Regular

Domino likes her meals at set times. This hasn’t changed a bit versus living in a house. She wakes us up at sunrise for breakfast. Sometimes she’s served as our alarm clock when we needed to get up to set sail or go to shore.

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Our First 24 Hour Crossing

We waited a long time for this. Without a working autopilot, we struggle to do long trips on board Sava. The crossing from Turks and Caicos to any island south is longer than a day. Which is why we hired Jeff to fly down from Florida to accompany us to our next destination. Our luck still being bad, as soon as we tried to leave, the engine conked. By the time we had a new part shipped from Florida, cleared through customs and replaced the engine, it was almost one week from when we originally tried to do the crossing.

Waiting for a crossing weather window

In that week, the winds were mostly from the north and not too strong. All those days we were sitting in Provo waiting for the part, the weather was perfect for the trip. And then the part came. And we looked at the weather again. If we didn’t leave on Wednesday, we were going to be stuck for another week. We didn’t want to do that, and we weren’t going to pay Jeff for another week of waiting either. Rather than the 250 or so knots to Puerto Rico, we decided to make a smaller jump of 145 nm to Luperón, Dominican Republic. On Wednesday April 3rd, at around 6pm, we made our exit from the lovely Turks and Caicos.

weather and wind

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