Nasty Night

Mother ocean is making us pay. Large confused seas and steady wind. We have been trying to keep it slow so we arrive in daylight but this has made it more uncomfortable. Had a couple splashes in our very high cockpit.

Everything is a mess down below. Just had a tanker pass us way to close for our liking. I called him just to make sure he saw us. He wasn't stressed at all lol.

We are in good spirits. We can smell the land and see it illuminated in the distance. 15 more miles to endure. It's 2am so we will slow even more in a couple hours. Holding on tight. Yeeehawww

Getting our exercise

The wind has been directly behind us since we left only varying slightly from side to side. It varies enough for us to question if we should move the pole holding the sail out to the other side.

Inevitably we do (this process is not fun in the big rolly sea) only to find we need to move it back! 4 times so far. 

Last time we were in the thick of it and a dolphin did a triumphant jump and spin in the air right next to us. Startled me and I whooped out loud. I heard Graham from the front of the rolly boat yelling 'focus on the task at hand'!

Off to Santa Marta

We made it off the customs dock in Aruba around 8AM. A little squally out right now, buy this is supposed to clear off.

Arrived in Aruba

3 day downwind passage with our friend Jim on board. 

Perfect Day

No squalls all day. Wind and waves from behind at 15knots avg. Sun, good food, music, conversation and relaxation. So nice. Fingers crossed tonight isn’t a repeat of last night! Hamburger hash and mash potatoes for dinner.

Omg squally wet night!

Sun is out and we are all relaxing and happy after a very exciting evening of wind, rain and waves. Ugh! Salty Ginger and crew all did well and definitely had no problem staying awake in all the commotion. Heading to Aruba as we will arrive in daylight. 1 more day to go. Still loving it 😊 

Cargo ship just passed

Massive ocean but for some reason boats seem to be attracted to one another! Geesh. Happy to see that massive ship pull ahead. Moon out now casting beautiful moonlight on the ocean and our bird who has made a home on our solar panels. Bit of rain. Captain is sleeping finally.

Bird with us

Oiy. You know I don’t like birds. Now I’m not worried about squalls anymore ;-). Gorgeous night so far. Lots of stars some squalls. All is well. 

Casting Off

It's always nerve wracking heading out to sea. Leaving the sight of land behind. Feeling the weight of our "self sufficiency" hit our shoulders. Takes a leap of faith to cast the lines and go. The night before this voyage I said to Graham I was feeling more nervous than usual and he said, "all you need to think about is how little we knew last time we did this voyage on Artemo with our kids!"! Oh man he makes me laugh and this did make me feel better. He is so right. Lol. Salty Ginger has had the past two years of our blood, sweat and experience poured into her. We were definitely ready to go!

When you leave Grenada for the ABC islands you sail for quite a bit behind the wind shadow of the island before you hit the "true" ocean wind and waves. We had about 5 miles of gentle conditions and then a gradual build up to 6 foot seas and 20 knot winds. When the wind comes from behind yo, rather than at you, it feels so much lighter. It gently pushes/rocks you along. Once you get use to the rocking or rolling motion it is quite soothing. Stuff down below does get thrown around though and you are constantly holding on or tensing up your muscles to dig in. Lol.

We have all fallen into a rhythm now. Eating, chatting, sleeping, relaxing. At night we tend to rotate with one person sleeping and the other two on watch together. Last night we had some crazy squalls and so much rain. All three of us were up in the cockpit together. Reefing and basically being at the ready. The winds are so unpredictable in squalls and change directions so quickly that the fear is back winding your main or damage to our poles our jib. We all did great and I didn't even freak out. Times are a changing!

Ok I did freak out when a lil bird decided it wanted to take shelter for the night. Man they seem so smart. It flew around and around checking spots out until it finally found a perfect spot for the night nestled in our kayak paddles under the solar arch. Bet they stayed drier than any of us!

As I type this I have literally just yelled "land ho"!! I see Bonaire. Unfortunately it is 6pm and it would be dark if we tried to make landfall there so we have decided to sail onto Aruba as we will arrive in the morning. I can't stop the song "Aruba Jamaica ohhh I wanna take ya to …." from playing in my head.

Good night everyone. Cross your fingers for us tonight please!!

The Journey Begins

Omg!! Tomorrow morning we depart on a 3 day sail downwind to the ABC islands. I think we will make landfall in Curacao..the island in the middle of three. We have done so much to get ready for this but it feels strangely like it has come quickly. I’m nervous. I feel like I’ve forgotten how to sail. In June I had all the gears oiled and was feeling very confident but now that it’s been 4.5 months since we’ve sailed the nerves have definitely kicked in.

We checked out of Grenada this afternoon so it’s a done deal. Gulp. Graham and I made up a bunch of food for the voyage. It’s gonna be a rolly ride downwind. We practiced taking our pole down and of course it was broken. Thank god we practiced. We spent our second last day fixing it. The pole will allow us to attach our head sail to it and it will hold the sail out like a big wing out front on one side and the main will be way out to the other side…..referred to as “wing on wing”. It’s a beautiful way to sail but with big seas coming usually just off the corner behind you and the wind coming from behind you as well, you get pushed around and roll alot! 

Sooo many jobs have been completed and
Salty Ginger is more ready than me. The Bimini turned out pretty good. I have a few tweaks I want to make but it will keep the sun off us. I think we both need this 3 day break. Lol. Permission to just sit in one place and ponder life, listen to audio books, watch shows, write, eat. Awwww blisss. I hope it goes well. 

The friend that we made while our boat was hauled out in the yard has jumped on board

with us for the trip.  Jim is his name and he thought it’d be a good way to get some experience sailing and get away from his own boat projects for a few days. It will be nice to have one more person on the watch schedule and he is really nice to be around. 

We were able to get our satellite device working so you can track our position at this link: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SV-SaltyGinger

I also put the link at the top of the blog page. I’ll post a couple blogs while we are out there. And so….the journey begins! 

Boat Projects

Well fast forward three weeks and we are floating again and the issue with our stern tube alignment is
all fixed! Yahoo. We spent 2 weeks on the hard, living on the boat and working non stop. We found out that in 2019 the stern tube had a leak that the previous owners had addressed and when the folks who repaired it took it out they put it back in upside down leading to the misalignment. I guess it is easy to do. Anyway we are both so happy to have it in the right way and Graham made a few other things awesome with the new installation. He even bought a flexible coupling called a “SigmaDrive” which allows for a bit of flex with the prop shaft if there is any slight alignment differences…..which there aren’t but I’m ok with overkill ;-). 

We also had our washing machine arrive while we were on the hard. It was pretty cool to watch the fellows in the yard use their crane to we hoist  it up and set it in our cockpit. Graham then rigged up a halyard (basically a long rope that comes from the top of the mast) and we used this to hoist the washing machine from the cockpit to our salon floor. We decided to convert a cabinet in our main salon which housed boat parts previously to our new washing machine home. Graham got to work organizing and relocating everything. Next was removing all the shelves and building a very secure level base…..again I think he overkilled it but he wanted to be very sure that there is no risk of the machine moving as we heel during sailing. He also made a drawer front for the space below the washer so we don’t lose any storage. Our first load of laundry onboard was seriously momentous. We both reflected on all the time and money we have spent over the years washing by hand or finding a laundromat and transporting laundry. What will we do with all our free time ;-)?

While Graham was in the aft cabin fixing the stern tube I was in the  salon sewing our new dodger. It is massive and has three huge panes of heavy duty vinyl. It was truly insane trying to maneuver this thing thru the machine. A dodger (which is basically our windshield) also has so many curves and angles…..oiy. This was such a challenge and there were plenty of times I wished I could escape this project. I had to test fit it so many times and in the heat with such a huge piece, trying to put it on and take it off and mark adjustments….ugh. so glad this is in my rear view mirror now! I finally finished and it looks pretty good. It is passable! Of course there will be a few things that I see…that hopefully no one else spends too much time looking at. Graham loves it, so that makes me happy. Such a good feeling to create something like this. 

Our pallet of groceries, a carpet for the main salon and our bow thruster motor also arrived while we were hauled out. I was shocked how quickly Graham and another fellow had 19 boxes and a carpet sitting on our back deck! Now the fun began with finding a new home for everything in amongst all our chaos. We have 5 areas below our floor boards that we are using for most of our food storage. Basically cans, jars, condiments, dried goods and baking stuff is how I separated the 5 areas. I still have to divide up and vacuum seal a bunch of stuff but man it was nice to have everything put away. This boat sucked up all the food like crazy! So much storage. I think we are well provisioned for many many months. 

Graham also got the bow thruster motor installed which I can’t wait to try. The bow thruster is a little propeller at the very front of the boat that in theory should help to move the boat to the left or right via a joy stick I have at the helm. There are so many times when I just want to move the front of the boat a little bit but without the bow thruster this means I need a lot of momentum and water moving over my rear rudder to make this happen. Now I should be able to just push this lil joy stick and voila…..so if I’m just a bit off from the mooring ball I just give it a nudge. Man I hope this works well. We’ve heard that with full keel boats it doesn’t work as good as advertised. I’ll let you know. 

I also spent some time while on the hard preparing all our life saving emergency items for our ocean passages. I organized and packed our “ditch bag’….basically a bag that we have handy when we sail and if we ever had to abandon ship we would just grab this bag and get into life raft. I reviewed so many lists online of what to pack in it. I even ordered an enema kit as many folks say this is a good idea. Good lord I hope I never have to use this! I also had our life raft re-certified. The company that did this inflates it and makes sure everything is working well and repacks it with updated water and supplies within. The company also had us come over to see how it inflates and to overview what’s inside etc. It was super informative and very helpful. I feel so much better having a refresher. 

Needless to say the two weeks went by in a blur. We did managed to have daily happy hours with our new friend Jim. It became my favorite time of day ;-). We are now back on the water and finishing a few more jobs before we leave Grenada in a week or so……OMG!!! I am busy making a new Bimini for our cockpit. We had a new arch made for the back of the cockpit …basically a mini version of our back deck arch and then we reconfigured the stainless steel tubing to allow for open access the winches and for getting in and out of the cockpit. Unfortunately, this means that the old canvas no longer fits, soooo another sewing project. We need this cover to protect us from the sun before we sail. I also managed to cut our new carpet to fit our salon and sewed binding on all the edges. You haven’t lived until you have tried to move a 8*6 carpet through a sewing machine in your boat ;-).  I am IN LOVE with this carpet though. Feels so good on the toes. Boat feels so homey. Graham is now working on installing our Iridium Go. Its basically like a satellite phone that allows us to make phone calls and texts and do weather downloads while we are out at sea. 

And the last thing we need to do before we leave next week is rename our boat!!! Stay tuned for our renaming ceremony. I need to do some research as there are lots of superstitions about it and all the rituals you need to do. I am looking forward to putting out new name on the hull and feeling like the Salty Gingers again ;-).

Jimmy Buffet would be Proud

I’ve come to terms with the fact that we have to haul the boat out again to address the issue found with the stern tube. Today is haul out day. Always stresses me out to be bringing the boat to the dock but practice is a good thing. We weren’t able to find an apartment nearby so we are going to live on board while out of the water. It is gonna be HOT and there are the no see-ums at dawn and dusk and also the dirt and the climb up and down……yada yada yada. You get the gist, it isn’t the most pleasant but we do have a stand up AC that keeps one room in the boat moderately comfortable and with no travel time to and from the boat we should be able to make quick work of our fixing 😀. Cup half full. lol

We’ve been working flat out on other boat projects. My focus has been on making a new dodger (basically a windshield) for the boat. It is an overwhelmingly large undertaking. The 60 gauge plastic for the windows makes it so difficult to maneuver and move through the machine. The test fits take a lot of effort and super frustrating because there are so many angles and I don’t want any wrinkles and I want it super tight. The test fit yesterday left me with a bunch of tweaks to do. I have a feeling of dread and doubt now that this project will ever be done and done well. Stay tuned. Grahams confidence makes me worry even more. 

For fun we’ve been hanging out with a fellow named Jim who bought his boat last year and has been renovating it. Graham and Jim have been loving the frozen tequila margaritas! Jimmy Buffett would be proud. Every time we get together though the alcohol hits hard after a day working in the heat and probably not enough calories. Yesterday was  no exception. We tried to order food but after 1.5 hours of waiting on our meal I learned they still hadn’t started it. We abandon that idea and call it a night. The food would have saved us.  The evening involved a couple falls out of the dinghy at the dock, getting a little off track as we made our way back to our boat and leaving a backpack at the bar 😂😂.  Not to worry as I was sober. No tequila for me! 

Fingers crossed our haul out goes well today🤞🤞 and our time on the hard passes quickly. 

Project Manager's Nightmare

I've always dealt with a feeling like I am just waiting for the next hammer to drop. The next crisis or drama to happen. It's difficult to be really in the moment when you are waiting and in "Protect Mode". Sailing has nudge this "looming threat" feeling into overdrive. Feels like we are always just moments away from the next catastrophe. I tend to stay on guard and ready. I think I might even be a bit addicted to the drama. I have a sense of guilt if I let my guard down and feel too happy. I am use to mitigating risks and managing issues and adjusting accordingly but man this sail life is a project manager's nightmare. 

Yesterday we left the dock and headed out to tie to a mooring ball in the bay. I am working hard to own my role as helmswoman. I refreshed my memory on reversing a sailboat with some help from YouTube and considered where the wind was coming from and if it would be helping or hurting me. I considered all the lines tied to the dock and how I wanted them removed and in what order. I called the dock hand and asked for a hand departing. Gulp....my anxiety was building. I should mention that we have a very heavy full keel boat, so it doesn't respond very quickly and it doesn't course correct very quickly either. 

The dock hand arrived and I asked him to untie the stern line and loop it around the cleat and
return to Graham on the boat. I asked him to control the bow line and walk us back as I reversed. Graham would then keep us close as I backed up and release his line once the stern was clear and then go the bow and take the line once we were clear of the dock. I just had to make sure we backed up in the right direction and not to quickly or to slowly! For any of our sailing friends reading they might be saying to themselves, "no biggie". Well, I hope to one day share the same sentiments and be oozing confidence but for today....I am not there ;-). I am not gonna lie to you though, it is such a rush being at the helm and directing folks on how it will go down but also a tremendous feeling of responsibility. I can imagine a tiny bit of what Graham must feel as Captain. 

Once we cleared the dock and were underway to the mooring ball, I felt a snippet of pride and relief. Phew....task 1 complete and here comes task 2. The mooring ball is in a bay that is a bit unusual because the wind blows you into the bay towards the beach. Almost 100% of the time you are being blown away from the shore so it is fairly straight forward to pull in and anchor or tie up. In this situation it feels a bit uneasy as you need to enter and turn around. I called our friend in the bay and asked if he'd come over and help tie our lines up. I managed to come up right behind the ball with the wind on our nose and close enough for Graham to pass the line to our friend to loop through the ring and pass back. I could of been a bit closer but it was a pretty good job. 

Once we were tied up I headed to the bow feeling.....happy, excited, proud. I taped the
moment and asked for a high five from Graham. Once the recording stopped his face dropped. He let me know that our recent fix in the yard to our prop shaft and stern tube which connects to our engine isn't right as he had checked when we were motoring to the ball and it was burning HOT to the touch......there it is....the universe hasn't let me down. I can tell instantly that this problem will not be a quick fix. We had previously determined that the stern
tube to the engine has never been in alignment but after seeking lots of advice and consideration of the fact that everything has been fine for the past 10 years....we decided to just replace the parts that needed replacing and leave it as is.....well, it seems we should have just bit the bullet and fixed the bigger alignment issue at the same time. My mind starts racing as I consider options....most options dealing with this issue involve not having the boat in the water, oiy.....back to the yard and being hauled out. They require parts that often are not available on the island and need to be shipped....and they involve plenty of time and money. 

I am realizing that if I wait to be happy I am gonna miss it. This is our life....all the challenges and sunrises. There are going to be plenty of challenges but we love challenges, right? These moments can't own my happiness. Feels good to write it down. A letter to myself. I also need to come to terms with the fact that a schedule with sailing is most definitely not set in stone and my need for control needs to be relaxed. I need to settle in and let this journey guide me a bit. I can't be in wait mode....this is my life. 

Unwanted Guests

It feels so flippin good to be home. Unpacking…..is sooo good. We’ve been living out of a backpack for 4 months!! We are reveling in the nesting process. Also wonderful to be floating again. Every once in a while I think to myself “Are we moving?” And yes we are.

So far everything seems to be going to plan….except for one tiny problem….our new houseguests!! When we store the boat for the season we always leave a few bug traps out preventively. In all our years of sailing we’ve only ever had an ant problem but this time when I checked the sticky traps I found 3 dead German cockroaches! Give me big seas and bad weather any day over a cockroach. It became my mission prior to moving back onboard to exterminate these unwanted guests. First step was a deep clean. Opening all the bilges and moping everything out and looking for traces. I found nothing. I was beginning to wonder if maybe these 3 dead roaches were from early in the summer and there were no others. Unfortunately this was not the case as Graham sent me a video of a live cockroach caught on a sticky trap the next morning.

I went deep in my internet research and spent so much time at the hardware store that morning reading all the product. The stock boys must of thought I had an army of cockroaches at home. I came back to the boat armed with 4 different products!

1. Foggers: you basically close all the window, set them off and leave your boat, not to
   return for at least 4 hours.
2. Boric acid: it’s a powder that you sprinkle along the base of all walls, cracks and crevices
3. Baited Roach Traps: the cockroaches are attracted to the poisoned bait and take it back to the others
4. Sticky Roach Traps: these give us a visual queue if we still have cockroaches

Well Graham was the lucky winner of setting off the foggers. We did this on two different nights in different areas of the boat. We opened all our cupboards and floorboards so the fumes would go everywhere. Set them off and got the hell out.

I dusted everywhere with boric acid and laid out all the traps. We felt very pleased with ourselves. I spent a bunch of time the next day wiping down the boat and cleaning after the foggers. We kept checking traps and no roaches. We did it!….or did we??

We moved back on board and began the nesting process and periodically I’d check the traps happy to see no new guests…..until yesterday afternoon. Arrrrggg. Another live one caught on a trap. Now granted it had only been a day since the last treatment and the products say it may take a few days for them to be totally eradicated so I haven’t gone into full freak mode but I am obsessively checking the traps constantly.

Fingers crossed we have given these guests the boot! I'll keep ya updated :-).

Aisle Seats

I’ve been missing writing. It has been in the past a form of therapy for me. I think I might try it again

for a bit. Graham and I arrived back in Grenada on Thursday morning after a red eye flight from Toronto. It has been one hell of a summer, couch surfing with friends and family. Talk about a great form of therapy…so many deep talks and connections, so much laughter as well. I mused with my friend Amanda this summer about how to purposefully be more joyful and silly. I know it sounds too deliberate but man it feels good to laugh. I need more of it and somehow you become an adult and this silly part of you shrinks a bit. I’m gonna work this year on building it back up. All the laughter these past few months has really been the best form of therapy. Anyway it felt really good to be so loved and welcomed this summer. 

And now here we are back in Grenada and in typical “Perry Style” we arrived on the red eye cheap flight at 8am. For anyone who doesn’t know us really well “Perry Style” is basically “on the cheap”. Nothing makes Graham (and myself to some degree) happier than saving money and frugality. Graham also decided to surprise me by booking us seats not beside each other but rather across the aisle??? On a Red eye?? He kept saying, “we are next to each other…just across an aisle”. Needless to say his logic was lost on me and he will be asking me where I want to sit in the future ;-). 

During our last few days in Toronto we packed a Pallet full of groceries to ship down to Grenada. It is shocking how much groceries cost on the island. Most items are at a minimum double but it's normal to pay 3 to 6 times as much for items as well. When we were previously in quarantine in Grenada we bought our groceries online through the IGA website, so now in Canada as we shop we open the Grenada IGA store app and rationalize all our purchases by comparing the prices. The pallet pays for itself! It is also so nice to have some familiar items on board as we set off to cross oceans and we both love the process :-). Purchasing, inventorying, organizing, packing, arranging the boxes on the pallet like a game of tetris, labeling….love the labeling, wrapping the pallet in shrink wrap…so satisfying seeing it all packaged up as one whole, sooo good…..and then when it arrives…..well let me tell you ;-)! 

It’s interesting returning to Grenada as we have been here many times. The newness and wide eyed wonder is gone but it's replaced with a nostalgia and home-like feel. As our taxi (with the slowest oldest taxi driver known to Grenada) weaves through the streets I am smiling.  I have been missing this, missing my boat, my bed, my routine, my time….and mother ocean. Unfortunately, Salty Ginger is parked on land and dismantled for summer storage, so not yet an ideal place to lay our heads. Past Julie and Graham would have moved on board in the blazing heat after a night flight and probably begun work right away….but current us has learned a few things ;-). We rented a small apartment walking distance to the yard and had a couple hours sleep before heading to the boat for ½ a days work. 

Oh my god the HEAT…..I always try to mentally prepare myself but omg….I can literally feel my hair
instantly frizz….sweat seems to come from everywhere….my glasses keep sliding down my nose. I quickly remember how every job on a boat is a series of MANY jobs. First thing we need to do is locate a ladder to be able to climb on board. There never seems to be enough ladders. Once on board we get to work on hooking up electricity so we can turn on our stand up AC unit. Thank god for this small unit.  We need to find our extension cords….we need a few to connect the boat to the plug-in which is a
crazy long distance away. This involves climbing up and down the ladder.  Then we need to remember how to turn on the shore power on board….we should really write this stuff down ;-). This takes a bit of trial and error. Then we set up the AC with the hose out a window and the pillow stuffed in the window around it…then we press the power button and you can imagine we are now in a full blown sweat….I’m in my underwear with hair on head….and the AC doesn’t start. Hot, tired, frustrated….we pull out the filters to see if they need cleaning, we drag the AC over to the bilge to see if maybe it’s full of water….it isn’t. We figure what might be wrong and prior to pulling it all apart we try just one more time to plug in and……AIR beautiful AIR Conditioned AIR blows out…..sweet Jesus I love this machine. 

Now the fun begins. We have one week to do all the jobs that need to be done before we launch Salty Ginger on October 13th. In one afternoon we……ok Graham…checked a bunch off the list…I did a bunch as well but also had to have my first nap on board…glorious! Before we left for the apartment we put up our big sun shade and readied ourselves for a productive week. 

I’m so happy to be home. Even with the heat and the work and the frustrations….it feels so good. I am so excited about what's to come. I feel like our journey has just begun. We plan on beginning our circumnavigation in early November!! Pacific Ocean here we come….. YAHOOO

#pacificcrossing2023