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!!