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!