I’ll admit that our last passage rattled me enough that I was dreading our next one. I was so busy right up to departure that I didn’t have time to dwell on it (thankfully), but as we waited for the Bridge of Lions, I had a knot in my stomach. Conditions were predicted to be just about perfect, fading back to dead freakin’ calm, yet I was anything but. I cringed through the entire inlet, and the absolute worst we saw was a couple 5’ers as we crossed the bar. Easy peasy, but I cringed through the whole thing and didn’t start to settle until we were past the sea buoy, and I was fully aware how irrational that was.
We shook out the reef and rolled out a full jib for the first time since we left New York. Windara ate it up, and I felt the fear/stress/frustration with the weather just melt away. Sure the breeze was on the light side, but it felt so good to have a quiet, civilized sail. After seeing 20kts+ on every single sail so far this trip, a light breeze was a welcome change. We had a leftover beam sea that made things rolly, but it was only annoying when the wind died completely late in the evening and we had to motor, causing the sail to slat and the boom to slam back and forth.
We were close enough to shore to have cell signal, and I was texting with Lori when she sent me a photo and said “Wonder if this is you guys?” Turns out, it was!
We saw tons of dolphins, and I saw a couple rays jump clear out of the water. The sun set a delicious lemon yellow color, and the bright moon shone overhead. The whole day felt like a gift from Mother Nature.
I listened to a couple podcasts (a super nerdy-but-interesting “Stuff You Should Know” podcast on the Rubik’s Cube and a reading of The Hobbit) during my watch to keep myself awake. It was a gorgeous night with flecks of bioluminescence in the waves and Orion to keep me company once again. The only challenging part of the watch was keeping us slow enough to avoid arriving too early. I had to be careful with the engine – running it up enough to not damage it, but then slowing it back to keep us on schedule.
I hadn’t slept on my first off-watch, but when Chris came on watch at 6am, I went down for a nap, expecting to be up in an hour or so. Instead, I knocked out cold immediately, which is unheard of for me on the first night of a passage, and slept for almost four hours.
We motored through the shoals, even though the breeze had come back as a decent light sailing breeze, but once we were past, we snuck in a little more sailing. We cut the engine and headed towards port, moving along at 6kts in about 10kts of breeze on a gentle heel. It was a good opportunity to play with some of the sail controls that Silent Sky never had (and that we haven’t bothered with in more boisterous conditions) and see how Windara responded. She’s super responsive to minor sail adjustments, and it was fun to get a glimpse into her racing lineage. Just before we reached port, we saw a big leatherback turtle swimming a few yards away.
This passage restored my soul – it was precisely the slow, calm, easy passage that I’ve been craving this season, and it reminded me of everything I love about being offshore. I can’t put into words how deeply this leg of the journey affected me – it’s one of those moments in nature that you just have to experience for yourself.