December 2002
Skippers log Nassau to Puerto Rico

Welcome to the colours of the Bahamas

 

Nassau was a "okay" as a layover spot. The downtown core basically caters to the Cucci crowd of the 4 cruise ships a day and also has a lot of noisy and stinky traffic. The anchorage at Crocodiles Bar and Grill was the best thing around and so was Dave the restaurant owner who is very accommodating to boaters from "a far"........Thank's again Dave for all your help! After drying out from the last voyage [that alone took a whole week....."everything was soaked and full of salt"].  Darrrel arrived as the sole participant for this voyage. The luggage the airlines had misplaced was to arrive soon they'd said..... A day later we finally left.....including Darrels luggage....."Island Time".

Traveling from Nassau to Allan's Higborne Cay the waters are on average only 10 to 20 feet deep.
The Gulf stream waters are crystal clear......the background picture of this page is the ocean's bottom as seen from the deck.

George Town ended up to be a lot of bad news for Darrel. After our pleasant  2 day sail down from Nassau he decided to phone home and got the bad news that his mother had passed away! Needles to say he decided to fly out as soon as possible......."good luck Darrel"...... I am thinking about you an will be sending you lot's of strength.

Single handing again!
"It is not at all easy beating into these  10 to 15 knots SE tradewinds"
The boat is covered with salt crystals, spray is flying everywhere and I am hanging on for dear life.
Slam....Bang....Slam....it seems to be never ending and I am not even sailing towards my destination.
Sloppy seas....swells on the nose....wind waves breaking and every time again "time after time" the boat comes to a grinding halt by the power of the wind and waves.
How am I going to get to San Juan?

It did get better....much....better as you can see on these pictures. Everything always changes specially the weather.
It always does!
....But....

December 14 15 and 16
No wind ...No mileage
80 miles in 72 hrs
350 miles to go
How am I going to get to San Juan?
 

"Did you get the red wine?"
No!!!..... out at sea this is a dry boat!
"Com on... there is  no wind".... a perfect opportunity to break the ship's rule!
"some times you have to keep your self company"

December 16
It's 8pm I am sitting naked on the bow pulpit leaning out as far overboard as I dare and can.... "screaming ".... on the top of my longs....as loud as I can..... out of pure joy!......this is soooo beautiful......ooooh soooo magical......The full moon is lighting up the scene like it is daylight, the ocean is flat calm, the wind  " finally arrived"  it's blowing NE at 15knots, all the big sails are up and flying and the Ar Seiz Avel  "with a bone in her mouth"  is blasting along at 6.5 knots on a perfect broad reach....yuuuupty doooo. Now this is sailing....Finally!  Just one of those special nights where every thing  falls into place absolutely perfectly. Now I  can see  "once again"  that magic does happen!......thank you Creator thank you so much!
"covered 65m that night...not bad at all"

December 19
Sometimes you have to do what you preach !
Eagerly I am on the lookout, binoculars in hand looking for signs of San Juan and castillo "del Morro". The GPS has been off for days, decided to do a good old fashioned "celestial" landfall. Always a lot more rewarding than just reading out the coordinates.

What happened ?
After all these days in the open sea
No Dolphins.....No Sea Birds.....No Whales.....No visible life except for flying fish.....is the Ocean empty now?
 have we done it? are we "THAT" smart!
Is this what we choosing to do?

Under full sails with the sun setting the Ar Seiz Avel sailed into San Juan harbour
Yaaaah....after all we did make it to San Juan!
 

Wishing you Fairwinds
Paul Mulder