Stuck on a sandbar….
It is starting to get dark and somewhere near Compass Cay in the central Exumas and as we were trying to escape a falling tide, we were about half an hour too late and stuck on a sandbar. I have a Shoal draft keel and when we looked with fins and mask, the keel was […]
End of the line….. Georgetown
Georgetown is generally the end of the line for many cruisers. The reason for this is that the predominant winds are from the east and to get south to the Caribbean, it is necessary to head east before you can head south. Sailors wishing to do this need to wait for a weather window and […]
A day in the life of a sailor ……. waiting for a weather window
The wind is blowing 20-25 kn and I am tied up to a mooring ball off of Stocking Island, opposite Chat ‘n’ Chill beach. It is supposed to be like this all week with the wind settling down perhaps by next Wednesday or Thursday according to my PredictWind app. I’ve been here almost 3 weeks […]
A Fishing tale….
It was definitely the highlight of the day for me when I realized that there was a fish on the end of the hook. I could see him jumping 300 feet behind the boat, gracefully arching in the air and tugging on the 300 lb. test line. New at catching fish meant that I had […]
Adventure on the High Seas- Bahamas to New York City (well almost…)
I found myself hanging at the top of a 72 foot mast 250 miles away from the closest point of land in huge swells about 500 miles directly north of the Bahamas. Although the wind had died, there were still the remaining massive swells from the previous nights storm. Every oscillation affecting the boat was […]
Waiting out the Storm
It was 2:00 AM on Tuesday morning, May 10, 2022 when I felt the boat heel to about 15 degrees. It woke me from my sleep. I was by myself on my 51 foot sailboat. There was a terrible racket outside and I could hear the wind howling. I was tied up at the end […]
New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere
The fog was as dense as French Canadian pea soup. It was so thick that you could not see more than 50 feet in any direction. We were approaching the major shipping lane into New York Harbor. I was startled by a loud foghorn from a freighter that was steaming towards us at 14 knots. […]
The Last Leg of the trip home
I found myself alone on my sailboat ILEANA in pitch darkness. It was 4 AM. This was the last leg of the the 1500 nautical mile voyage from Bahamas back to Port credit on Lake Ontario. The wind was blowing 23 kn from the stern of the boat. There were massive waves making the boat pitch from […]
The Shorthanded 100 mile race- 2022
It was pitch black at 3:00 AM in the morning. The singlehanded race had started at 10:00 AM the previous morning but the winds had been light, so the progress had been very slow. My 51 foot Hanse was barely moving through the water. There were no stars or moon to help guide me. The […]
Getting ready to sail to Antigua
“Clear Caribbean waters, pink and white sandy beaches, a hot tropical climate, refreshing breezes, and friendly people draw tourists to the island of Antigua. Located in the Eastern Caribbean roughly 17 degrees north of the equator and ringed with coral reefs, Antigua is the largest of the English-speaking Leeward Islands. Known as the “gateway to the […]