Now that the gang is back on dry land, Dave had a few reflections on the journey. He says that one of the most disconcerting things was during the long crossing in the heavy seas, as he sat below at the nav station listening to the rigging twang. Whenever the boat hit a big wave, the rigging sound…
Blog posts : "2015 Saltydog Delivery"
Saltydog finds a new home
Early this morning, we can see Antigua come into view. We are only a few hours away! Antigua is a picture perfect little Caribbean Island. The water is clear and turquoise, and there are more sailboats around than we've seen since Puerto Vallarta or California.
We made it to the customs…
We Could Walk This Fast
We had thought that the last three days of the trip would be easier than the first nine. Alas, we are heading directly into the wind and waves and hence are lucky to be able to make 3 knots good towards Antigua. At that speed we could have walked there just as fast!
As we pass by the islands …
Life with Mike
Dave came up on deck and mentioned to Mike that it seemed our speed had dropped. Dave was thinking maybe we had gotten wrapped up in some seaweed, so he put the boat in reverse. Sure enough, that improved the speed by a half a knot (a lot when you are only going 5 or 6 knots!). We begin to find t…
Who's on night shift?
It is apparent that we are not averaging anywhere near our estimated speed motoring in the waves and wind. A quick calculation shows that we will not have enough fuel to motor the whole way to Antigua. That means we get to tack our way under sail. Even though we are sailing faster than we can motor,…
Saltydog is now official back in the good old US of A
The crew is up early talking with the fuel attendant. He was not too happy to see us camped at the dock but after a while came around and just charged us the day-use fee ($10 per person). After being cooped up on a boat for 8 days, Mike has a way of making new friends quickly. The attendant said kee…
Another time zone
Puerto Rico is in a new time zone. This is now the 6th time zone Dave has sailed in since heading out in Apsaras. Before arriving in port, Mike and Dave go forward to work on retrieving the broken flag halyard. It broke early in the trip in the high winds. Dave manages to stand on the boom while the…
Going round in circles
Dave was down below entering new waypoints when he accidentally turned off the autopilot. Mike was at the helm and took over steering manually, but the steering was frozen. We double checked the autopilot was off but the steering was frozen good and we could only turn to port – hence we were going …
Dang furler
We had problems with the jib furling roller overriding. For those non sailors, that means when they tried to roll up the front sail, a big nasty mess got made of the ropes getting all knotted up. It was hard to get the ropes all untwisted. Same thing happened to Steve aboard Saltydog on the Baja …
Light at the end of the tunnel?
We are half way across and are seeing the winds come back down a bit. We were finally able to get a weather update, and the forecast is for light winds. We probably won't have enough fuel to motorsail into Antigua and tacking will take forever. So we plan to stop either in Dominican Republic or Pue…
How big are the waves?
The wind and seas have increased so we are proceeding with only the little Yankee up. We are seeing gusts well into the 30's. The seas are a constant 10-12 feet with an occasional 15 footer. Not entirely sure how big they were since we have never seen 15 footers but we had to look way up to see the …
Frogman needed
We are continuing to pound across the Caribbean Sea in 8-10 foot seas. Everything is wet. We have completely filled the cockpit several times. In fact it is so wet that light fixtures stay on even when you turn the switch off because salt water is completing the connection within the light switch…
Taking a beating
The sailing has been great thus far. We have been able to sail the whole way till we got all the way to the northern most point in Columbia at which the winds picked up more than was originally forecast. We put the Yankee jib on, taking the overlap jib down. The overlap jib has a rip, and all the …
Dream Team moving right along
The Saltydog delivery "dream team" continues to move along. They have had the motor off for 24 hours and are sailing along with no end in sight. The seas are 5 foot but steep. So they are pounding hard and taking some water over the bow. But they are doing ok.
The batteries were not charg…
Saltydog "dream team" launches for Antigua
As many of you know, Dave was hired to move Saltydog from Panama to Antigua for our friends Steve and Joan. Dave hired Mike and Holly from Wanuskewin as crew. Steve and Joan have taking to calling the three of them "the dream team". They all converged on the marina in Colon on Monday. Tuesday th…
15 blog posts