Year in Review
Monday, October 30
Hog Island, Grenada
At 9PM on October 30, 2005 we cast off our lines from Waterboat Marina in Boston, waved goodbye to a few friends...and realized we'd forgotten to put our lifejackets on! But the wind was from the west, and we enjoyed exiting the harbor under genoa alone on our first night out.
The next few days of sailing were perhaps the most difficult so far, exposing us to strong headwinds and confused, choppy seas day after day. We were exhausted, bruised, frostbitten, and demoralized. Strong SW winds and ten-foot seas caused us to scrap our planned offshore journey to Norfolk, but we did enjoy sailing through Long Island Sound, past Manhattan, and back out into the Atlantic with the Statue of Liberty pointing the way. A week in Norfolk with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm recharged us for our further adventures south. We alternated motoring down the Intracoastal Waterway with a few overnight trips along the coast and arrived in Miami for Christmas.
Our Gulf Stream crossing held no surprises, and we sailed Delilah into a foreign country for the first time just before the new year. During two months in the Bahamas, we met friends with whom we are still cruising, we caught many fish, snorkeled daily, and hosted our first visitor, Greg.
Our forty-hour motorsail in light winds to the Dominican Republic went smoothly, and suddenly everything was in Spanish. The water heated up, the land got lush and tall and green, and we had made it past Chicken Harbor, where some cruisers spend winter after winter trying to get up the nerve to continue south.
After a few weeks, we pushed across the much-talked-about Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, then onwards to the USVIs and then the BVIs, where Bridget and Devin stopped in. Another night passage brought us to St. Martin's for the first of the French islands. Then we hopped on down the island chain (Martinique, Guadaloupe, Grenada, etc.) until we were in Trinidad for hurricane season and a visit from Joe, Sharon, Roger, and Lisa.
Trinidad was hot, humid, dirty (in our harbor anyway), and noisy. We got a lot of projects done on the boat, discovered the wonders of SOCA rhythm, pan music, liming, doubles, and Mexican Train dominoes. We swam in a pool instead of the ocean, listened to the howler monkeys and parrots across the road, and sweated off the pounds in our bunny suits while painting two new coats of antifouling on Delilah's hull.
Now we're in Grenada, having enjoyed our visit with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm, followed by a month in a quiet anchorage. In a few days we will pull up the anchor, dust off the sails, and head for the Grenadines. We are on our way back home. Surely every day is sweeter because the end is in sight--the end of our first cruise. We've been together just about 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year. I couldn't be happier.
Hog Island, Grenada
At 9PM on October 30, 2005 we cast off our lines from Waterboat Marina in Boston, waved goodbye to a few friends...and realized we'd forgotten to put our lifejackets on! But the wind was from the west, and we enjoyed exiting the harbor under genoa alone on our first night out.
The next few days of sailing were perhaps the most difficult so far, exposing us to strong headwinds and confused, choppy seas day after day. We were exhausted, bruised, frostbitten, and demoralized. Strong SW winds and ten-foot seas caused us to scrap our planned offshore journey to Norfolk, but we did enjoy sailing through Long Island Sound, past Manhattan, and back out into the Atlantic with the Statue of Liberty pointing the way. A week in Norfolk with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm recharged us for our further adventures south. We alternated motoring down the Intracoastal Waterway with a few overnight trips along the coast and arrived in Miami for Christmas.
Our Gulf Stream crossing held no surprises, and we sailed Delilah into a foreign country for the first time just before the new year. During two months in the Bahamas, we met friends with whom we are still cruising, we caught many fish, snorkeled daily, and hosted our first visitor, Greg.
Our forty-hour motorsail in light winds to the Dominican Republic went smoothly, and suddenly everything was in Spanish. The water heated up, the land got lush and tall and green, and we had made it past Chicken Harbor, where some cruisers spend winter after winter trying to get up the nerve to continue south.
After a few weeks, we pushed across the much-talked-about Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, then onwards to the USVIs and then the BVIs, where Bridget and Devin stopped in. Another night passage brought us to St. Martin's for the first of the French islands. Then we hopped on down the island chain (Martinique, Guadaloupe, Grenada, etc.) until we were in Trinidad for hurricane season and a visit from Joe, Sharon, Roger, and Lisa.
Trinidad was hot, humid, dirty (in our harbor anyway), and noisy. We got a lot of projects done on the boat, discovered the wonders of SOCA rhythm, pan music, liming, doubles, and Mexican Train dominoes. We swam in a pool instead of the ocean, listened to the howler monkeys and parrots across the road, and sweated off the pounds in our bunny suits while painting two new coats of antifouling on Delilah's hull.
Now we're in Grenada, having enjoyed our visit with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm, followed by a month in a quiet anchorage. In a few days we will pull up the anchor, dust off the sails, and head for the Grenadines. We are on our way back home. Surely every day is sweeter because the end is in sight--the end of our first cruise. We've been together just about 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year. I couldn't be happier.
posted by S/V Delilah | 1:37 PM
1 Comments:
i am totally impressed!
enjoy!
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