5/10/08 Saturday

We left St. Thomas for Ile A Vache at 1:00pm after lunch at the fuel dock with our friends, Tom and Christie from s/v Ashlana. The wind was blowing out of the Southeast at 14 to 17 knots as we left Long Bay under a full main and the staysail. As we left the protection of Muhlenfel’s Point, we started rolling in the four-foot seas and everyone went below until their respective watches started.

5/11/08 Sunday

At sunrise the wind was unchanged and the night had gone by without any notable events. Two very large, light gray porpoises came to visit at 9:30am; they were longer than our fourteen-foot dinghy. Thirty minutes later, we were visited by a pod of 30 small porpoise. At 10:45am, after breakfast, we raised the mizzen and standing jib. The boat totally leveled out (not rolling from port to starboard) and we more than doubled our speed. By 11:12 a.m. everyone was up and feeling better and at 1:00pm, 24 hours later, we had gone 61.5 miles. The wind had been dropping all afternoon, and when I took my watch from Alexis at midnight, it was horrible. There was little to no wind and we rolled in the windless swell with the rigging banging and squeaking into the early morning hours.

5/12/08 Monday

By midmorning the wind had picked up again and at 1:00pm, we had traveled 97 miles in the past twenty-four hours. At 1:30pm the wind had picked up to 20 knots with a building swell as well. I took Tracy’s watch that afternoon, and toward the end of Preston’s watch (8:00pm), we reefed the main two points. The wind blew all night up to 20 knots. During my watch a flying fish hit the back of the settee and flopped on the deck for a while. Then about an hour later, another hit a pole holding up the hardtop and sent a shower of scales over me. Had the pole not been there, it would have hit me, and by the sound of it whacking the pole, a direct hit would have hurt a lot. I turned off the overhead light over the CD player that apparently had been attracting them onto the boat.

5/13/08 Tuesday

The wind had slowly been shifting to the east, which pushed us further south, and by 1:00pm, we had traveled 118 miles in the past 24 hours. We jibed to take advantage of the easterlies and to make a more northwesterly course. As the afternoon wore on, the wind decreased and by sunset we started to roll heavily, which continued throughout the night.

5/14/08 Wednesday

By sunrise, the wind was holding at eight knots and we were still rolling heavily from side to side, and by 9:45am we had made 92 miles but were now virtually at a standstill in a dead calm. We kept the sails up for awhile, hoping for wind, though they were taking a beating, and by 11:00am we gave up and brought down all but the staysail. I then sent my first email via the SSB radio to my mom to tell her we weren’t going to be making it to Ile a Vache today. That afternoon we tried to “heave to” but the boat just sailed to windward at one knot so we left the wheel lashed down and took single two-hour ship watches all night as the boat heaved relentlessly in the four-foot swell.

5/15/08 Thursday

By sunrise, the winds increased to between 5 and 7 knots and by 10:00 they were up to 11 to 13. We raised the sails and started off once again toward Ile a Vache. It ended up being a beautiful afternoon to sail — clear skies and consistent medium wind. At 12:00 noon I checked the bilge, and by 1:00pm we had traveled 13 miles in the last twenty-four hours. At 1:30pm I turned on generator and had it back off by 4:30pm. The wind had been steadily increasing all afternoon, and just as the sun had gone down, we noticed lightening off our starboard side over the Dominican Republic. On Lauren’s watch, Alexis woke me at 11:30pm to tell me the wind was gusting to 20 knots and the squalls were increasing and getting closer. I took over at midnight and had a white-knuckle ride in the consistent 25-knot wind until I couldn’t take it anymore and woke Preston and Lauren at 1:40am to reef the main, drop the standing jib and the mizzen.

5/16/08 Friday

At 10:00am the following morning we jibed again and took a heading toward 330 degrees, 200 miles to go for Ile a Vache – maybe 2 days away depending on the wind. It was currently blowing at 16-18 knots and the seas were rough from the night of high wind. By 1:00pm we had traveled 135 miles in the last twenty-four hours. As the evening wore on, the wind slowly fell off. I slept like a rock from 4pm to 12am. During my watch at (12:00am – 4:00am) it was blowing 10 to 13 knots and the seas were abating. At 2:00am I woke Preston and Tracy (for her watch) to shake out the double reef in the main and hoist the standing jib though we could clearly see thunderstorms pounding the landmass of Dominican Republic.

5/17/08 Saturday

As the sun rose we could barely make out Isla Beata off the southern-most point of Dominican Republic. By 1:00pm, we had traveled 92 miles in 24 hours. We had 108 miles left to go to Ile a Vache. We turned on the generator at 1:45pm. Two tankers passed between the island and us, and we were visited by two dolphins today. We sailed through a huge flock of feeding seabirds and threw out a lure, but to no avail. The wind clocked its way back out of the south-southeast at 11 to 15 knots causing us to steer in a more northerly track than we wanted to go so we jibed, turning more toward a west-southwest track over our rhumb line. The wind fell off to under ten knots after dark and we rolled once again all night.

5/18/08 Sunday

By morning the wind had increased to 15 knots and we were back under way in mild seas. All day the large mountain range of the southern peninsula of Haiti loomed on the horizon, and a co