We Made It!

After a grueling 10 day passage, we made it to the Caribbean (actually the top of the Caribbean)! We are safely anchored in Coral Harbor in St. John, USVI.

The plan was to sail out of Suriname, cross the Guinea Current (which would carry us West), then sail due North hundreds of miles to windward of all the islands, then turn and have a pleasant downwind sail into the USVI. This plan went to crap when I underestimated the power of the Equatorial Current!
The Guinea Current is similar in strength to the Gulf Stream, so we knew not to fight it, just sail North and get through it as fast as we could. The Equatorial Current is not as strong, but enough that we were being carried into the Windward Islands with most haste. To compensate for the current, I had to point out bow slightly East (about 0* to 30* on the compass). This meant that we were now beating into the trade winds. We spent 9 days battling the trades and the current as we sailed close enough to Dominica that they radioed us to tell us that we are not allowed to enter their country due to COVID-19 lockdown rules.
We finally had to cross over to being leeward at Guadalupe; so much for being hundreds of miles to windward! After Guadeloupe, we were able to keep to windward of the leeward islands and eventually, on our last day, make our way into the Virgin Islands on a beautiful downwind passage.
After all that time at sea, it feels so good to drop anchor back in US waters and just relax!

We made it! Our second transatlantic is complete and we are almost done with long passages!

In the Virgin Islands, everything is so close together that the longest sail you could make would take an afternoon. When we set sail to Puerto Rico, it will only be a few hours, as it is only 14 miles from St. Thomas to Culebra, and 20 miles from Culebra to Puerto Rico. Our next long sail will be from Puerto Rico to Cuba or Florida, then we will be back in the ICW where a long sail is a pipe dream.
Sleeping underway is not as restful as sleeping at anchor, and I’m ready for my nice long sleeps!

Back to Wisdom

It has been a while since we have sailed on Wisdom! First we took a van trip for several months, then we hopped onto a friends boat to sail to the Balearic Islands for another month, but now we are finally home and doing what we do best!

The thing that makes this video extra special is this is the first video of wisdom with our new cameras. We used to film everything with a GoPro Hero 5. It worked but it has its limitations as a camera.
Now we are filming with a combination of GoPro Hero 8 and a Nikon D7500. The video quality is just miles ahead of our old GoPro which means that the videos are just stunningly beautiful. I really could have just watched the yard worker power wash the hull all day through the lens, it was just beautiful!

Enjoy this video and be prepared for from here on out, we are sailing all the time! We are leaving Europe and heading back across the Atlantic for a second time. Every leg we sail is well over 1000 nautical miles and the videos are purely about sailing once again!

Follow along as we cross the Atlantic Ocean right now!

We are embarking on a rather long voyage, from Madeira to Suriname (with a short stop in Cape Verde). For the duration of the voyage, we will not have internet access so the blog posts will pause for a bit. Once we make landfall, they will resume again!

During our voyage, you can follow us along in real time on our live tracking map and even message us directly to the boat! All you need to do is become a Patron on Patreon to receive the password to the map.
We look forward to hearing from you!

Herby and Maddie

Become a Patron!

Starting our second Atlantic Crossing

We are almost ready to leave Madeira to sail to Cape Verde and then on to Suriname. The batteries are all charged up, the water tanks are filled to the brim, the food lockers are stuffed to capacity. We are ready!

Except we forgot to download movies on the iPad! Weather windows and tides can be ignored, there is always a “next one later.” Crossing the Atlantic without any movies would make for a very long crossing, so our departure time has been rescheduled to “whenever Netflix finishes downloading.”
For our first crossing, I was much more nervous about all the unexpected and unknown that awaited us out on the open ocean. Now, I know to expect endless blue swells and the need for some entertainment. We have books, games, conversation, and plenty of editing to do for our YouTube channel; but sometimes it’s nice to just turn off your brain and unwind with a silly movie.
Out at sea, we will watch anything. It can be good, it can be cringeworthy bad, but it’s the only thing we have so we will watch it for the duration of the passage.
Yes, a properly downloaded movie collection on the iPad is a requirement for going out to sea! A large enough requirement that it could postpone the very start of our long voyage. 1,100 nautical miles to our next island in Cape Verde and then 2,600 nautical miles to Suriname. We are expecting to be disconnected from the outside world until mid November, so having some shows is always a comfort.

Mizzen Spinnaker

Why do some boats have a mizzen mast?
So that they can fly their Mizzen Spinnaker!

The mizzen spinnaker is a spinnaker sail that attaches to the mizzen mast and adds more sail area when cruising off the wind.
While this sail requires a significant amount of work to set, and you can’t change tacks with it up (because the main boom is in the way) it does provide a significant amount of speed, power, and stability to the ride. The boat becomes more balanced as the headsail is not the only sail in operation.

While you could get a sail in that space aft of the mast by setting your mainsail, the mizzen spinnaker sail is far enough aft that it doesn’t block the wind from reaching the headsail, meaning you can sail on a deep broad reach without any sail loosing its wind.

This allows you to carry more sail on a broad reach while still having a more balanced helm and plenty of power as you sail towards your destination.
The mizzen spinnaker is a great sail, but it is not a sail to set if you are in close quarters or going to be jibing anytime soon. It takes a fair amount of effort to set and douse the sail, making it ideal on a long passage where the sail will be up for hours (if not days)!