But where, after all, would be the poetry of the sea were there no wild waves?
– Joshua Slocum
Waking up the morning of our first passage felt like a combination of Christmas morning and the day of a big exam. Surreal that all we have worked for was actually happening and the nervousness of a new experience.
It was a classic Virgin Islands day, sunny with a light breeze to start the day, strengthening as the day wore on to the steady trade wind 10-15kts. We motored round the west end of St Thomas and then raised sails, settling into a beautiful broad reach at 4-5kts with 400 miles of open ocean ahead of us! Alyssa and I stared at each other in disbelief, she states both of our moods, “this is really happening. I’m so nervous!”
The day wore on and the sailing was beautiful. The following seas were nice enough that we actually cooked some proper meals. I did make one unfortunate discovery around lunchtime. Upon inspecting the engine room, I found about a foot of water. After convincing Alyssa we weren’t sinking, I bilged the water and was relieved to see that no more was coming in. The engine room still being quite toasty, I shelved the investigation until the temperature was more manageable.
The breeze picked up throughout the day and as the sun neared the horizon we were clipping along at a steady 5-6kts. Plenty fast for our big girl! With nighttime coming soon we decided to play it safe, we took in the staysail and put in one reef in the mainsail.
After dinner, I took the first night shift. With a little less sail out we plunged along at 4 1/2kts, with the seas building from the increasing wind. Shift was uneventful except for all the extra commotion the big seas added. It was only 9:30 when my eyes grew heavy and I woke Alyssa to start her first night shift. Sleep overtook me quickly.
“ADAM!! ADAM!! OH MY GOD, ADAAAAM!!!!” Alyssa’s scream woke me up, I raced on deck only to be blown back by blinding rain. Beep, beep, beep the overpowered autopilot blared as Alyssa was at the wheel doing her best to hang on. Another deluge of rain soaks me to the core as I run to Alyssa and grab the wheel. I feel the power as Heritage races forward, pinned by the 40kt gusts. I can’t see where I’m going, the wind and rain hide everything the darkness doesn’t. I have Alyssa get a light and shine it on our wind instrument. I’m still holding downwind but the weather helm is pushing hard to turn us up, before I can organize a smooth turn to the wind, the steering breaks loose.
Holy Shit! It’s our first night and we’ve just lost steering…. What the hell do we do?!
The wheel spun wildly, completely unresponsive. Rain is gushing from all directions and I wonder where the boat is going to go. It heads upwind and the thunderous luffing of the sails sets all the lines a thrashing. Way past due to get some sail in, I get Alyssa to man the jib sheet as I furl in the massive headsail. The wind catches the sail, pulling against my effort but I double down until the sail is mostly in. It should be easier now but the line won’t budge. Good enough for now as the power is gone from the sail. There is a small respite in the winds for us to stop and think. Two minutes ago I was dead asleep and now I feel like I’ve been thrown into the final scene of some Hollywood thriller.
On cue, another onslaught of rain reaches us and the wind picks back up. Gotta get the sails down!! We’d already had the good sense to don our life jackets so I now attach to the jack line and head forward for the main mast. I drop the main sail into a mess, all blown to one side but at least it’s down. The winds are still pumping but with only the mizzen up, the rudder pins itself one way, the bow points into the wind but just before tacking, falls off to the wind again, with the rudder pinned. This process repeats itself and thankfully, leads to a suddenly calm ride. The boat is hove-to and somehow, Heritage is taking care of us in all this mess.
The squall passes and we’re left with 20-25kts of wind. Heritage is nicely hove to, giving us the time we need to figure out a game plan but unfortunately, we’ve got no idea what to do. We’ve got to get our steering back so we break out our emergency rudder for the first time. We find some small parts missing, find replacements and still struggle to get it together. It hasn’t been fit in a while obviously and things are not going together nicely. It takes us 25 minutes but we finally get it on and we have steering back, woohoo!
Nothing to do at the moment though besides leave Heritage to her own steering as she’s navigating the seas perfectly. With adrenaline still coursing through both of us, I start to work trying to fix the wheel. It turns out to be a simple fix as a bolt has just backed off and is lacking a lock washer. I tighten it down and we’re back in business. We seriously need a minute though and we head into the cabin, still in shock, cold and soaked to the bone…
“That’s the most scared I’ve ever been in my life,” Alyssa says, all I can do is hold her and tell her its alright. We take our time and I’m thankful Heritage is managing well. We pick ourselves off the floor and get to work clearing the mess of lines, we find the problem with the furler, a twisted line, fix it and bring the jib in all the way. We clean up the lines best we can and tentatively set sail again. We only venture to bring the staysail out and then drop the mizzen. The small sail provides plenty of oomph as we ride the dark hills the rest of the night.
There are two perspectives to this story though and we wanted to share Alyssa’s as well… rewinding to when I wake Alyssa up for her shift:
Alyssa:
Our crossing to the Turks and Caicos began without much incident, we cruised out of St Thomas, put the sails up and settled in. As darkness fell I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I hate night shift. Everything is scarier under darkness. The seas are wilder, the waves higher, the winds faster. Everything just seems to be more aggressive and one way or another you always end up staring into the east waiting for the sun to start peeking over the horizon. 
Top all that on being a new sailor and you’ve got a very anxious first mate!
I took over control around 2115. Sky’s were clear, waves were big, but Heritage was rolling them off. Winds were around 18kts out of the northeast. I had settled in and was reading about learning to sail (ha!), and thinking about how insane it was that we were in waters that plunged down to about 30,000ft. Daydreaming of the planet earth creatures glowing below us in the depths of the ocean I suddenly felt “a change in the winds”..
Then, faster than I could even understand, the winds had changed, the sky became black, the boat picked up tremendous speed, and the waves started to obstruct my view of the horizon… they began to tower over us. I checked our wind gauge, still out of the northeast but we were leaning towards more of a beam reach than broad and I could feel the immense power.. something was coming. I checked our speed.. we had been cruising at 5kts (which is pretty average for our big girl), we had already reefed our main for the night and taken down our stay sail. Our speed now was up to 8kts though… we were flying! As soon as I went to furl in our massive jib we got a huge gust and the rain hit my face like nails. I couldn’t see a thing, I yelled for Adam, then I hear the beep beep beep of autopilot going out, I couldn’t find the furling line, everything was getting tossed around. Adam walks up stairs to what looked like a scene out of the perfect storm, buckets of rain like only the tropics can produce, me manning the wheel, frantic to get us back on course and reaching for lines to douse the sails… Dear god.
Adam took over the wheel and was trying to bring us around when our steering goes out- he looked like a cartoon character spinning and spinning the wheel and it just frantically spinning to no stop as it comes off the barring.. “okay Alyssa, we’ve lost steerage, we have to get the sails in.”
We man the jib sheet and find the furling line to get it in best we can. The furling line has gotten caught on something. Shit, shit shit come on! Adam heads up to clear it and I try to get our main under control. He clears the line and I furl in the beast of a jib. Next we get the main preventer off and bring it all the way down. Still just gallons of water seem to be getting dumped down on us. The sheer power of the storm and the unreal amounts of water had us both blown away. It felt like the scariest roller coaster imaginable with someone just standing above us spraying us with a fire hose. I said a prayer that we could get things together and then we went below to get our emergency rudder out. Both of us were calm as our previous careers as a pilot and a nurse have engrained in us but inside, I’m petrified.
As we are looking at the steering mechanism in the back, we realize it’s just the wheel that is broken and that the boat has put us in a hard stop at 30deg to the wind. As the mizzen, by some sort of magical grace, has us in a perfect Hove to position. We take a moment to collect ourselves install the emergency rudder and then take stock of the steering wheel. It has rubbed its way through a metal sleeve (no idea the correct terms). We remove the broken sleeve and tighten down the wheel – thank god! We have control again no need for the emergency rudder (which was a beast of a tiller).
We take a look at our nav and see that we have been bobbing our way not far off course. It’s been about two hours and the storm has passed now but the swells are still just massive so we decide to take down the mizzen and put out the stay sail to get us on course and ride the waves a bit better.
It’s funny, I don’t know if it’s exhaustion, delusions or something else and I wouldn’t consider myself a necessarily religious person, but I felt like there was someone onboard helping us. To have the wheel lock at 30degrees, the mizzen to back itself and to safely get us through what I can only describe as hell, I think we had a guardian angel. I’ve now felt a presence or something like an unconscious reassurance hovering around ever since.
The next four days of our passage were better but it was far from a comfortable cruise! The winds and the waves stayed up, keeping us on our toes and the rain and wind storms came just when they felt our tensions lower. Even still, though I can’t fully explain it, throughout the entire time it just doesn’t feel like we’re alone…in the most friendly sort of way! I can’t help to think that in these deep deep waters we have someone helping us through.
…. back to Adam’s perspective…
The sun finally rises the next morning and we take in the scene, the waves are big, lines are scattered everywhere, nothing is organized as it should be. But just like us, Heritage seems to be in one piece. Alyssa and I can finally crack a smile now that the long night is over and we set to work organizing everything.
Wind is still pumping so we cruise along under the staysail and a heavily furled jib on a broad reach. Heritage stretches her legs and hits a nice stride, as night falls we play it more cautious after last nights debacle. We go down to just a staysail and set up our radar to keep a better look out for storms. The shifts pass peacefully with the moonlight playing on the big waves, looking all the more menacing at night but passing harmlessly under Heritage’s rising stern. It’s not till my last shift just before sunrise that any trouble is spotted. Thankfully the radar gives us plenty of heads up this time and we’ve got the isinglass all enclosed and the staysail furled about halfway. The winds hit again, not quite as strong as the night before and with Heritage all setup, everyone gets along amicably. Storm passes and the sun soon rises on another windswept day.
Day 3 keeps up the windblown theme of our first passage with winds 20-25 kts. We hadn’t made many miles the night before with our cautious sail plan so today I open the jib up fully to go along with the staysail. Heritage surges ahead, flying through the swells at 7 kts, plenty fast for such a heavyset girl!
The sailing is thrilling, at least for myself. Alyssa is still rightfully a little gun shy from the first nights experience. After a couple hours, she asks if we can furl the sail in a little. I get all setup and go to furl but the massive jib won’t budge more than one twist. I’d cleared the spinnaker line that had been the culprit the first night so wonder what the hold up is. As I investigate, Murphy’s law strikes and a big squall shows up on the horizon.
We’d never had the jib out in such big winds before and now I see that the jib had bowed the stay it’s on so much that it was rubbing up against our second forestay (an unusual dual setup I’ve only seen on Heritage.) Unfortunately, our first wrap of the furler had wrapped this stay as well and now the two were stuck. Tried unfurling but tension was holding the two together, oye vey!
No time now to sort the problem as the front approaches and the gusts fly past 30kts. I retreat to the cockpit and grab the wheel to ride out what promises to not be a lot of fun. Alyssa is not amused with the full jib tactics and to find us in a second storm unprepared with too much canvas up. Rain pelting, waves crashing and wind gusting even stronger we take the storms best hit. Thankfully it was not quite the knockout punch of the first night but certainly enough to rob us of the last of our energy and goodwill.
Exhausted to the bone, we still have a stuck jib after the storm leaves behind the days standard 20-25 kt winds. Needing a solution we gybe through the wind, once pulled over on the other tack, the two stays finally separate and we furl in the massive damn jib. We’re not having too much fun finding out all these quirks while in the deep blue but not much to do about it now… we slowly carry on, a little too burnt out to mess with the jib again, the staysail lead a slow march in a washing machine of an ocean.
That night didn’t offer any reprieve as small squalls dotted the horizon, none of them packed much of a punch but each had to be prepared for. Each one robbed the air behind it of any wind and we’d be left wallowing without much direction in the big seas. It was a long night in what was turning into a long passage.
Day 4 brought some morning rains, frustration and a slight change of winds to directly downwind which called for a change in the sail plan. We set to work to deploy a poled out jib to go wing and wing but once again we’d be disappointed.
This was a maneuver that we’d only practiced in calm conditions and now the big seas were proving how poorly planned our deployment lines were setup. As we struggled in the heaving seas to get the heavy pole down, the pin at the base got caught the wrong way. Unbeknownst to us, when we got the lines all setup and lowered the pole, the now caught pin had leverage working against it and was quickly a twisted mess along with the attachment circle on the mast. What a mess. This one felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We just managed to clear the pin out of the mast hardware and stow the spinnaker pole alongside the deck, to be used when we could figure this sailing thing out a little better someday. With the wind falling like our spirits and the swell tossing us around, we figured this was as good as time as any to leap forward to the 20th century. We cranked up our Diesel engine and dropped the sails.
After seemingly endless trials and tribulations over 300 nautical miles, we are now right by Silver banks and a day away from Grand Turk. Silver bank is an incredible underwater terrain, with corals that come up from thousands of feet to nearly break the surface. We weren’t right on it to avoid the navigation hazard but I’d hoped when planning the trip that we’d be close enough to take in the abundant marine life around, namely whale watching and fishing!
The rains now gone and the winds getting lighter and lighter, it was easier to take in the beauty of the deep blue water. It wasn’t long before I spotted the first spout, I rushed to the bowsprit with Alyssa hoping to spot a humpback whale but was instead was greeted by about 50 more spouts and dolphins leaping toward our boat, all eager to play in our wake! The fun of the acrobatic dolphin was just what we needed, our worries fading away as they played a couple feet underneath our bow. Unfortunately, I only remembered to grab my camera as they were leaving but it was definitely a sight to see!
The day carried along lazily. Alyssa and I sat on the back of the boat watching the waves tumble on, still big enough to appear as formidable walls. In the azure blue walls though I had a daisy chain of lures pulling through at a steady 5-6kts. I was taking in this scene when whitewater starts thrashing right towards my lure, the furiously swimming fish slammed the lure and the line screamed off the reel!! I did the same, telling Alyssa to grab the wheel as I grabbed the rod and put the brakes to the fish.
The Mahi-Mahi took to the air, showing off its blue body that somehow put the ocean to shame. Paddling with its bright yellow tail, the fish took some more line as Alyssa slowed the boat down in the heaving seas. After some time, I finally got the fish boat side. Nervous moments ensued as I tried to position the fish on our big sailboat for a gaff shot. I saw my chance, handed Alyssa the rod, grabbed the line and swung the gaff powerfully. A thrashing success as I pulled the now bright green fish clear 
of the lifeline onto the deck. Woohoo, incredible fish! The 20lb cow mahi took a couple minutes to clean (not to mention the now bloody deck) but we were both very happy with the prospect of fresh fish for dinner. A quick afternoon nap and then a blackened mahi burrito put the cap on a much needed lovely day at sea.
Now I’m writing to you at 4 am on a bright moonlit ocean, the lights of Grand Turk have just wandered into sight and the prospect of a calm anchorage seems to good to be true!
It’s been one hell of a first passage and there is plenty that I’d have done differently but both crew and boat seem to have pulled through alright and now new adventures await! Come back next time to hear about Grand Turks and us navigating the shallow Caicos bank on our way to Provo!
We popped some champagne took a well deserved nap together and cleared in by 10am! Stay tuned for our Turks adventures!
