Day 1 – Day of the Whale
We left the Dominican Republic bright and early on Sunday morning and despite all of our protestations that we were going to have another swim in the pool before leaving, none of us were up early enough of course. We’d done a little shopping in the local town yesterday so we felt well stocked up for our stint across to Key West. Puerto Plata was really interesting although the ride there and back was death-defying. The preferred form of transport is moped/motorbike and the road rules appeared flexible at best or possibly non-existent. We saw many mopeds laden with 3 or 4 riders or with luggage/shopping stacked up on the back. I don’t know how they stayed upright and weaving uncontrollably just seemed to be a normal part of the proceedings.
Ocean World Marina office and the Navy tower
On leaving the special Ocean World Marina, we hadn’t been sailing long when I spotted what looked like breaking waves against some rocks off to starboard. It turned out not to be rocks at all but a large whale making his slow way in the opposite direction to us! I have absolutely no idea what sort of whale he was, but he was quite big and brownish looking if that’s a help? All of us leapt up on deck to have a look – even Dad who’d been so reticent about the dolphins. As far as I recall that was probably the most memorable bit of our first day out, the rest was all plain sailing, which is exactly how we like it.
Day 2 – Day of the Eggs
So it turns out the best before date on the 12 eggs onboard was a few days ago and as a result we had eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner on our second day out. Tris did fried eggs for breakfast, I made ham, egg and chips for lunch and then there was omelettes for dinner of course. It was also on the Day of Eggs that Tristan made some comments about my hair that I didn’t much care for – the words ‘Garth’ and ‘Wayne’s World’ are not what you want to hear in relation to your own hair! I’m at sea and hair care is difficult people! He tried for a while to dig himself out of the hole, insisting it was a good thing (?) but the turning point towards redemption was when he made pancakes for pudding – using eggs of course!
Day 3 – Day of Showers
We tried out our solar shower on Tuesday – basically a black bag that you fill with water, it soaks up the sun and then there’s a hose with a shower head on for you to spray yourself with warm water. 
I fear we didn’t look as glamorous as the lady on the front of the packaging as we staggered around on a rolling deck, erratically waving the hose at each other. Tristan tucked some shampoo and shower gel into the waistband of his shorts, whipping them out at appropriate moments like some kind of John Wayne of al fresco showering. It was funny, slightly risky and above all very refreshing! The other shower was more of a torrential downpour at about 9pm that evening and shortly had us all decked out in waterproofs or sheltering in the cabin below. It was quite a rainstorm and I was quite relieved that it had passed in time for my night shift!
Day 4 – Day of Graunching
Regrettably not as fun as it sounds. On Dad’s shift on Tuesday morning the autohelm began to make a horrible graunching sound and started slipping, unable to hold a course. It clearly had become tired of doing the lion’s share of steering on this trip and soundly dumped it all in our laps. So from now on out it was manual helming all the way and a new appreciation of the luxury of an autohelm. Sarah stepped up and began to do her share of the helming to spread the load and also had a go at a night shift with Tristan in the cockpit. However, an alarming wind change put her off and understandably for someone new to helming, she didn’t feel up to a shift in the dark. Tristan ended up doing a 4hr shift to start, I don’t know how he did it, I’m usually seeing things about 2hrs into a manual helming shift! He should have woken Dad & I up but didn’t, so then Dad and I did 6hrs between us, 1hr on/1hr off, sleeping in the cockpit in between. I’m hardly surprised Dad chose to sleep in the cockpit as when he originally went to bed, he found a fish in it! An honest to goodness flying fish that had miraculously leapt with such accuracy as to clear the hull, soar threw the hatch and land on his bunk. Of course, Dad thinks it was actually a Tristan prank, but I do believe Tris when he says not. In all events, the first night of manual helming wasn’t too bad and as the sun came up, Sarah was back on the helm allowing us to get a little extra kip.
Day 5- Day the Wind Held its Breath
Sometime the night before we lost the wind and it continued to hold its breath for pretty much the rest of the day which is how we didn’t arrive in Key West on day 5 as expected. Even with the motor on, we had a crossways current slowing our progress. We thought we’d noticed a cooling in the weather as we travelled north but the wind shone with such ferocity on Wednesday that it put paid to that theory. We all tried to find the little patches of shade on the boat, preferably with a little breeze from the boat’s movement.
What a marvellous day to be at sea!
The seas calmed and in the afternoon Tristan noticed something odd approaching us off to port. It was a sea turtle! All encrusted with barnacles and moving very, very slowly – it looked like hard work! We had spaghetti bolognese for lunch and corned beef hash for dinner, both very tasty. Unusually for us, our supplies are running low and we even used up the last packet of instant mash – disaster! Luckily Tristan found some overlooked bottles of rose under the floorboards which cheered us up no end. I’m sure we could make it to Key West on nothing but rose if the need arose!! Actually there’s still about a million tins of chilli down below and one Fray Bentos pie, so I’m sure we’ll be fine!
The sun goes down at about 7pm at the moment so there’s a few hours of darkness before night shifts start at 10pm. We’ve been inventing all manner of games to pass the time and last night’s was a sort of categories game. Going around the cockpit we took it in turns to come up with an answer. A little way into the game it was Dad’s turn and we all waited expectantly for his animal beginning with ‘N’. We’d used up quite a few and were wracking our own brains for a new one so we didn’t at first notice the length of the pause. The pause went on, and then on. “Are you awake Dad?” said Tristan – nope, our skipper had fallen asleep on us unnoticed in the darkness of the cockpit!
Day 6 – Land ho!
The last night of watches was very wearisome. We’d decided to try a 1hr on/2hr off rotation, sleeping in our bunks in between rather than hunkered down in the cockpit. Trust me, it wasn’t the best idea ever! It sounded like a good idea in the day but in fact it meant summoning the will to drag yourself out of your bunk 4 times at 2 hour intervals. I have to say on my 3rd watch I was low on energy and enthusiasm. I have a nice bruise on my thigh where I didn’t quite hop over my leeboard as usual so much as levered myself over it! The 3rd watch was nice and hallucinatory. The boat managed to sound just like Tristan’s voice even though he was tucked up in bed asleep, I thought I heard him talking several times and also began seeing lights on the horizon (most likely stars or phosphorescence). When I asked Dad at the start of my shift if the wind had dropped he said no, despite the fact that he’d switched the engine on to motor and the wind gauge had dropped below 4 knots – weird! And why did I even ask in the first place when I already knew the answer?
At about 11.30 in the morning we picked up the buoy for the main ship channel into Key West! We were quite excited as we’re about a day later than we’d planned.
Approaching Key West
The waters were a beautiful turquoise as suddenly there were boats everywhere when we hadn’t seen much more than a trawler or container ship here and there for the last few days. We moored up at the Westin Key West Marina who gave us a very warm welcome on the VHF and saw us safely into our berth. Dad was soon off to customs and Tristan and Sarah went to buy us Key Lime Pie on a stick each! (PS I was tidying the boat, not skiving!)
