Ada's boat blog

Location: Lagoon Marina, Sint Maarten I love this place! The lagoon makes for an excellent dinghy highway surrounded by good food, boats, and mountains. It rains during the night, and almost every morning, I wake up to a rainbow. Sunrises and sunsets are framed by beautiful, pink-gold clouds. The boats are beautiful, the views are great, and, most of all, the people are amazing. The week started out, as most weeks do, with a bunch of errands. Jem and I were getting a little scraggly with our short hair (there were spiky tufts where spiky tufts should not be) so we went for a haircut. The barbershop is in a little side-road next to one of the marinas and is roughly the size of a large garden shed. I went in to get slightly trimmed, but I had forgotten that the entire length of my hair was that of a slight trim, and so I came out slightly bald. However, as slight baldness isn't exactly a new thing for me, I'm okay with it. I was not okay with the fact that the lady blasted "...

Location: Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten This part consists of the semi-wavy part of the crossing during a few more things broke, and the arrival. Tuesday, the winds had picked up again. We had spent the night motoring, so in the morning we put up the sails. However, as usual, there was a problem: the mainsail leash had come undone during the night. The leash is a small line that runs from the base of the mast up to the top of the doused sail (where the halyard, the hoisting line, is attached) and back down again to a cleat. It prevents the sail from sliding up the mast, which in turn keep the halyard taught and tangle-free. Due to the fact that the leash was no longer attached, the halyard had jumped up and gotten tangled with a top spreader (a horizontal metal bar which is part of the rigging that secures the mast). It took 45 minutes in 20-kt winds and splashing seas to get it out. Our speed after that was 7-8 kts (15 km/h). It's amazing to see the difference of effort that it...

Location: Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten This was the peaceful part of the crossing during which I saw many constellations. It was amazing. The sun was out, the floors were only slightly damp, and there was so little slamming that you could actually sleep properly. We had almost reached the Dominican Republic, and it looked like there would actually be an end in sight. Of course, that end would still be in a while, as, due to the drop in wind speed, we were only making 5 kts. We took advantage of the calm seas to finally bathe. Of course, when you go back inside to to cook, you immediately start sweating again, but I'd accepted that it was an "out with the old, in with the new" kind of situation. During this part of the trip, it was calm enough that you could sit outside without being splashed. Before leaving, I had downloaded an app that allows you to see which constellations are in the sky. Back home, the light pollution makes it so that you can only see Orion and som...

Location: Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten Unfortunately, approximately half of my worldy possessions grew moldy. Fortunately, I had the time of my life. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. This story will be divided into three posts: Part 1, which consists of the departure from Cartagena and the wavy part of the crossing during which things got damp, Part 2, which is the peaceful part of the crossing during which I saw many constellations, and Part 3, consisting of the semi-wavy part of the crossing during which a few more things broke and the arrival. I also attempted to write all three parts in two days, and so I apologize in advance for the lack of editing. Shortly after I made my previous post using supermarket wifi, we filled two carts worth of food. One of the cashiers at the supermarket helped us bring it to the boat. Later that evening, Daniella, our Cartagena agent, passed by with our passports and gave us some adorable keychains as a goodbye gift. Daniella was ve...