Splendor & Terror: A Sailing Journey from Deltaville to Luperon

The past few months have felt like a whirlwind, constantly moving; everyday feeling like we were on to the next place.

While this may sound exciting and fun, it’s also hard to feel grounded. When one becomes ungrounded, things can become blurry or confusing and you can lose sight of things, like why you are doing this in the first place. Blake and I both agreed that we felt like our journey was lacking purpose; we were lacking purpose. We began researching seasonal work and other sailing related work. We put some feelers out to see what would happen. It felt like the beginning of the end of our sailing voyage.

Blake needed to be with his family back in Texas so we decided that Josephine and I would stay at a marina in Canton, a trendy little Baltimore neighborhood. The first three days in Baltimore were sunny and in the mid-70s and I spent those days outdoors. Then the weather shifted and it was in the upper 30s to mid-40s with constant rain. I could not shake the cold that had settled into my bones. During this time, I had a video chat with my yoga teacher, Padma. I talked to her about my feelings around this journey and she said something along the lines of, “I will never be an advocate for quitting something.” She suggested I take some time and remember why I began this journey in the first place. Why did I pour six years of my blood, sweat, and tears into this? And why was I willing to throw it away after a year?

I let this simmer as I spent my evening huddled by the oven, on the floor, as I roasted veggies, desperate for warmth. In the misery of my current environment, it struck me, it’s not time to quit; it’s time to challenge ourselves. We have become complacent with short, intercoastal hops. When Blake came back he shared that he had spoken with his friend, Patrick, about feeling purposeless and the possibility of calling it quits. Patrick brilliantly responded, “How much purpose did you feel going to work everyday?”

Blake was certain after the challenging conditions I had endured on the boat while he was away that I was going to be ready to call it quits. Instead, I told him, “If we are going to do this, we need to quit pussyfooting around, push ourselves, and put into action what we set out to do. We are goal-oriented individuals and thrive when we push and challenge ourselves.” We are at our best as a couple when we have projects and mutual goals to achieve. Blake and I are a force to reckoned with. It was decided over Chinese food in Baltimore, Maryland, that we are continuing. Our next destination will be Panama with the intention of transiting the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean.

We know that we are capable of a six-day non-stop passage. If our goal is to cross the Pacific, this is an opportunity to push ourselves in preparation for the long passages of the Pacific, which can be 20-30 days at a time. Knowing that we wouldn’t be staying at our next destination for more than three weeks, we ruled out Bahamas because we didn’t want to pay $300 for the cruising permit. We decided on Luperon, Dominican Republic. It was less than half the price, in the 9-12 day passage range, and knew others that had spent time there during hurricane season.

Fast forward to 8:00am, November 17, 2022, at Fishing Bay in Deltaville, Virginia. The temperature is in the upper 30s; the sun is shining; and winds are NW 8-14 knots.

In the excitement of it all, our appetites were low that morning so I grabbed a Luna bar. Each bar has an inspirational quote and mine said, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

Truer words have never been spoken and these words set the tone for the next eleven days. As night approached, we decided on a 6:30pm-6:30am watch with a 3-hour rotation. Blake was 9:30pm-12:30am and 3:30am-6:30am and I was 6:30pm-9:30pm and 12:30am-3:30am. During the night, the shooting stars danced around the sky as the waning crescent moon reflected its soft light onto the growingly churning sea.

A pod of dolphins greeted with the morning sun. Temperatures were in the 40s, wind was increasing and seas were becoming more unsettled. An unsettled sea makes for an unsettled belly; though we were not seasick, appetites were low. Feeling a little uneasy in conjunction with an altered sleep schedule is not unusual for the second day of a passage. It typically takes us three days to feel at ease.

Like clockwork, we woke up feeling refreshed and lively on day three. We have learned that when you feel good; take advantage of these moments. I made turmeric roasted cauliflower tacos for lunch; one of our favorites. We would be lying if we didn’t admit that we were both a little worried about how well it was going because it can only get worse from here.

Overnight the seas were extremely light and variable. We could not figure out a sail configuration to gain speed. The motion of the boat felt like what I would imagine sitting in washing machine feels like.

The moon was but a tiny sliver and clouds were moving in, making it nearly impossible to see a horizon to balance our equilibrium. Light rain sprinkled throughout the night. During night watch, I looked over the starboard (right) side of the boat. In the water were hundreds of “things” that were lighting up, like tiny stars sparkling in the water. I imagined my niece being with me and dreamed up all the stories I would have told her about mermaids, in that moment. We assume the actual culprit of this mystical sea sparkle was bioluminescent plankton.

We didn’t sleep and our appetites were nearly non-existent. We split a Luna bar for breakfast and drank water. Our onshore weather router, Andy Schell, told us to anticipate stronger winds and our Garmin InReach agreed; so we put a third reef in the main. Sustained winds were blowing 18-25 knots from the NW. Our Monitor windvane was dialed in and we sailed 121 nautical miles in 24 hours.

It was around 7:30am on day four and the rain had subsided for the time being and we decided to air out our foul weather gear. We stripped it all off, PFDs included, in the cockpit, and just took a minute to lie down. Blake was lying on his stomach on the starboard side and I was lying perpendicular to him, with my head near his. Like a freight train, a strong and unexpected wave crashed into the starboard side causing the boat to suddenly and steeply heel to port. Blake, was lifted two feet in the air, flying across our cockpit towards the port side lifelines. I quickly kicked up my leg, like I was trapping a soccer ball, and broke his fall. He landed on his back on the port side cockpit settee with his head near the helm. This means that in flight, he flipped from his belly to his back and did a 180-degree rotation. That takes some serious force and momentum. The only injury was to my ankle, which was skinned, but I’ll take a skinned ankle over an overboard captain any day.

An hour later, after the adrenaline subsided, Blake goes down for a nap. The rain returns and the winds die and we motor until 11:00pm. Sometime in all this we set the pole, and the when the winds returned that evening, we sailed downwind through the night. The winds picked up speed and the seas sound and feel violent. Waves are slamming into Josephine’s port side and breaking across the deck and cockpit. One after the other after the other, with only seconds in between. With every wave came a forceful and roaring booming sound causing a vibration and cacophony of sounds, like the boat could break in half at any moment.

We tell ourselves, “It will be better in the morning.” As the sun rises, a wave broke across our port side causing a stream of water to rush through our dorade vent, into the quarter berth, where we sleep. A corner of our bed was now drenched with salt water. We see that these conditions are expected to continue another 48 hours followed by a predicted 24 hours of head winds. We have not slept; we’ve barely eaten; we haven’t bathed in five days; and self-doubt has crept in.

We are in the middle of the Atlantic and our closest landfall, in the Bahamas, would be about two days away. We reach out to Andy to see what he thinks and he suggests heaving to, which means we would backfill our jib and make no forward progress, and just rest. To be honest, we couldn’t see how we could rest in these conditions. We didn’t have an immediate bail out option. This is weighing heavy on us. I said to Blake, “This is the scariest and worst thing I have ever done,” as I crouch next to the salt water drenched corner of our bed, head in my hands.

Blake responded, “We are all right, right now,” a mantra from my yoga teacher, that I taught to him. It was exactly what I needed to hear. As the rain piddled and the waves pounded against our boat, we sat down below and let our wind vane do the work. While Blake slept, I entertained and calmed myself by seeing if I could single out each noise I was hearing, beginning at the companionway and moving clockwise. In my rotation, I hear a different noise that wasn’t there before; and the motion of the boat slightly changes. I wake Blake up and point to where I think the noise is coming from. He notices that the wind vane line came loose. He put on his gear, went out into the cockpit, fixed it, came back down, and just melted onto the floor, stabilizing himself with one foot against the galley “wall” to keep his body from mimicking the violent slamming and pounding motion of the boat. He laid like this, on the floor, for a few hours.

While he slept I went back and forth between the quarter berth/nav station and the companionway. Finding any kind of physical stability was a challenge, to say the least. My mind was anticipating death. We don’t know what death looks or sounds like when its upon us but my mind was certain that it was inevitable. I considered sugar coating or leaving this part out but it wouldn’t be honest or complete. The words that came to me in this moment were, “I choose to live.” I repeated this in my mind over an over, first rapidly and over time syncing it with my inhale and exhale.

This choice to live has not always been the running dialogue in my mind. My mind flashes back to times in my life when I didn’t think I had anything to live for; times of self-harm and self-loathing. In the presence of violent waves; I felt the internal violent wave of guilt and harbored shame at the thought that I could have missed out on this life. Even now, in what feels like relentless misery, I wanted to be alive to experience it. Thought waves of what there is to look forward to washed ashore in my mind; my youngest sister walking across the stage to get her college diploma; seeing the world with Blake; girl trips with my sisters and friends; experiencing the world through my nieces and nephews eyes; watching my cousins go off to college and build their lives; being able to care for my parents when they age…just loving all and everything around me. How could I have been so short sighted before? My fear of death becomes a whisper to the roar of, “I choose to live.” In what feels like a death trap of my own volition; I am grateful and surrender to what is. For the next hour, I prayed.

In the past 24 house, the silver lining, amidst the dread and misery, was that we sailed 135 nautical miles toward our destination. We ate Martin’s BBQ potato chips for breakfast. Blake was in and out of sleep until almost noon. The waves are still steep but the wind has settled a bit. We decided a shower couldn’t wait any longer. We filled up the shower bag and sat in the bottom of the cockpit letting the warm water wash over us, one at a time, while the other held the shower head in place. After the shower, Blake says, “Today is a good day,” and I couldn’t agree more.

About a half hour before sunset, we get hailed on the VHF by Doug, a tugboat, that referred to himself as, “The Doug.” Doug the tug asked us to alter course south until 10:00pm due to an active firing practice taking place. We never heard a transmission from the USCG on the VHF about this but we went ahead and altered course. Blake was able to get lots of sleep but in that we failed to change our course east at 10:00pm and continued south which due to ESE winds pushed us a bit more west than intended.

I think I may have been able to squeeze in two hours of sleep. I woke up in the morning and the first thing Blakes says to me is, “We accidentally turned off the refrigerator switch sometime yesterday and all the meat has thawed. Should we cook it all now?” The motion of the boat is still incredibly unstable. The thought of bracing myself in the galley compounded with handling raw meat makes me want to blow chunks. When I am queasy, I have a strong aversion to eating meat. I can’t do it.

Blake said that he thinks sailing on long passages is what he envisions being pregnant feels like. Emotions are high. Food cravings and aversions are strong. Nausea is always present and you’re just tired all the time. I can’t validate this since I lack experience but it does align with the experiences I’ve heard from friends.

I could tell that Blake was disappointed in how much we let ourselves get pushed off course. This resulted in us having to motor sail east to get back on course and required us to use more fuel than we anticipated which worried us a bit. If weather predictions are right, after tomorrow, east winds will fill in and we will be able to sail to Luperon. Blake and I talked about letting go of a timeline and getting to Luperon when we get to Luperon. The angst and stress around time and fuel was sucking the joy out of the journey. I reminded him what Andy kept saying which was to have fun. We have everything we need, plenty of food, water, and wind from the right direction, in the near future.

In the afternoon, the seas finally began to settle a bit. We took showers again and air dried. For dinner we baked chicken thighs and whipped up an avocado salad. We ended the day with acceptance and a shift in perspective, from getting there to being here. If we’re going to be here, let’s be happy.

At 4:00am, a sailboat popped up on AIS, named Sea Otter. We knew a boat named Sea Otter when we lived in Kemah; it was in the neighboring marina and Blake had talked with the owner a couple of times. Blake hailed them on the radio. Low and behold, it was the same Sea Otter. Two boats, in the middle of the Atlantic within four nautical miles of each other both from Kemah, TX. What are the chances?

Day eight was upon us and it was Thanksgiving back home. Kelly and Kelly had given us a little stuffed turkey a couple of years ago for our first offshore journey in Josephine; which also took place the week of Thanksgiving. We ate pancakes for breakfast and sent greetings of gratitude to friends and family through our Garmin Inreach. We ate turkey burgers for lunch and spent the afternoon singing and dancing in the cockpit. Gratitude was in the air and winds were light during the evening. We slowed down and patiently waited for trade winds to fill in.

Our watch times shifted a bit and my watch ended at 5:30am. I asked Blake if he wanted help hoisting the spinnaker but he declined. An hour and a half later he woke me up and asked me to help him raise the spinnaker. I don’t think he realized how much less sleep I was getting than him when he decided to wake me up. Regardless, we had the spinnaker flying by 7:30am and were able to slowly sail 96 nautical miles toward our destination in the past 24 hours.

We are getting the hang of this whole slowing down thing. We’re not running the engine to maintain five knots. The skies are clear, the sun is shining, and it’s 80 degrees. It’s easy to slow down on days like this. Time takes on a different feel. It’s no longer about how many days or what day we will get there. It’s all about wind and weather. Time becomes a bit irrelevant.

Before we left on this journey we noticed our winch base was cracked. Blake had taken it apart and it didn’t seem to have impacted the function of the winch. Since we have nothing but time, he decided to inspect it and in doing so, the cracked base just crumbled apart. Again, it did not affect the function but could if we didn’t mend the winch so that the exposed gears were not corroded by sun and salt.

As the day went on, my mind began ruminating on this idea around letting go of time and expectation. For us to accept this journey that we’re on, we have to accept that our existence is enough. We have to accept that our intrinsic value is not dependent on what is deemed as “worthy,” by societal standards. There is no profound reason as to why we are on this journey. We aren’t here to break any speed records. We have no intention of starting a YouTube channel and monetizing this experience; though I have whole rant on this for another day.

What if we go slow and don’t do it for the money? What if being on this journey, just the way it is, is enough? During night watch, I listened to Brene Brown’s, Atlas of the Heart on audiobook. She gives a word for what I think we are learning and experiencing and that is, “Tranquility: relishing the feeling of doing nothing.” You may have a reaction of, “But you are doing something!” What if we don’t need to “do something?” What would it look like to be okay with us doing nothing?

While eating egg and bacon breakfast burritos on day nine, Blake and I talked about the fear we experienced a few days earlier. We asked each other why we would want to keep on doing this after going through that? We don’t really have words for it yet but we just know something in us says keep going.

Dinner was ground turkey tacos with a side of sweet plantains. Right before we began eating, we thought our alternator went out. Among further inspection we learned it was a severed ground wire; a much easier repair than replacing the alternator.

On the morning of day ten, we have finally found a rhythm. The spinnaker went up at 8:00am. I worked on this blog. Breakfast was a boiled egg, with plantains, toast, and jam. We were moving less than two knots when we dropped the spinnaker and decided to see what is in 16000 feet of deep cerulean blue water. We hooked our ladder on, threw the line in the water, replaced our clothes with a snorkel mask and took a dip. For the record, it’s just more blue water. We didn’t see sea life, just a sea of endless blue.

That afternoon Blake serenaded me with his guitar and we headed further east, patiently awaiting those trade winds to fill in.

I decided I wanted to bake some cookies, a rare occurrence. While down below, Blake lets me know that a bird has landed on our boat.

As I’m mixing my batter, a bird is flying towards my head in the cabin. I scream and the bird flies out only to make another attempt. We have to close the boat up to keep the bird out which means I’m essentially baking in an oven with the cookies. The bird decides to sit on the companionway. I slide a bowl of water out and some hulled sunflower seeds but it’s not interested. This bird wants flourless chocolate chip peanut butter cookies. Sorry bird…not a chance. We finally had to use the same tactic we used on the bat and sprayed it with a water bottle until it flew off. We do not hate animals and we don’t harm them; but we also don’t need animal feces in and on the boat if we can help it.

During the night winds are extremely light. The boom begins slamming from side to side. This is agitating and impacting our ability to get any sleep. A brief rain shower blows through around 2:15am and around 3:30am we decide to slowly motor so we for an hour so that one of us can sleep. Around 4:30am we cut off the motor and just kind of bob around and squeeze in a little more sleep to take the edge off. By 6:15am we get enough wind to sail again.

It's day eleven at sea and we started our day with coffee. We have about 107nm to Luperon and anticipate arrival in about 24 hours. As we sip our coffee, a tiny, yellow bellied bird darts into the cockpit towards Blake’s face. It misses his face by no less than an inch, startling Blake so much that he spews his coffee all over the cockpit. There is never a dull moment on Josephine.

At 8:30am we have AIS and VHF failure. The AIS was resolved with a reset but the VHF is a mystery. Channel 16 is making constant humming and static noise, different than what a hot mic would sound like. A cargo ship was finally in range and responded to our radio check. The radio works but channel 16 still sounds like static…we still aren’t sure what’s going on there.

We had a smoked salmon spread for lunch, showered again, and practiced our Spanish. We are sailing at 5.5 knots and need to slow down to about 4.5 knots for a morning arrival into Luperon. During night watch, it’s hard not to be overcome by emotion by this incredible journey. The winds really filled in over night and the seas became a little sportier than expected. The boat is heeling to starboard every 2-3 seconds but who cares? We are almost there!

At sunrise we see the mountainous terrain along the horizon. Land Ho!

We sailed into Bahia Luperon and dropped the hook at 8:00am on November 28, 2022. We sailed 1241 nautical miles. Our average moving speed was 4.7 knots. It took us 264 hours and 24 minutes, which is exactly 11 days and 24 minutes. We did it! We pushed ourselves to our limits and discovered that we are capable of so much more than we thought. Our boat performed incredibly and exceeded our expectations. We are safe. We are happy. We are grateful for the splendor and terror of it all.