We crossed the Atlantic from Norfolk VA to Antigua!

Palm Tree, Palm Tree, Margarita

On November 13th three people set out from Toronto to Norfolk VA.

Two people were experienced sailors, one an avid adventurer.
The airports were in complete chaos due to a US strike which lead to hours and hours of flight delays.

This did not stop us.
We cancelled our flights and decided to drive there – 11 hours!

We made a stop for some snacks and beer.

The day we arrived in Norfolk is the same day we we left for Beaufort.

Beaufort because it would position us more favorably once the weather window opened up.
We had missed the first one so now we had make our own way.

There’s a saying, goes something like this:

‘If it didn’t happen for you, it wasn’t for you.’

Looking back on our delays setting out, I consider this highly accurate.

Beaufort, North Carolina

Getting to Beaufort was brutal. We had no sea legs and it wasn’t pretty out there. We got smashed around a lot.
We laugh, because when we told people we were making this journey, they were like:
‘OMG have a great time! emojis – palm tree, palm tree, margarita’

It’s really not a palm tree, palm tree, margarita kind of trip at all.
Keep reading, you’ll see why.

Beaufort is SO CUTE. It’s the quintessential Americana fishing village.
Houses were built in the 1800’s (or earlier) and maintain their historical appeal.

And beer – great tap / craft beer.

After our first day in town, temperatures started to plummet and it got cold, like Canada cold.

We all slept with our hats on under many layers of blankets.

Seeing as we ARE Canadian we could take it and go one more by adding a smile!

And that brings us back to the beer. We found the Dockhouse Pub and it was super cozy and fisherman(ny).

We arrived at happy hour and stayed until sad hour aka when we had to get back to the boat.

No heat on the boat so there was no immediate rush to return.

New Sailing Friends

The sailing community (water neighbours) is awesome.

We had a little get together with s/v The Good Part and s/v RaHua (I hope that’s right).
Scored an entire grocery bag of shrimp right off the shrimp boat for this get together.

Twas a fun time with snacks and beverages.
Story’s being told, new friends connecting.

All aboard were preparing for a long passage so this was a light hearted break from watching weather radar.

RaHua is a bit of a weather forecasting GENIUS so we picked his brain over the next few days.

Basically there was no great time to leave to avoid pain BUT there was an opportunity to take some abuse and then meet better sailing conditions.

Time to Go is NOW

It was set.

Safety check ✔️

Rough passage sandwiches prepared.

Other sailing checks ✔️

Sails up!

We left on Nov 19th face first into the cold and wind.

How We Filled our Days

We had a good crew so we laughed through the tough parts.

Played games.

After that I would love to tell you some juicy drama but there wasn’t any. It was a very chill boat.
For those wondering, yes it was a dry (no alcohol) and quiet (no music).

I didn’t mind either of those things since:
a. One drink leads to another usually and would cause some foggy moments when we’re called to help in the middle of the night or whenever.
b. We all don’t like the same music, listening to music that you don’t like on a boat can be torture since you can’t escape it.

Our Captain had all the doodads to read the conditions and keep us from crappy seas.
Thank you Star Link.

Sail Me a Story

The sails were – challenging. One sail packed her bags (the genoa) and left as soon as she made an appearance on deck. She went up, whipped about and tore near the top. The end.

Two other sails were deployed, the Code Zero and the Spinnaker.

One went up and the next I saw it was being shoved in a locker so I guess that didn’t work as expected. Good news is that one of three performed well.

Action Shots!

These auxiliary sails were challenging and quite frankly there were times when I thought, is all this rolling around on deck and trampoline hopping necessary?
But alas, ’twas not my call. Considering I wasn’t the one bouncing around out there, I was quite happy in the galley — taking pictures and making snacks.

All these sail trial and errors created “Team Spinnaker” and the mission was clear.
Send Stevo to the front to hold onto the sails. Just KIDDING!
Anyways it felt kind of super hero-like to say TEAM SPINNAKER! when we had to face the arduous task of setting one of these sails up.
See what I mean – good crew + laughter = not getting aggravated.

The Day to Day Stuff

Everyone had their shifts, it worked great with 4 people.
AM: 6-9 / 9-12 / 12-3 / 3-6
PM: REPEAT

I took charge of the galley and meals so my shifts were the 6-9 ones so I could also prepare breakfasts and dinners whilst dodging cargo ships.

We caught a mahi and had tacos for lunch.

Offshore Sailing Meal Planner

My 2 week meal plan was a success keeping crew morale up with nourishing meals.

If you are looking for a sailing meal planner that is vegetarian friendly but includes meat you can check it out here:

LINK: Sailing Meal Planner

Not going to lie I’m using this for not sailing life as well.

Who doesn’t love a great one pot meal?

Hello Antigua!

So all in all this passage from Norfolk to Antigua was a success.

We all learned a lot during this passage and had fun whilst doing so.

If you have any questions please comment or send me a message.

Want to learn more about the Offshore Sailing Meal Planner?
Click HERE

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Buy the digital download here.

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