Passage-making | Distant Shores Sailing Newsletters

Sailing BVI to St. Martin 2015



By Sheryl Shard, copyright 2015. All rights reserved.

Greetings from the half-French half-Dutch island of St. Martin/St. Maarten in the Caribbean!

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Sunset anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Maarten


After almost two idyllic months cruising in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) we are now anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon on the Dutch side of St. Maarten.

Departing the British Virgin Islands
Wednesday March 24 we raised anchor at 0600 and slid off the shallow bank we were anchored on at the mouth of the inner harbour at Road Town, Tortola, in the BVI planning to make an 18-hour non-stop upwind passage to Simpson Bay in St. Maarten. After showering and getting ready to depart, we determined we were too low on water for comfort. We had enough to be fine for the day but decided it would be safer and more convenient to top up our water before sailing offshore across the Anegada Passage. You never know what can happen. So instead of leaving for St. Maarten from Road Town we decided to sail up the Sir Francis Drake Channel to North Sound, Virgin Gorda, where it would be easy to stop at Leverick Bay Marina to fill up on water. The timing was good. It would be open by the time we got there.

Wednesday was a beautiful day with winds E 10-15 and a forecast that the winds would go to the NE in the afternoon, meaning we could sail versus motorsail to St. Maarten for at least half the day. Sailing from North Sound out the Necker Channel would give us an even better angle on the wind improving our chances of sailing upwind so was another good reason for changing our plans to go up there.

We motor-sailed up Sir Francis Drake Channel to make good time for the marina opening and marvelled at how few boats were out at that time of the morning. Not a bad morning commute :-)

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Leaving the inner harbour at Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands

Luckily there was space at the dock when we arrived at Leverick Bay Marina - just a charter catamaran and a mega-yacht with a guy polishing the helicopter on deck - with space for us at the back. Water is 15 cents US per U.S. gallon and we totally filled our water tank for $22.00 US. Even with lots of showering and cooking and washing up we can go for about 2 weeks without a fill. Since we have good water capacity on our Southerly 49, Distant Shores II, we chose not to go with a watermaker on this boat since it's easy to get water where we've been cruising with the boat in Europe and the Caribbean. But at some point we may choose to add one. We had a Schenker watermaker on our previous boat, a Southerly 42.

We quickly filled and set off happy that we hadn't been delayed too much. Life in the galley at sea was going to be much better now that I didn't have to watch the water levels too closely and we could have a good long hot shower when we made landfall later that night.

Crossing the Anegada Passage
I won't go into too much detail about crossing the Anegada Passage since we have made the trip several times and have written about it in previous newsletters about St. Martin plus documented it in Distant Shores episodes in season 6 and season 9. However, I will say that on this trip the air was so clear that we were 40 nm away from the British Virgin Islands before Virgin Gorda disappeared below the horizon and we picked up St. Martin when we were 32 nm away! The whole voyage from Road Town was just over 100 nm.

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We saw lots of boats including the tallship cruise ship, Sea Cloud II, on the Anegada Passage en route to St. Martin


Arriving in St. Maarten
On this trip the winds never did go to northeast as predicted but picked up to 15-20 knots from the east which was pretty much "right on the nose". Distant Shores II is a long narrow boat with a 10 ft. 3 in. draft with the keel down (2 ft. 10 in. with the keel up for shallow draft) so slices through the waves and goes great to windward so despite this and the time we added for our water stop we were anchor-down at the Simpson Bay anchorage in St. Maarten at 10:30 PM, an hour and a half earlier than we predicted. Woo hoo!

The anchorage at Simpson Bay is large and we've come in there in the dark several times before so it was no problem arriving especially with the moonlight. We anchored at the back of the fleet in 4 metres with a sand bottom, so good holding, and despite it being a little rolly, as it often is here, we slept soundly. The only disturbance we had was at around midnight when a very drunk but happy couple returned to their boat in their dinghy and mistook our boat for theirs so were loudly puzzled why the stern ladder was raised. They burst into gales of laughter when then realized they were trying to board the wrong boat and sped off :-)

The next morning we saw another boat had anchored behind us in the night but the captain must have been very tired and not set his anchor carefully or not put out enough scope. We watched him drag across the harbour and almost out to sea! We couldn't raise him on the radio and we had our dinghy on deck so couldn't chase him but just as we were about to lower it and go after him we saw someone on deck and the situation was remedied.

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Coming through the Simpson Bay Bridge, St. Maarten


At 0930 on Thursday morning we caught the Incoming Bridge Opening at the Simpson Bay Bridge (bridge opening times here) and went into the smooth protected waters of Simpson Bay Lagoon where we anchored in our favourite spot in a very shallow but convenient-to-everything spot near the bridge. However we barely had the anchor down when a family in a Bavaria went aground beside us not realizing our Southerly 49 is shallow-draft. This happens all the time so today Paul wrote a new Tech Blog, Warning Shallow Water, that is essentially a field guide to Southerly Yachts. Our boat looks very similar to a new deep-draft Jeanneau so people see our boat and assume there is lots of water around us. We’re getting very good at helping people get their boats off shoals…

After helping the Bavaria get free of the ground, we took the dinghy to the customs dock which is right in by the bridge and cleared in to St. Maarten as well as paid bridge and anchoring fees. Info on clearing in at St. Maarten.

We'll be here for a couple of weeks before heading down-island doing the maintenance and repairs we weren't able to complete when we were here at Christmas before flying home to conduct boat show seminars. On the to-do list is to build a new cockpit hatch, service the freezer and generator, install a new winch base on the mast winch since the support is corroding, make some new oar holders for our Avon dinghy to store them better and pick up our new Sailrite Ultrafeed LSZ-1 Plus sewing machine and get to work on some long overdue canvas projects. Can't wait!

What spring maintenance projects are you working on? We welcome your comments below…

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Bahamas to St Martin in Photos



At the dock Staniel Cay Yacht Club before leaving...
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Our final anchorage in the cut by Thunderball Cave ready to lift anchor.
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First day is calm and we motor in smoothly rolling seas.
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The wind fills in from the North and will stay this way for the next 5 days!!
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We have the main and jib mostly but switch to our large genoa when winds get down below 15 knots. We hope to keep an average speed of 7 knots for this passage.
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Christmas decorations - solar powered lights...
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Sunset and clear skies.
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We are flying the Self-tacking Jib and a single reefed main for 60 percent of the passage. We unroll the big genoa for the other 40 percent.
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Charging along into 1-2 meter seas from the ENE but they are far apart and easy to sail.
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Sargasso weed. We are crossing the Sargasso Sea on this passage.
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Sheryl cooks on an angle...
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No moon means lots of great star-gazing - plus amazing meteors!! Turns out this was the Geminid Meteor shower and WOW did we have an amazing view. Some were so bright the whole sky lit up. On each 3 hour watch we would see dozens to hundreds of meteors!!
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Winds just forward of the beam, what perfect conditions?!
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Onwards we average nearly 180 miles per day.
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Admiring the sunset...
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Rare that we can set the table to have dinner outside like this. But the wind is so predictable and there are no squalls. Baked potatoes, chopped steak and green beans... Yum!!
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Who is having fun?!
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Great sailing!!
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Salt spray everywhere building to thick crystals.
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Rafts of Sargasso weed passing often. A few times they catch on the rudders and keel and prop skeg. I can lift the keel and they slide off but the rudders are harder to clear.
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Anchored in the lagoon in Saint Martin (french side) we are well ready for an uninterrupted night’s sleep!!
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Bahamas - Exumas to Abacos



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A great sailing day on the banks along the Exuma Cays in the Bahamas

We had been waiting for the arrival of some spare parts for our Mastervolt generator to be flown in to Staniel Cay in the Exuma Island group of the Bahamas. The package came in at last, Paul did the necessary maintenance, and we were ready to depart. But it was Independence Day for the Bahamas so we decided to stay to celebrate. We'd been in Staniel Cay for Canada Day on July 1st, American Independence Day on July 4th and it seemed only fitting that we celebrate Bahamas Independence Day on July 10th before sailing on.

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Anchored off Thunderball Cave at Staniel Cay

Bahamas became a free and sovereign country on July 10th, 1973, ending 325 years of peaceful British rule, but is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

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Junkanoo parade and free lunch and dinner on Bahamas Independence Day, Staniel Cay


It was a beautiful day that started with a church service and then a local Junkanoo parade with local youth playing homemade drums and cow bells. Then it was a day of “Beach Eats”. The Bahamas government sponsors free lunch and dinner on this day. We showed up for lunch – BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs and pasta salad – and enjoyed speaking with the local revellers as well as meeting up with cruising friends we'd partied with down-island. The dinner was even more elaborate we heard – BBQ steak, fish, and lots of salads and vegetables – everyone welcome! The evening ended with fireworks which we enjoyed watching from the cockpit of Distant Shores II, a fitting end to our visit to Staniel Cay.

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We set sail the following day with fresh breezes carrying us north through the Exuma Cays along the banks to Sandy Cay off Hall's Pond where we've heard that actor Johnny Depp of Pirates of the Caribbean fame has a home and classic boat. No sign of him though or anyone else for that matter. We had the island all to ourselves.

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Next day we had similar conditions and island-hopped our way up to Allen's Cay, a protected anchorage and always an interesting stop since it is home of the Allen's Cay Iguanas (Cyclura cychlura inornata). These are Bahamian Rock Iguanas which are protected by the Bahamas National Trust and come out on the beach to greet you. Actually they're looking for handouts - fresh vegetables are best. Unfortunately their eyesight isn't good and on a past visit Paul got his fingers nipped when he tried to feed one a carrot. This time we just said hello.

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Allen's Cay was our last stop in the Exuma Cays before jumping off across the banks to Eleuthera.

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Beacon Cay is at the north end of the Exumas and is the last land you see for a few hours as you head for Eleuthera.

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The banks are shallow, about 12 feet deep for many miles, with a white sand bottom. We could see the shadow of the sails clearly standing out against the white sand in the turquoise water as we sailed along.

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There are also areas of coral reef patches on the banks which you have to keep an eye out for but they stand out darkly against the white sand so are easy to see.

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Coral reef patches stand on the banks

We arrived in the Eleuthera island group in the late afternoon and sailed through narrow Current Cut at Current Island, anchoring for the night on the other side with another cruising boat and one of the local fishing boats. Following the example of the fishers we anchored about 1/4 of a mile offshore so the mosquitos and no-see-ums (sand fleas) that come out at dusk wouldn't bother us.

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Current Cut
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Current Cut on the Navionics chart on our Raymarine chartplotter


We spent quite a bit of time in the Eleuthera archipelago on a previous visit which we documented in episodes of Distant Shores season 6 which is available on DVD and also download. This time it was a quick visit since our goal was to reach the Abacos, another 60 miles to the northwest.

Unfortunately we had light winds so spent the day motoring across deep seas on this leg of our passage. It was quite a change to see big cargo ships and freighters after sailing in the shallow water surrounding the Exuma Cays for so many weeks.

We arrived late afternoon at Tilloo Cay in the Abacos with storm clouds brewing and anchored there for the night. It was good to get off the boat for a nice beach walk here.

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Public dock at New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos

Next day we made our final jump, 35 nm to Green Turtle Cay, anchoring off New Plymouth and today we lifted the boat at Abaco Yacht Services for annual maintenance.

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The sky started to look rather exciting as the excellent crew at AYS were blocking the boat but got finished before the rain came in and the winds picked up.

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Scary looking sky as we haul out the boat
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Distant Shores II with her 10-foot keel partially retracted
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Distant Shores II with her keel retracted completely. She is designed to take the ground.

We'll be storing the boat here at Abaco Yacht Services for a few weeks while we're home in Canada completing post-production on new episodes for season 10 of the Distant Shores sailing TV series as well as the first in a new how-to series we're producing - “Let's Go Cruising!: Anchoring”.

But stay tuned! We’ll be posting lots of articles on cruising topics to help you plan your escape while we're home in the studio. We’ll be back to the boat and more cruising adventures in just a few weeks.

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BVI to Turks & Caicos



After a great visit to the British Virgin Islands (BVI), which was concluded by a spectacular lunar eclipse, we set sail for the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) on Tuesday April 15/14 with perfect conditions for a lovely 3-day downwind passage from the BVI.
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We were on starboard tack for the whole voyage starting out by sailing wing and wing.

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Occasionally we had to bring the genoa over to the other side to keep on course but finished with it poled out wing and wing as we arrived in the Turks and Caicos on Thursday night.

We kept 3 hour watches at night and 4 hours during the day. The nights were bright with the full moon and as we soared along north of the Navidad and Silver Banks we often saw cruise ships on the horizon and on AIS. We only had one short but heavy rain squall during the 3 days. The rest of the time the weather was lovely.

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Our port of call was Cockburn Harbour on the island of South Caicos. Here Sheryl raises the “Q” flag to signify that we intend to clear in.

Clearing in was a story... we climbed out of the dinghy in the small fishing harbour on Good Friday, a hot and dusty day in the little town, where we asked the first person we met where we might find customs and immigration. Betty Craigg told us the 2 officers were on the way to their church for Good Friday and invited us to come join in the service. She assured us the officials would be happy to process our paperwork after the service.

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Betty Craigg invited us to her church where she assured us we would be able to clear in to the Turks and Caicos with the Customs and Immigration officers attending the Good Friday service.

Turns out to be a rockin’ service at the Firm Foundations Ministries! Great fun and great singing! Thanks to Pastor Hall and Pastor Cooke and the congregation for such a warm welcome! Turns out the Immigration officer, Sandra Hall, is the wife of Pastor Hall, and the Customs officer, Markia Lockhart, is a very active member of the church.

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Customs officer Marika Lockhart, left, and Immigration officer Sandra Hall, right, singing on Good Friday.


Sure enough we pop into the back room after the service is over to deal with the paperwork. “Hallelujah! We are Cleared In!!”

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Homiest clearance ever!

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Fees were $30 for Immigration and $65 for Customs for a 1-week permit. Overtime charges were included since it was a holiday.

We went back again to celebrate Easter Sunday with our new friends. It was an Easter we will never forget! Here are a few photos...

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The telling of the Easter story. Pastor Brandford Hall at the pulpit.

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Church dancers add to the story.
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Customs officer, Marika Lockhart, also does the choreography for the church dancers.

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Sheryl with Pastor Cherimay Cooke, who is a fantastic singer! What a joyful and memorable Easter in South Caicos.

We are looking forward to more adventures in Turks and Caicos. On Easter Monday we will be sailing north across the Caicos Bank to the island of Providenciales.

Best regards,

Sheryl and Paul Shard
Aboard SV Distant Shores II
Cockburn Town, South Caicos
Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI)

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Strong Winds sailing through the Caribbean

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Its been a very windy week ... locals call this the "Christmas Winds" and it means windy trades in the 20-25 knots with higher gusts...

We have been making fast passages hopping north from the Grenadines to St Lucia where we picked up friends Scott & Austin Swift (Singer Taylor Swift’s father and brother respectively). They sailed with us to Martinique, Dominica and the Saintes before flying out again. It was great having them on board.

Starting as we left the Tobago Cays in the Southern Grenadines we passed one of the world largest mega-yachts... that’s a real helicopter - it just looks like a model since the yacht is over 400 feet long.
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Folding-out decks to launch all the boats and beach toys...
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Rainy squalls meant some lovely rainbows including this nice double-rainbow.
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The Saintes are one of our favourite stops
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Here are some sailing pix from the trip north! It was quite breezy and a bit uncomfortable but very fast!
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Some sunny patches with trade wind clouds but also lots of squalls passing
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We charged along at 8-9 knots most of the time!
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Paul ventures forward during a more settled patch to set up the camera at the bow and film the windy conditions.
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Distant Shores II has a "bone in her teeth" as they say.
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We sailed with the small 100% jib - often reefed down and sometimes full out as here.
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Nevis in the background as we complete the 2nd last day
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Waves do not look as large in photos ... Video shows it much more accurately...
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Seas are down to 2.3 meters - 7 feet or so and winds 20-25... pleasant :-)

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We Celebrate the arrival in Nevis with an excellent roast pork Sunday Dinner... gravy et al!

Then its on to St Martin where we will store Distant Shores for a few weeks as we go home to the Toronto & Chicago Boat Shows.
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10 Tips for Cooking at Sea



By Sheryl Shard, Copyright 2015. All rights reserved.
Up until now most of my newsletters have focused on our travels with the aim of sharing our experiences to help you plan your own adventures in the many different destinations we have visited during 23 years of international cruising. But one of the most popular boat show seminars we conduct is "Outfitting and Provisioning for Cruising", so I thought for a change that I’d write about something related to this and Life On Board. Today’s topic is Cooking at Sea.
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A calm day on the Atlantic with Paul and friend, Matt Heron. After days of rough weather and strenuous watch-keeping during the 2012 Atlantic Rally for Cruising (ARC) it was nice to have a sit-down meal together in the cockpit . Photo by Sheryl Shard

One of the things Paul and I love about cruising is that we have more time to prepare and enjoy delicious meals than when we’re rushing around during our busy lives ashore. We love to shop in foreign markets, experiment with new foods, and entertain friends aboard our Southerly 49 sailboat, Distant Shores II.
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Cured ham at the city market in Valencia, Spain. Photo by Paul Shard.

When on passages, however, food preparation takes on a different meaning and significance. Good nutritious meals are important to maintaining our health and energy at sea, not to mention our sense of well-being when spending weeks in isolation on an ocean crossing. But the physical challenges of passage-making sometimes make meal preparation an energy-depleting exercise. In rough weather it can be downright dangerous.
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Paul at the helm after wet crossing of the North Sea from Shetland to Norway. Photo by Sheryl Shard
More injuries at sea are caused by working in the galley than in any other way – burns from hot spills, cuts from knives or rough edges of cans, bruises and worse from lost footing while juggling pots and pans in rough weather. During 23 years of international cruising, Paul and I have developed a set of guidelines that has made cooking at sea easy, safe and pleasurable:
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The galley on our Southerly 49 sailboat, Distant Shores II, set up for sea. Photo by Sheryl Shard.

Top 10 tips for Cooking at Sea

1. Prepare meals ahead of time: Before leaving on a passage, we try to prepare as many meals as possible before we leave the dock. It takes a few days for your body to adjust to around-the-clock watch routines so make everything easy. Like many long-distance sailors, Paul is especially susceptible to seasickness during the first 3 days of a passage so we plan light, easily digestible foods.
2. Store everything you need for meal preparation near the galley: If everything is close at hand, you will do a better job of preparing good meals since it will be less tiring than running here and there digging deep in lockers on a pitching boat. You will also be less likely to fall or injure yourself.
3. Know what you’ve got and where it is: Don’t waste your time and energy digging through lockers unnecessarily. Keep a good inventory list so you know exactly what you’ve got and where it is.
4. Top everything up before you leave the dock: Running out of dish detergent, having to change a toilet paper roll or finding the flour canister empty can bring me to tears if a storm is raging. Topping everything up before you leave the dock reduces effort and irritation.
5. Clean the boat like crazy: Odours can do you in if you’re on the verge of “mal de mar”. Make sure there are no sour sponges, dirty dish towels, gruesome laundry or icebox gremlins waiting to turn your stomach. Do your best to clean up spills so you don’t slip and fall. Check your fresh produce supply regularly so you’re not caught out by a rotting potato or mildewed melon.
6. Add safety features and use them: The safer you feel in the galley, the more pleasant your galley tasks will be. There should be lots of handholds in the galley and a galley strap at the stove so when the going gets rough the chef doesn’t land in the soup. We have pot clamps on our gimballed propane stove to keep things where they should be. We have a stainless steel safety bar in front of the stove (between the cook and “the cooker”) for added protection from burns. At sea I also cover our countertops with non-skid mats to keep bowls and utensils from flying around.
7. Keep it simple: When the weather is rough, it’s really better to stay out of the galley, if possible. Design meals to be quick and easy. We snack a lot on passages, especially in foul weather, often having several small meals rather than three major productions per day. It’s easier on the digestion and easier on the cook.
8. Come up for air: Stick your head out the companionway occasionally if you’re going to be in the galley for a while. It clears your head and makes you feel better.
9. Make clean-up easy: Design your meals so clean-up isn’t a major chore. One-pot dinners served on paper plates makes life easier for everyone when the going gets rough.
10. Make time to sit together and eat: Being only 2 people on a yacht most times while underway can make it tempting to alternate long watches and pass each other like ships in the night. Help your relationship and avoid loneliness by sitting and eating together. Even if it is only for 10 minutes, take the time to catch up and ask each other how you're feeling.
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British Virgin Islands to St Maarten

Sailing from BVI to St Maarten - Anegada Passage - April 27 2013

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Hello Everyone,
The time arrived at the end of April to conclude our winter respite in the British Virgin Islands and begin the next leg of our voyage - heading south through the Caribbean island chain so that, come summertime which is hurricane season, we would be out of the hurricane belt.


The area of high risk for hurricanes in the Caribbean region, as defined by our yacht insurance company Pantaenius Yacht Insurance, is East of 98°W and West of 60°W, and between the Latitudes 10°N and 30.5°N. The “Named Tropical Storm Clause” in our insurance goes into effect from July 1st to November 15th. Different insurance companies have different limitations so check this out if planning to sail or store your boat in the Caribbean during the summer and autumn months.
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Paul at Pipe Creek, Bahamas

Another option for avoiding hurricanes in the summer would be to sail north through the islands of the Bahamas, one of our favourite cruising grounds as you may have determined by the number of Bahamas Distant Shores episodes we have filmed there, and then north to the Chesapeake Bay, another great cruising ground on the east coast of the USA that we have documented in the show. (Maine and the Canadian Maritimes are other appealing summer destinations for many sailors that cruise in the Caribbean for the winter, as is the Great Loop, a route exploring inland waterways of the USA and Canada.)

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Travelling through the Erie Canal, Chesapeake Bay and Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) in Distant Shores Season 6

We have made the trip up from the Caribbean to the Bahamas, the Chesapeake Bay and home to Canada through the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes and Trent-Severn Waterway in the past and, since next season we are are planning to cruise the western Caribbean, going north would mean a long journey retracing our steps back to the Caribbean in the fall. So we have decided to take the boat south for Hurricane Season this year and explore more of the leeward and windward islands along the way.

The first leg of our journey south from the BVI was to sail back across the Anegada Passage to the Dutch/French island of St Maarten/St Martin, a passage of about 90 nm. In February we did this in the opposite direction, going St Maarten to the BVI, which is generally a nice downwind sail with the current in your favour as well. (See Feb 26/13 newsletter).

But going the other way, from BVI to St Maarten, is a whole different story since you are sailing into the trade winds and with the 1 to 1.5 knot current against you, so you need to plan the eastbound journey a bit more carefully. As cruising sailors we are blessed with hundreds of great sailing days in a year so the general strategy for this passage is to wait for calm conditions, motorsail into it topping up your batteries as you go, and Get It Done. From St Maarten heading south through the island chain your angle of sail is better and you can expect days of great beam-reach sailing with regular trade winds blowing from the east.

Checking the weather forecast on WindGURU we saw light wind conditions predicted for Thursday April 25 and Friday April 26. On Friday, the wind was predicted to be slightly more ENE rather than E and since we were going to set sail from North Sound in Virgin Gorda at the most northern end of the BVI we would have not-bad angle on an ENE wind. If we left very early on Friday morning there was a good chance we'd be able to make the 12-hour passage under sail, at least for part of the day. (Of course you could skip St Maarten altogether and sail southeast to islands further down the chain to avoid a headwind bash but St Maarten is a great place to stock up on provisions, fuel, and chandlery items before sailing down-island so we really wanted to stop there.)

The Cruising Guide to the BVI by Nancy and Simon Scott have a good section on options for sailing south from the BVI to the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean.

A new customs office in the BVI has recently opened in North Sound (also called Gorda Sound) at Gun Creek just across the sound from where we were anchored off Saba Rock so in the late afternoon on Thursday April 25 we motored over to Gun Creek, anchored off the customs quay, and cleared out of the BVI. You can clear out 12 hours before your planned departure.
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Early the next morning, Friday April 26, we were up at 4:30 a.m. and raised anchor at 5:30 a.m. just as the sun was rising and the full moon was setting over Virgin Gorda, a beautiful farewell image of the BVI.
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Heading out of the sound into Necker Passage we noticed there were 3 other yachts in our wake. We wouldn't be alone out in the Anegada Passage.
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Necker Passage takes you out past Necker Island, the multi-million dollar private resort belonging to Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Airlines and other Virgin Group corporations.


We were soon out into open water, mainsail raised and self-tacking jib ready to unfurl but the wind never did set in from the ENE. It was light and on the nose, due E, the whole day. Motorsailing it was to be. It was a very clear day and Virgin Gorda didn't disappear off our stern until mid-morning. We each stood our watches listening to audio books on our iPhones to pass the time and watching the many sea birds and passing ships. The Anegada Passage is a gateway to the Caribbean for ocean-going ships travelling to and from the rest of the world.
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At the half-way point we passed sailboats heading in the opposite direction and the blue skies began to get cloudy. Then the radar started to show patches of squalls developing and by the afternoon we were getting scattered shower – brief and cooling.
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However, just after sighting St Maarten on the horizon in the late afternoon, we got a series of big squalls. No worries. The heavy rain gave the boat a good cleaning washing all the salt off the decks.
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At the same time as the squalls passed we noticed an incredible feeding frenzy going on. Hundreds of sea birds were diving on fish at the surface all around us. Now we're not very good at fishing but we thought if we put out a line in this location we couldn't go wrong. Over the years we've done a lot of fishing with the hand spear but not so much with a line. But now we're getting into it and found a great book to guide us, The Cruiser's Handbook of Fishing by Scott and Wendy Bannerot. We dropped our line but I guess we were a bit late doing it since no fish seemed interested in our lure. Oh well. Better luck next time.
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Just after 5:00 p.m. the skies had cleared and we were rounding the south end of St Martin/St Maarten in sunshine under blue skies. By 5:30 p.m. we were dropping the hook in Simpson Bay on the Dutch side of the island just behind SV Banyan owned by Canadian friends, Dave and Alex, who had left the BVI the day before us.
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That's the great thing about cruising. You meet so many great people on your travels and encounter them many times in many places. A welcome always awaits you.

Until next time,

Sheryl and Paul
Aboard SV Distant Shores II

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