Monthly Archives: November 2018

The time has come, we’re leaving the Caribbean to sail across the Atlantic towards Europe!

Matt takes a minute to explain the situation with our watermaker, why it isn’t working, and why we decide to leave anyway. Making a 12 mile sail from Simpson Bay on the south side of St. Martin, to Marigot Bay on the north side, we fill up our water tanks and get on our way.

The first two days at sea are just spent getting into the swing of things, but by day 4 we find ourselves in the middle of the Bermuda/Azores high and have lost all our wind. It is a beautiful thing to be hundreds of miles from any land and have the water be glass calm around you.

We take advantage of the calm by putting down our swim platform to take bucket baths off the back of the boat. With only 60 gallons of water to get us through 30 days of showers and dishes, we need to conserve it everywhere we can.

Much love from the Atlantic Ocean!
Jessica, Matt & Georgie

It’s the week before we head out on our Atlantic Ocean crossing toward the Azores, and there are still a lot of preparations to do!

Going halvsies on a rental car with our friends Bill and Grace of s/v Calico Skies, we hit up the biggest grocery stores St. Marten has to offer, both on the French side of the island. We load our carts with non perishables from Super U in the morning, and then make a run to Carefour at night to see if there is anything we missed.

While we have a set of wheels at our disposal, Matt and I take a scenic drive around the island to explore a few beaches and foothills we hadn’t been to before. We stop at the beautiful Orient Bay on the east side of the island to admire its beautiful waters while enjoying a cold beer. While there we see the remains of the Club Orient Resort, a complex of bungalows completely destroyed by Hurricane Irma.

Our last few days on the island are finishing up our remaining boat projects and chores. After Jessica takes a tip to give the bottom one more cleaning, we try to clear out the mess of our aft quarter berth so the off watch person can sleep there during our crossing.

Much love from St. Martin!
Jessica, Matt & Georgie

With our Atlantic crossing looming, we work hard to get our cockpit enclosed, and finish job with $35 worth of vinyl.

Before we get that far though, we take what we hope is the last of our very wet rides, from Saba up to St. Martin. Leaving Elements under the careful watch of friends, we fly home for 10 days, and then attack projects with a fury.

The main thing was to enclose our cockpit so we could comfortably sit out there without the worry of being soaked in salt water. We knew there wasn’t enough time to do the proper finalized version with our Sunbrella canvas and strataglass vinyl, so we did a temporary fix.

With a sheet of 20mm uv protected vinyl that we had ordered off Amazon for only $32, we sewed it to the bolt rope running through our tracks, with the main goal to keep it as taught as possible so ripples would not disturb our vision. And….it actually came out better than we hoped for!

Much love from St. Martin!
Jessica, Matt & Georgie