Puerto Rico to Turks & Caicos

May 28, 2014

We left Puerto Rico yesterday morning at about 7:30 a.m., starting our long journey to Turks & Caicos.  We were able to sail most of the way yesterday and last night until the wind died down at about 4 a.m. and we had to start the engine.  We had a lot of wave action but nothing we haven’t seen before.  What we did have was quite a few rain showers.  They mostly appeared on Daniel’s watch.  We try to alternate our watches so each other gets plenty of rest but we aren’t on a set 4 hours on, 4 hours off.  That just doesn’t work for us.  We are more like, sleep an hour or two and then get up and check on the other person.  If they look sleepy, swap places with them.  We did that off and on throughout the night.  Daniel is really good about “if you need anything, just come wake me up”.  So at one point he had been asleep about 30 minutes when we had a radar alarm go off so I had to go get him.  There was a container ship on our path, but they were at least 4 miles away.  We passed in front of them and never came close to them.  The alarm also alerts you to bad weather and since we had off and on showers last night, the alarm just kept going off.

I was able to comfortably maintain my watch time because I was able to see the Dominican Republic off in the distance.  There is just something about knowing there is land, just right over there, if you need it.  We passed the end of the island of the Dominican Republic at about 7 this morning and we chose to keep going.  We could have pulled into a little cove and slept a little, but really, the conditions were very favorable to us just continuing on, so we are.  After listening to the weather and having breakfast, I laid down for the first of what I’m sure will be many naps.  Just another 24 hours and we should be in Turks & Caicos. 

May 29, 2014

Lots of naps, for both of us, throughout the day and another all nighter.  The winds stayed at about 15-20 knots most of the night so we were able to sail.  The waves were about 4-5 feet during the daytime and died down to maybe 3-4 feet throughout the night.  The winds finally died down so much we started the engine, but only for a couple of hours.  Mostly we just sailed.  We covered 300 miles in 50 hours and made a land stop at Sand Cay, about 70 miles shy of Turks & Caicos. 

Sand Cay was a beautiful 1 ½ mile long island, in the middle of the ocean, it was paradise to see!  No one else was there, the island was all ours.  We anchored close enough to shore that it wasn’t a bad swim to shore.  Once we arrived, the birds welcomed us and followed us along as we explored their island.  The white sandy beach was the one you see in all the magazine ads that say “come to the Caribbean” – it was that pretty.  We walked most of the beach and went “in land” which wasn’t far until you got to the other side, a 2 minute walk maybe, and checked out the view on the other side.  A lot of “sea trash” was on the shore.  Nets, cups, plastic containers, that kind of “trash”.  After we finished our discovery of the island, we swam back to C-Time and relaxed a little.  Daniel threw in a movie for us to watch but I don’t think either of us made it past the first 30 minutes of the movie.  Two “all nighters” had taken their toll and we slept soundly the rest of the night.