Sailing Life Day 42: Unexpected Plan of Crossing to Dominican Republic after an overnight and non-stop sail to our last Bahamaian Island- Mayaguana

We arrived in Mayaguana at 12nn after another smooth overnight sail from Clarence Town! We were motorsailing all throughout the night and that’s my first time to handle our boat on my own (Jonathan was resting) with the mainsail and genoa up! Right after sunrise, Jonathan took over the helm since we need to get inside the bay which is sorrounded by coral reefs and rocks.. we anchored smoothly, the water was crystal clear but it’s scorching hot! We were sweating a lot so we decided to jump into the water.. he did first but when it was my turn I saw two reef sharks circling around our boat.. I screamed and return back up! I think they are used to having boats here giving them food but sadly we didn’t catch any fish again! Really have to learn what lures to use.. what we’ve been catching were seaweed mixed with plastic bags! Grr!😰

As I said, our passage was really smooth so I was able to change our bed sheet (after a month! we turned it upside down! Haha) and chopped vegetables for my chicken curry and pansit bihon! It’s my Mama’s birthday so we had to celebrate on the boat! I also baked cookies (but failed!)! Hahaha 🤪🤪!

Before anchoring, Jonathan and I were talking about our route and the perfect weather window that we have.. we decided to skip Turks & Caicos and sail directly to Dominican Republic! We’ve been to T&C before and the fees to get in and out of the boat is $100 as long as we’ll only be there within 7 days and if not we have to pay $300 for cruising permit excluding the pet permit and the exit permit! If we will do that route, we have to deal with shallow water of the Caicos Banks and all the hassle of going in and out of customs! (Update after I wrote this: We unexpectedly had a detour the next day because of our diesel leak and will talk the next day.. clearing in and out of the customs and immigration here were the easiest!!)

So, we checked the charts and weather.. we have the perfect 4-day window to head South directly and with our previous average speed, we can make it within 39 hours! The only catch is we have to use our motor engine all throughout since it will only be 2 to 10 knots of Southerly wind for Sunday! It’s okay with us since we refueled for 20 gallons in Clarence Town aside from what we have on our main tank! This is so much better than having wind but with high waves.. much better for our kitty cat.

We’ve dropped anchor and Jonathan did check the engine, changed our oil, inspected our fuel tank and everything! We also had a little damaged on our Genoa but able to remedy it with a sail patch tape.. need to stock up with more of this on our next stop!

Ha, he’s been always extra cautious with things and the good thing with the Captain is that he can always think of ways to fix things on the boat! Steep learning curve but he really made sure that our Empress will keep us safe!

So, by 6pm we pulled our anchor out and head out of the bay to continue our journey...All the blogs I read recently were saying that it’s an exhausting crossing.. but we’ve had a great sail and we were doing 4 to 5 hour shift on the helm!

We’ve been eating well and reheating all our food on our GoSun Solar stove and we have very cold drinks from our freezer and while I’m not on shift, just watching the series I downloaded on Netflix (addicted to Billionaire and Reign! Hahaha).

The next day, DAY 43 is when we had unexpected detour after a problem on our boat! Story and photos later!