How Much Sailing Did We Do and Where Did We Spend Our Nights?

People have asked so, based on our log book, here is the answer. Our voyage began on Day 1, October 22, when we left City Island, New York, for Hampton Virginia, and ended on Day 179, when we hauled ILENE in St. David’s, Grenada on April 18, two days before flying back to New York.

110 of our 179 days were lay days, in which we did not move the boat at all. We laid over in 30 of the 52 ports or anchorages that we visited, in eleven different nations, with our longest layovers being twenty two days in St. Martin, thirteen days in Hampton Virginia, eight in Tortola, six each in Prickly Bay Grenada and in Falmouth Antigua, and less, to as little as one day, in the other twenty five places where we stayed over. We also had two days of day sailing where we returned to the same port at the end of the day and hence did not move the boat to a different port.  Adding these two to the 110 lay days and subtracting them from 179 day total means we made at least one “passage" (we sometimes stopped in two ports in a single day), or part of a passage (an overnight involves two days in one passage), on 67 days.

How long did we sail (or motor) during the 67 passage days? Thirteen of them were overnights; we ended the passage a day or more after we set out: Three of these were the trip from New York to Virginia; eight were moving from Virginia to Tortola; and one each were the passages from Tortola to French Saint Martin and from Dutch Sint Maarten to Antigua. By subtracting the thirteen overnights from the 67 passage days means we devoted only 54 days to shorter passages, ranging from eight hours to as little as half an hour.

Also, by day number 78 out of 179, we arrived in Antigua and had completed our night time sailing. 

Was this enough sailing for us?  Yes, even for Roger, who loves to sail.

And how did we spend the 178 nights of our voyage?   We were at docks in only four ports, for a total of thirty nights, and most if them toward the beginning of the voyage: fourteen days in Bluewater Marina in Hampton Virginia, nine in Nanny Cay Marina in Tortola, three in Rodney Bay Marina in St. Lucia and four in Port Louis Marina in St. Georges, Grenada. So 23 of our 30 dock nights (77%) were during the first 35 of our 178 nights (first 20 %).  Subtracting the 30 dock nights and the thirteen overnights from the 178 nights of the adventure leaves 135 nights on a mooring or our anchor.

These, it turns out, were very evenly divided, with 68 nights on mooring and 67 on anchor. But an interesting pattern emerges, not intended. We mostly took moorings during the earlier part of the trip and mostly anchored when we got further south. Moorings in the south were relatively less plentiful, we gained confidence in our anchor and the winds slacked off. To illustrate this pattern, our first night on anchor was after day 53 in Marigot Bay, Saint Martin and our second such night was after day 79 in Falmouth, Antigua. So the remaining 65 of our 67 nights on anchor all took place during the final 99 of our 178 nights.

Of the eleven nations we visited, eight were English-speaking; on the other three, French was the native language. The restaurants are generally better on French islands but shopping for food in markets is more difficult because of the language barrier with the types of foods sometimes unknown and  their names and the cooking instructions, if any, in French.

While we will stop briefly in some of the eleven nations we visited while outbound, most of our northbound stops will be on islands we have not visited yet.

Roger has been asked by a friend to help him bring a 65 foot luxury motor yacht from Boca Raton, Florida to Westchester County, New York. So stay tuned for more waterborne adventures.