Writing this from a sailboat which is tied up in a slip at Turtle Cove Marina. That's on the north coast of Provodenciales, Turks & Caicos.
We sailed out of Miami, through the Bahamas (the water there is absurdly clear, you can see individual stones at over 30ft deep), and now the plan has changed, and instead of heading to Jamaica, we continued east to Turks & Caicos. The owner is now planning on stopping in the Dominican Republic and holing up there for the season instead of trying to make it to Panama. We'll relax in T&C for the next few days then take the boat down south to the DR.
Four crew on board, four different nationalities. Only one native English speaker but we all use English to communicate. Everyone is pretty close to fluent in English so that makes it easy, though we've had a few LOLmiscommunications including announcing a tack when the guy at the helm actually meant jibe. Also some superLOL moments with people getting frustrated and reverting to their native language using much higher volume in an effort to make themselves understood, then realizing no one else understand them.
About 730 nautical miles traveled since we left Miami 8 days ago. We sailed nonstop with the exception of anchoring off Mayaguana (SE island in the Bahamas) one evening. Most of the route has been ESE or SE, so close hauled for most of the way with some tacking. It's a lot easier to sail with the wind on your side than right on your nose. We've been doing a good job staying at or just under 45 degrees off the wind for a lot of the trip.
Here is a shot of how clear the Bahamas water is, somewhere near Rum Cay:
So far we caught a small tuna using a yellow/green squid lure, immediately ate much of it raw, made tuna steaks out of the rest for dinner a few hours later, and used the scraps for bait. That tuna bait resulted in catching a barracuda, which we used solely for bait. That barracuda bait resulted in catching a shark, which we ate. You can see us lassoing the shark below.
The tuna. He is minus his tail for a quick bleed because we were hoping to immediately land another as we were right over a baitball. Only ended up with him, though. Normally would just bleed from the blood lines on each side. I made that cut later anyway, you can see it as a vertical cut right behind the pectoral fin on his side.
He was enough for some immediate sashimi and four small steaks. If you haven't had sashimi from a tuna that was swimming around in the ocean 10 minutes earlier, I recommend it. I have a photo of the filleted carcass on another crew member's phone, I'll post it when we eventually exchange photos. De captain, you will be proud of me. I got every last bit of meat.
Here's the the head of the barracuda. Chopped off the head because we put the line right back out after we landed him with some of his guts and a shark hit it within a few minutes, while I was still deciding what to do with the barracuda meat. He was about three feet long.
The shark gave a good fight, but eventually we brought him in. In order to bring him in the boat, we made a little lasso and lassoed him around the tail so we could bring him on tail-first. Less sharp parts on that end.
He was a little over four feet long I'd guess. Cut off the fin and hung it from the bow as an offering to Neptune. Same thing with the tail of the tuna. I cut out his entire jaw and dried it on the deck in order to get as many teeth as possible, but the seas got rough at one point and they weren't well secured, so over the side they went. Bummer. I did manage to dry out a little skin for some sweet shark rawhide. If you aren't familiar with shark skin, it's smooth if you rub it in one direction and like sandpaper if you rub it in the other. Pretty cool stuff. Nothing interesting in his stomach to report.
Here we are after pulling into T&C. Not sure why the owner wanted to come into the slip bow first, but whatever.
And the obligatory sunset shot, somewhere in the Bahamas:
So we'll chill in the T&Cs for a week or so, then on to the Dominican Republic.
After we get to the DR, I'll probably hang out a few days and then fly back to the mainland at the end of June or start of July. I've got a wedding to be at in Denver in mid July, so I decided to fly to Florida, buy a car, and drive it from Key West up to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. These are the southernmost and northernmost driveable parts of the USA. Barrow is further north than Prudhoe Bay, but there are no paved roads there. Have always wanted to do this drive and now is the perfect time of year for it.
I'll stop off for the wedding along the way. After I do that road trip and knock off SD/ND/ID, I'll be down to only 1 unvisited state - Hawaii. I'll sell the car in Alaska and either fly back to St Thomas then, or fly out to Hawaii to complete Achievement: All 50 States Visited, before flying back to St Thomas and continuing the sailing education.
I think my travel route will mostly look like due north from Florida up to D.C. to visit family. From there, NNW up to the Dakotas, then a straight shot to Colorado, and then to the Al-Can highway after making it to Idaho. I'm in the wedding party so I kind of have to show up for it. Other than that I'm just going to drive wherever I feel like on the way north.
I'll keep taking photos and reporting back if you guys are interested. I guess the LC thread is the best place for this stuff?
Living my dreams instead of just sitting around dreaming them is incredible, I'm ridiculously happy with my life right now. I highly recommend it.
More details later, got some reefs to snorkel.