Captain’s Log: Celebrating Friendship
The Basics
The boat: Noble Shadow, a 40 foot Bali Catspace
Crew: Captain Jalil (instructor)
ASA Students: Steve, Lorinda, Mary, Peter, Jeff, and Dana
Courses Completed: ASA 103 (Basic Coastal Cruising), ASA 104 (Bareboat Cruising), ASA 114 (Cruising Catamaran)
Day 1: Celebrating Friendship
There wasn’t much need for the crew to get to know each other before setting sail! Steve and Peter were celebrating 50 years of friendship, Peter and Mary were celebrating 30 years of marriage, and Dana and Jeff were also friends of Steve and his wife Lorinda. Instead, all the crew needed to do was introduce themselves to Captain Jalil!
Steve and Lorinda had completed ASA 101 the year previous at Go Sail Flathead Lake in Montana and had so much fun they had convinced their friends to join them for a big catamaran adventure in the Caribbean! Peter owned his own swing keel Catalina on Coeur d’Alene Lake in Idaho, but as a largely self-taught sailor he was keen to come along with Steve to build his skills. Mary and Jeff didn’t have sailing experience but were long-time power boaters and Dana, Jeff’s wife, was just along for the ride!
“At the time, I had no idea how much fun we were in for but I started to get a sense of it over dinner & drinks at Dive Bar,” Captain Jalil noted in his Captain’s Log. “The rest of that story stays at Dive Bar.”
Day 2: New skills, new lessons learned
The students were up and ready to go for their 8am class start! Captain Jalil showed the crew around the boat and pointed out the emergency equipment. Afterwards, they got the charts out and started planning their itinerary. Having sailed only on lakes, Steve and Peter were feeling the summons of an open horizon and decided on a crossing to Culebra.
They took off and near Red Point raised the sails and headed downwind in 10-knot S Easterlies. The crew practiced some jibes and rigged a preventer for wing-on-wing sailing. After the 4th or 5th accidental jibe the crew felt content with their lesson and headed up to a broad reach, Barbour-hauled the jib, and glided into the lee of Water Island.
The Cove had some buoys and features they used to practice precise handling in tight spaces. Everybody took turns at the helm practicing the techniques for turning, backing, and stopping.
Then Peter took the helm and put his new skills to the test as he threaded through the crowded anchorage to a mooring ball in Honeymoon Bay, all the way in by the beach. The crew took the rest of the evening off to snorkel and watch the green sea turtles grazing in the seagrass in the shallows.
Day 3: Passage day!
It’s passage day! After a morning of class work learning about M.O.B. maneuvers, the VHF radio, and emergency procedures, the crew hit the open waters with 12-knot southeasterlies . The crew hove-to for lunch with Culebra barely visible to the west and St Thomas fading into the eastern horizon.
As the crew drew closer to Culebra they used the chart plotter together with the water color and sea state to pick their way through the treacherous reefs guarding the SW coast. Then, just as the wind started failing and their speed dropped to around 4 knots, they headed up and skirted the W coast, scudding along on a beam reach in perfectly flat, clear water with the bottom in full color beneath them and the depth meter reading in the 20s. Puerto Rico could be seen hulking dimly on the western horizon when they picked up Captain Jalil’s favorite mooring in Tamarind Bay.
Day 4: Tacking away
The crew spent the morning enjoying Culebra before casting off for some sail handling drills in the afternoon. Everybody was starting to get a handle on tacking with the dual mainsheet system. However, the wind died down after a few hours and the crew decided to call it a day and head to Sardinas Bay for dinner.
Day 5: Sailing Selfies
Return passage day! But first, a hike across the peninsula to the beach and what Captain Jalil claimed were “the most amazing selfies ever.” After some sailing selfies, the crew cast off and raised sails north of Culebra. Tacking and trimming practice began as the crew worked slowly to windward in light airs with gusts up to 15 knots. By the afternoon, the crew had reached Brewer’s Bay on St Thomas, where Captain Jalil noted they “dropped the anchor in 18 feet on a clear, sandy bottom to the faint sounds of reggae tunes wafting over to us from the beach.”
Day 6: Pristine conditions
“Brewer’s is the right place to be in the morning,” Captain Jalil wrote in his Captain’s Log. “The glassy waters are broken only by the surfacing sea turtles and the occasional flash of sprat chased by a bar jack or barracuda.”
After enjoying a blissful morning at Brewer’s Bay, the crew began their daily sail. The sailing conditions were prime and the students were mastering both their tacking and sail trimming skills. Around midday they picked up mooring at Buck Island, checked out the shipwreck, and went for a swim. The rest of the afternoon was spent reefing before anchoring in Secret Harbor.
Day 7: The final test
The crew went back over all the material they had learned, asked Captain Jalil any lingering questions and then took their exams! Afterwards, as Captain Jalil put it, “with some difficulty but with the confidence that comes with repeated victory, we manhandled the anchor back aboard and motored into Compass Point.” Another successful sailing adventure!