It's finally here - what we (mostly Todd) has been prepping for!


January 11
We were up early. Did some final provisioning at the marina farm stands and bakery nearby. Todd did marina checkout - took awhile as everyone was doing it too. Left the dock by 11am. Official start at 12pm. Slow start as low winds and lot of boats closeby. After last buoy and turning, we lowered jib and main and raised the spinnaker. Beautiful sunset! Chicken pot pie for dinner. Our watch schedule: Todd and I 7pm-1am and Karen and Charlie 1am-7am.

January 12
Spinnaker all day as low winds. Karen made breakfast - eggs and toast. Dinner was tacos with mango salsa and rice. Almost full moon and lots of stars and planets to see.

January 13
Morning watch. Took spinnaker down and reef 1 and full jib. When winds picked up, 3rd reef and full jib then winds died so took main to reef 1. In the evening, around 8:30pm, squalls look like they were coming so took the main to 3rd reef - Charlie and Karen came out to help. Full moon tonight - wolf moon. Mars was behind the moon. Beautiful evening.

January 14
Woke up with hardly any wind. Didn't make much headway overnight. Turned on engines to shake the reef off. Reef 1 main and full jib all day. More winds today up to 20+ knots and some waves. Saw dolphins this morning! Dinner was braised chicken with onions, served with quinoa and bokchoy and salad (spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta) - all so good! Still had a full moon tonight. At 8pm, changed to reef 3 and full jib. All hands on deck for doing this at night.

January 15
Good conditions this morning. Shook the reef and now reef 1 and full jib. Also jibed to head to next waypoint. Everyone did their watches. Pretty fast, steady winds. Dinner was shrimp scampi over linguini with beet salad. We switched to 3 hour shifts with Todd and I doing the 10pm-1am for the night as we're expecting to arrive in the morning. Plan is to come inside marina during daylight as the winds have been reported to be super high in the last few miles and docking with high winds isn't easy.

January 16
We had watch until 1am, slept some, then up by 4am. Stronger winds heading to Santa Marta - we only had reefed jib out. Winds got as high as 37 knots while others reported as high as 56! Arrived Santa Marta at 5:45am, took fenders and lines out, then let Rally Control know we are ready to come in to marina (waited for daybreak). Genestho crew and Rachel from Rally Control helped with our docking. All settled before 7am.

Wow - leg 1 done! It took us 5 nights to sail 815 nautical miles.

Photos of Leg 1