A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 4/4/2021 – 4/11/2021

Hello! You can watch this week’s video here. 🙂

Last Sunday we waited out the last of the cold front. Monday morning- despite not having great conditions- we pulled up our anchor and headed towards Long Island.

We peeked through the binoculars while we were approaching the cut and got a little nervous… it was looking like 8ft breaking waves out there. We decided to get a little closer just to make sure, but agreed on possibly turning around if it looked too rough. Luckily, things mellowed out by the time we got there (a TINY bit), and we decided to go for it! It was definitely a bumpy ride, with most of the waves hitting us right on our beam, but Ray did an excellent job of maneuvering the boat through it all. 

Once we cleared the cut, we raised our sails and shut off our engines for the first time in a long time! We were so excited! ❤️⛵️

We sailed along for a few hours, then dropped the sails and started an engine so we could turn into the wind a bit towards Long Island. Once we made it to our next waypoint, we decided to raise the sails again and tack our way into the anchorage.

As we were raising the mainsail though, the halyard twisted and got stuck on the backstay. Ray got it off as soon as he could, but it most likely did some damage to the line. Luckily, we were able to raise it without any problems after that, and are keeping our fingers crossed it holds up until we can replace it! We dropped anchor off of Long Island later that afternoon, rinsed all the salt off the boat, and called it an early night.

The next morning we were eager to explore because it’s been a while since we’ve been somewhere new! We jumped in the dinghy and headed to shore.

We scouted out the local grocery and liquor store, got gas for our dinghy, and then quickly realized that everything else is a car ride away. Fortunately though, we ran into our friends Nick and Megan and made plans to rent a car and explore together the next day.

We picked up the car around noon, and drove down to Dean’s Blue Hole– the second deepest blue hole in the world! It drops from 15ft to 663ft, making it a popular destination for free divers. The platform you see floating in the middle has a line that drops to the bottom, so free divers can track their depths.

Swimming over the drop off was such a strange sensation! I wish we had remembered to bring our fins!! We spent the whole afternoon swimming, diving, and chilling out on the beach, and closed out the day with some ice cream from a cute local shop called Moon Glow. You order through a little window and the man gives you basically an entire pint of ice cream in a paper coffee cup.

We were the only ones there, so the owner came outside and chatted with us while we ate. It was interesting to hear from a local business owner about the impacts of past hurricanes and now COVID-19. He maintained a positive and relaxed outlook through it all, and said he’ll continue to serve ice cream everyday “until people stop coming”. 

We technically had the car until 12pm the next day, so we got up early Thursday morning to squeeze in another adventure. We decided to check out the Columbus Memorial, which was built (or maybe re-done?) in December 2020. It was strange to see such a new/sturdy/clean structure on the otherwise pretty underdeveloped island. 

The monument is in a beautiful location with a gorgeous beach at the bottom, and we were the only ones there!

We last minute decided to check out a legendary restaurant for an early lunch called Chez Pierre. It’s run by a little old French man named Pierre out of his eco-resort.

By the looks of it- it’s a one man show. We walked in, met Pierre, and he told us where all the drinks were located so we could serve ourselves while he took our orders, cooked, and served us our food himself. The food was amazing, and the restaurant overlooks (another) beautiful beach.

It was all fun and games until my flip flop got caught in the wood paneling of the path back to the car, I tripped and twisted my ankle pretty badly. It swelled up almost immediately and looked like I had a golf ball implanted in the side of my foot. With Nick and Ray by my side, I hobbled back to the car and by some miracle climbed back into the dinghy. I spent the rest of the day with it propped up under ice.

By Friday I was able to put a little bit of weight on it while it was wrapped, but I was still not doing great. I made Ray a list and sent him off to the store to pick up a few things, and worked on this week’s video. 

Yesterday was similar, and the bruising has definitely set in today. Fingers crossed I can get back on my feet again soon! 

I hope you had a good week. ❤️