Welcome Blown Away crew to our newest post! Along with the New Year, we have set our sights on Panama and the upcoming 7-day passage and on New Year’s Day, we picked up anchor in Cayos Cochinos and sailed back to the island of Roatan. Along for our sail, were couple Bruce and Shannon that we met on the island who are from El Paso and own a house there. They are interested in buying a boat, but have never sailed before. We invited them to join us on the 4-hour crossing to experience their first journey on the water and it was a perfect sailing day and conditions. They were very surprised at the amount of work it was to sail, so we don't think they will be buying a boat anytime soon! We saved them a lot of money and tears so they should be thankful, right!?🤣🤣🤣
Our days in French Harbor involved having a make up New Year's Eve lobster 🦞 dinner with Jergen and Heidi aboard Valentine, doing some provisioning and finishing boat work and preparing for the arrival of our friends, Paul and Linda. Jergen and I also contemplated returning one last time to Sandy Buns in West End so we could have one more of the most delicious Texas brisket sandwiches on earth, but resisted the temptation due to lack of time.
Eileen grew up with Linda and her husband, Paul, did the Miami to Guatemala trip with us last June as well as having cruised together on separate boats in the US Virgin Islands. It was a huge help having Paul at the help monopolizing the night shifts ❤️ and having Linda on board is a dream as she is a great cook. So, We're really “enjoying” being on the charter with a captain and chef! HA!
We are hoping to depart sometime on Sunday or Monday. Yesterday we made our final hop to the Honduran Island called Guanaja; it’s the furthest island East in the Bay Islands and gives us a good jumping off point. The BIG challenge; however, is picking rare weather windows where wind dies down long enough to be able to motor sail around pirate infested Nicaragua. More on that next week.
Anyway, the good news is we made it safely. Our lives changed significantly this week with the arrival of our Starlink satellite and it's hard to believe that it took us only 10 minutes to set the thing up and get online. Hat's off to Elon Musk and crew for creating this truly life changing, plug and play communication device. What a great feeling to have internet all the time and we don’t have to worry about data usage, expiration of plan, buying SIM cards! WOW!! This will make our world of social media much easier. Also, in our next post you will see how we and buddy boat Valentine use Starlink to communicate when we run "dark" to evade pirates off the coast of Nicaragua.
Make sure to watch our video which corresponds to this post at the top of this page and thanks for reading this week's adventures. Stay tuned until next week when we sail to Guanaja and beyond!
May your life's adventures abound!
Eileen and Brown
s/v Sailing Blown Away
"Proceed as if success is inevitable."
+1.347.461.1204 - US mobile/Whatsapp
Twitter - @svblownaway
Instagram - @sailingblownaway
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SailingBlownAway
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/eileen.dietrich/
Website: www.sailingblownaway.com
YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/sailingblownaway
Boat Tracker 1: https://share.garmin.com/sailingblownaway