Adding to the Experience

Today we got Yantina underway for the first time! In order for Patrick and I to be oriented to Yantina, the three of us had a discussion about safety protocol and where all safety equipment is. Next we discussed the watch schedule which consists of 2 hours on followed by 6 hours off. This we allow us to shift our watches one slot every 24 hours so all 4 of us all will have different watches everyday and not get with the same ones all of the time.

We have also set up the cooking schedule. Everyone is on there own for breakfast. Each person will be responsible for cooking and cleaning up lunch and dinner on a daily rotating schedule. Therefore once you have your day Of cooking, you not have “kitchen duty” again for 4 days. This should be interesting. I am not sure if my culinary talents are up to it, but stay tuned.

To continue our orientation we prepared Yantina to get underway! We left Christiansted Harbor heading north east toward Buck Island, myself on working the port side jib sheets and Patrick working the starboard side jib sheets under Ian’s command. I put it that way because this is the largest boat I have ever sailed and the powerful sails and winches deserve much respect! You don’t just flip the line off the winch with one hand and haphazardly wrap the other side by hand and let the sail flip across. The furler and winches are all power for good reason, you can’t hold them yourself! So after some practice tacking back and forth and decided to stop for lunch just off Buck Island. It was apparent to us that social distancing was being enforced when the park ranger (apparently all of St, Croix is a national park) showed up by boat and all beach goers scrambled to get on there boats.

After lunch, we continued our sail back to the harbor. All in all, a wonderful day!