Month: March 2018

I bring you news as newly anointed Shellbacks. Today at 2020 UTC, coordinates 0°00.000 South 130°00.000 West, Bravo and crew crossed the Equator, thereby transitioning from lowly Pollywogs to distinguished Shellbacks. As dictated by tradition and as the sole Shellback onboard, Captain Andy led the ceremony. We asked the Gods for forgiveness for our Pollywaggery,… Continue reading Day 15 – from Pollywogs to Shellbacks

Wake Caffeinate Eat Read Nap Music Eat Stop the boat for a quick swim in the middle of the planet in an absolute calm, clear, gorgeous day Chill Check lure, nope nothing. Get sad and keep hoping for the best Chill See giant fish following your boat, expressing no interest in your lure Eat Stargaze… Continue reading Day 14

That is right, 13 days at sea...in a row!  That’s 312 hours, 18,720 minutes, 1,123,200 seconds. But who’s counting? We are motor-sailing through the doldrums, keeping an eye out for squalls, catching up on sleep and drying all of our gear. The inside of Bravo looks like a laundromat. Except it smells less of lavender and… Continue reading Day 13

Last night we had the biggest storm to date. We also caught the most massive fish to date; a 3.5-ft 50-lb wahoo. We got our butts kicked by both the fish and the storm. The fish managed to rip the line as we were trying to get it onboard, so we lost it. Maneuvering the… Continue reading Day 12

“Squalls, squalls, squally squalls squalls” - SV Sedna It somehow feels less crappy when you know you buddy boats are in this with you. We’ve all been surfing through these big waves, big wind, and rainfall for the last 3 days. The sailing has been fast, fun and required a lot of focus. Auto can’t… Continue reading Day 11

Bravo kept us on our toes today. Early morning, we turned on the engine to charge up our batteries. On startup Andy noticed it wasn’t running right. Within minutes the alarm went off, and we saw smoke coming out of the engine compartment. Andy killed the engine, grabbed one fire extinguisher, I ran towards the… Continue reading Day 10

Happy birthday to Andy’s mom! We woke up today to a visit from friendly and curious dolphins. I missed them! It was a welcome surprise to this otherwise monotonous scenery. Today we each treated ourselves to a Snickers bar. I’d say this brought back an opportunity to practice mindfulness but that would be a lie.… Continue reading Day 9 (It’s Snickers Sunday!)

Dear Mother Nature, If you could be so kind as to send an edible fish in the general direction of our lures we’d kindly appreciate it. You are giving us great weather and cooperating seas so I’m not trying to be greedy. I’m sorry, you are the best. Loooove you. Kind regards, Bravo Stats Date:… Continue reading Day 8

We are a third of the way there! Yeah!! Our spinnaker wrapped around the forestay and Matt helped untangle it. That was exciting. We saw big blue ocean. That was exciting. We listened to 80’s classics and cheesy 90’s music. That was exciting. We’ve been riding waves this afternoon, hitting speeds of 9-10 knots. That… Continue reading Day 7

Happy birthday to my mom!! Amo mami. 🙂 🙂 Today was another great day. The winds died down yesterday evening and it doesn’t feel like we’ve quite hit the trades (not as consistent as we had expected), or at least we are right on the edge. Last night we lowered the spinnaker, gybed and turned our… Continue reading Day 6