So much happened in only a week in Antigua. We completed our sailing lessons, said goodbye to Captain Ben, met our favorite kid goat, and acquired a new crew member! But, all of our scheduled upgrades were urging us to head to Sint Maarten. The only downside to leaving was that there was no forecasted wind. We were heading into flat seas again – not a bad thing on our first crossing without Captain Ben!
We provisioned the boat and brought on Lauren, a new crew member. Lauren is a vivacious, adorable college sophomore from the state of Maine. She is a go-getter, already owning her own boat and doing her own improvements. While e-learning, she hopped on a delivery boat in Rhode Island and spent 2 weeks at sea with an all male crew and loved it. I met Lauren on Facebook – Women Who Sail site – as she was open to crewing again. We invited her to join us on the short passage to Sint Maarten where she could find more flights or sailng opportunities there. She was a gem to have onboard. And, Tracie continued her journey with us to Sint Maarten. But, sadly, her trip was coming to an end.
Our 18.5 hour, 100 NM crossing to Sint Maarten was a breeze, as easy as the crossing from St. Lucia to Antigua. We DID get to see dolphins as the sun came up over the horizon, our first big animal sighting on Blown Away. We arrived around 8:30 in the morning and anchored in Simpson Bay before clearing at customs. Thankfully, it was a breeze other than extra forms to complete due to COVID. This stop in Sint Maarten will completely transform our boat from a charter boat to a blue water cruising vessel. Bring it on!
NEW TO OUR CHANNEL? We are Eileen and Brown Councill. Welcome to our channel and a glimpse into our life adventure! 2020 was a year of uncertainty and change (for all of us, right?), but we overcame the challenges and decided it was time to chase our dream, to sail around the world! Did I mention that we had very NO sailing experience? Before leaving Qingdao, China, our home of 4 years, we sold almost all of our earthly possessions and started our international search to find the right sailboat that we would call "home." After 5 months of unanticipated twists and turns, we found what we were looking for, a used Leopard 44' Catamaran located in St. Lucia.
So, here begins our journey, filled with unmatched excitement and honestly, a bit of trepidation as well. We have much to learn as we travel the world on our floating home and we intend to document that journey and share it with you. We are so glad you have decided to join us, and we hope that you will find our story so compelling that it will inspire you to chase your dreams too!
As a viewer, we consider you to be part of our family and look forward to getting to know you. Don't hesitate to comment on our videos and ask questions. We will do our best to answer every correspondence! All we ask is that you have patience with us as we work really hard to improve our camera/video techniques and ability to tell a story. Hopefully, you will be as BLOWN AWAY from watching, as we are in experiencing and producing our adventures!
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Look at that rainbow. Isn't it beautiful. Every day we have a rainbow of some sort.
Speaking of something else, it's beautiful. She's on deck.
Now Eileen's going to try it. Let's see how well she learns. You can do a bowline as well.
Wow. You just do the three coats and they'll bet you a load of money.
Big day. Flaps up. We just said goodbye to Captain Ben. Oh Ben, don't leave us.
He's become a has-been. We don't mean that Ben. You'll always be number one. He's a has-been.
In our book. We're so thankful for Captain Ben. Boy, what an amazing person he is. And if you're
ever in St. Lucia, look him up. First for sale. He is just amazing. He's a perfect captain. Yeah,
he's really knowledgeable and he's just fun to be with. But now we are Captain Eileen and Captain
Brown. So the onus is on us now, right? Yes. We just looked up the specifications for St. Martin
and it looks like we're able to get him without a PCR test, which is good. Only problem is there's
no wind. The plan is to spend another day just kind of relaxing here and getting ourselves ready
for the crossing. It's about a 16 to 18 hour crossing. We also might pick up another crew,
Lauren. She's delightful. Delightful college student from Maine. So we'll see about that.
And that's about it. Left my life in St. Martin. All right, anyway. Especially our two pilots
afraid. That is so great. I feel like a fool without my tools. Okay, we are out of here.
We are so pumped. Lauren has joined us on the boat and we are going to St. Martin. Yeah,
we are. St. Martin or best. This morning, I'm on my way to customs to clear us all out of Antigua.
I'm hoping that it all goes well since we have crew changes like removing Ben as the captain
and adding Lauren as new crew. First time clearing as captain. Very exciting.
Customs and immigration is done. We are stamped out and ready to go. Took a lot longer than it
should have because we had to re-register and start over, but it's all good. Just took a little
extra time. So we are on our way to St. Martin officially. Go girl. No stop to St. Martin.
Hello. We're captain Benless. And we are saying goodbye to Antigua. We have had an absolutely
amazing stay in Antigua, but it is time to head off north where we are excited to complete our
boat upgrades and improvements. St. Martin is 100 nautical miles from Falmouth Harbor.
So we are estimating 16 hours to get there. The forecast is calling for very light winds. So we
anticipate having to motor sail most of the way, but you never know for sure until we are out
on the water. Why are the engines on? Because there's no wind. No wind. Even with my hot air,
it can't even push these sails. That's low wind. 3.9 knots apparent and our speed around is 5.6.
But the good thing about it is the seas are calm. A little wind would be nice.
But we're not complaining. The sun's getting ready to go down over there and we're moving along.
We're hoping in a couple of hours we'll hit our waypoint and start changing our course,
which maybe will give us some wind as well. Who knows? Time will tell. If you believe anything
we've said, if you have no idea what we're doing, we just talk a lot. So please comment
down below if you're full of it or if we know what we're talking about.
If I know what I'm talking about or if he does, we don't have to be together on that one.
Yeah, so I do like all the... Oh, I love that! This is my project list.
I have when I was learning sextant. This is like a sunset that we had. Taking down the Antigua flag.
All of us have received our St. Martin entry approvals that we completed online. So we don't
anticipate any issues clearing into St. Martin. But with COVID times, you just never know what
you're going to find until you arrive. It's our first night crossing on our own. There is a boat
that has its sail dry that got caught on a buoy with not only lines but chains.
And it is asking for assistance. Interesting situation. Very, very thankful it's not us.
Praying that all goes well for that boat. Apparently the gentleman on board is actually
handicapped and it's just him and his wife on the boat.
Big milestone. Where are we at right now? We just arrived in St. Martin this morning.
And it is a beautiful, beautiful day here in Simpson Bay. So our first
Thanks Captain Ben for teaching us so well.
And it took about 16 hours, 16 and a half hours. That boat over there actually ran onto a buoy and
the buoy wrapped around the chain and the rope wrapped around their sail drive. And they were
stuck on it for about five hours. And then they broke free at around 6 30 in the morning.
Amazingly, no damage to the sail drive. And they were able to pull into St. Martin. It's just
unbelievable here. In a couple of minutes, we're going to head into the Customs and
Immigration office to get ourselves cleared. Clearing into St. Martin turned out to be
really easy, which was a huge relief to all of us and made the sunset that much
more enjoyable.
