After several frustrating seasons where weather, health or other circumstances prevented us from making a real ocean crossing to another country....this year we finally made the jump to Cuba, and back!
There is no simple way to describe the experience. The outbound crossing was extremely challenging for us. Wind and wave conditions exceeded predictions considerably...despite checking 3 different sources for weather they all proved to be wrong. The 108 nautical mile crossing took us 24 hours, most of it hand steered as our auto pilot was overwhelmed by the size and strength of the waves (we found a clump of seaweed on top of our dodger when we were cleaning up the day after arrival.)
But we made it and were glad to have achieved a "bucket list" goal. Our buddy boat, Lorbas, with Rick & Donna aboard, was literally our guiding light as we followed her lights through the night passage. They have a system aboard that identifies and tracks the bearing of cruise and cargo ships...so we followed their lead in avoiding close calls.
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