Friends talked us into staying in Virgin Gorda, so we didn’t leave yesterday…Take 2, we are definitely leaving today around 5pm and friends we met yesterday, that have made this passage a couple times will be our buddy boat.

The Anegada Passage is also know as, “Oh-My-God-A Passage” will be our longest passage yet.

For us to expand our cruising destinations and continue down the Caribbean Island chain we must make this next step and cross the infamous Anegada Passage. The Anegada passage is an 80mile stretch of open water between the BVI and Anguilla. Depths quickly go from 150′ to over 6000′. It is known for its crazy currents between the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Waves don’t come from just one direction. They are mixed up, confused, and we are going to feel like we are on a ride inside a washing machine. It is commonly referred to as the Cape Horn of the Atlantic and nothing we have read about this passage is good. We will probably be beating straight into the wind the entire time, so we will have to motor sail, and we won’t have the sails help for stability, either.

What is even scarier (for me anyways) about this stretch of ocean is that we have to do this passage AT NIGHT!!!!! Several non boaters ask us why….here is why: You always want to leave your anchorage and arrive at a new anchorage during daylight hours when you can see obstacles, such as, unlit channel markers and reefs. You never want to arrive at an unfamiliar location at night and try to anchor in the dark when you don’t know what you are anchoring on. You don’t want to set your anchor on a reef or a bed of sea grass where it won’t hold. Since this passage will take us between 15-20 hours (depending upon the wind and the currents) we can not make this entire passage during daylight hours, so we have to leave The North Sound in the afternoon and sail all night to arrive in St. Martin in the morning.

We have been watching the weather and the weather looks good for us to do the crossing tonight. We’ll be updating our progress with our Satellite tracker/phone to Facebook via WordPress all night so our families won’t worry about us. Sorry in advance for all of the posts, but this will be the easiest way to keep our worried family and friends all updated all at one time.

Yesterday’s post did not post from WordPress to Facebook, so this is another try.

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