Our Grand Adventure

1st March 2026 | Odometer: 1673nm | Passage to Bahamas

The Dominican Republic was proving to be a rather difficult country to experience by boat, and we had hyped each other up and decided – let’s do a massive crossing to the Bahamas.

We had headed back to Samana anchorage, skipping out early on our time in the national park so that we could stock up, cook food for our passage and complete all the paperwork needed to leave. We had looked into the timing and the wind and we needed to leave around 1pm on Friday to arrive in daylight on Sunday morning.

Day 1 – Friday

Friday was a weird day of waiting – we couldn’t leave earlier than midday otherwise we would arrive in the Bahamas way too early. But we still had a few jobs and immigration paperwork to do.

After a leisurely breakfast, we headed into town – first stop, immigration! The immigration office was entertainingly inefficient and we were the first ones there that morning. We watched as a technician had just got the power supply working in the building again, then spent the next fifteen minutes or so working on the next most important thing – getting the aircon going haha. We then watched them start up the first computer, a slow process. After which the first monitor and printer.

Seeing that the first computer was on, one of the six other immigration staff working decided to turn on the second computer. Buh-bow, trips the circuit and loses power to both. D’oh! So they reset the breakers, start the second computer up and start processing our immigration checkout. Midway through this, another person starts the first computer up. Yup, trips the breaker. Both computers go down again. I think we watched this process maybe five times? Eventually they decided to just use one computer, after which we were through in about ten minutes. I just can’t even. 😂

Even though this was clearly insane, they were a lovely bunch of people, sharing a morning team coffee all together and offering for us to join if we wanted to. As we went to leave I wanted to confirm that the next step was customs, and in my fumbling Spanish we were told that there was no customs today, it was closed… as was the port authority… 🤷‍♀️ We did go by the office and checked. Yep, closed. Oh well, good thing we paid up on arrival.

Next stop, the Armada. The Dominican Republic navy requires you to register all vessel movements with them so off we went to get clearance to depart. The officer we needed to speak to was out clearing in a cruise ship so we killed time for a few hours by doing some extra groceries, having coffee at one cafe and juice at another. Eventually, after checking back a couple of times, we were cleared out.

We headed back to the dinghy only to find the wind had really whipped up in the bay, and the dinghy dock was packed. Absolutely packed! We pushed our way through a crowd of thirty or so tourists waiting to board a day trip on the same dock and then we realised our dilemma. Pepi was trapped on the shallow side of the dock and we couldn’t get out from there, with maybe five or six dinghies tied in between us and freedom!

After a few attempts to pull it out, I ended up climbing over two others to get in then heaving Pepi under the lines and locks of those dinghies to get it to the deep side and freedom. Ryan was pulling other boats around while I was getting rolled by the swells really hard and bouncing all over the place. It was quite hectic and in the middle of lifting the nose of another dinghy over us while laying flat pulling Pepi under lines, I look up to see the tourist paparazzi gaping at me like they had never seen anything so crazy – a bunch of cameras clicking away and one lady looked to be filming me. To be fair it was a bit crazy. Good to know I’m in someone’s vacation videos!

1300 Departure

After getting totally drenched by the chop on the way back to Perspective, we finally got aboard, rushed around packing up the final bits and pieces and pulling up Pepi. Then we were outta there!

We knew that the first four to five hours was going to be hard. We had to go directly upwind out the mouth of Samana bay which is massive and the incoming wind and swell were… right at our limit. We fought our way out and it gradually got more and more intense. Riding the massive swells up and down the whole way, spray coming over the bow regularly, the wind continuing to pick up through the afternoon… It was a pretty intense few hours.

Ryan had also made some poor drink choices that morning, two coffees and a coke… meaning he was hyper caffeinated! He had some additional nerves and was feeling extra strung out from the over-caffeination he had going on adding to his experience that afternoon!

1600 Dodging Whales

Samana Bay is known for its whale watching and suddenly we realised a whale was just off to our starboard (right) only a hundred meters or so away! Wow! I was so excited, and then dolphins appeared almost simultaneously – crashing across the giant waves and making it look fun! So exciting!

That was, until we realised we had whales on the left, and another in front. Ah crap. We had to keep motoring straight out, and the conditions were awful. It was so rough, we could hardly see with the volume of water coming over the front and hitting the pilot house. We were running the windscreen wiper constantly meaning we had a thirty centimetre little pane of glass to see out of in between huge plumes of water smashing into us.

I was so anxious about the idea of hitting a whale and we nervously kept our eyes peeled. They stayed around fifty meters in front of us for quite a while and also off to one side. I was so relieved when they finally disappeared and we couldn’t see their plumes anymore.

Right in the middle of the whale stress, the waves also started coming from a second direction, throwing us around from side to side quite violently. We were both absolutely hanging on and I can’t count how many times we reassured each other – we knew it would be bad, the boat is fine, it’s not for long, the boat is fine, the boat is fine.

1630 Terror

Just to add to the excitement we started hearing a massive thumping sound. What on earth? As one, we turned around and saw one of the chairs on the roof had come loose and was flying around with one tiny bungy cord holding it onboard. As we watched it flew to one extremity, collapsed on itself then came launching back at the window to the pilot house. I think my heart nearly stopped in fear.

Thank god it slammed into the roof instead of the window. In the chaos of the sea state we couldn’t go outside and no way on the roof to secure it, so Ryan hung out the back of the pilot house window and whilst hanging on with one hand managed to strap it securely in place against our exhaust pipe framing. My god.

We were both feeling pretty wrung out by this point. We had known the first four hours was going to be bad, but damn. This was bad. Easily the worst sea state, for the longest period of time we have had. And I’m proud to say that even though it was terrifying we both pulled through and given our earlier experiences, we knew we would be OK, we knew the boat would be OK and we knew it wouldn’t be like this the whole way.

It was exhausting though, and we were pretty desperate to start turning north and getting around the point, but the further out we could get the safer that turn would be. We set ourselves a timer for ten more minutes and decided to turn north after that.

1700 Turning North

Finally, we were able to start heading north, and even though it was far from comfortable, we were finally not completely at the edge of our limits. We continued rolling around and persevered on whilst we slowly came down from the earlier intensity.

1900 Starting Shifts

It was with relief we were able to start heading more north west around the tip of the Dominican Republic. Now that the hardest most hectic part was done we started switching to our shifts so we could get some rest and sustain the rest of the journey. I went to try and relax for a few hours while Ryan had dinner and watched the sun go down.

2030 Around Cabo Frances Viejo

Ryan headed down for showers and bed at 8.30pm while I had a belated dinner and started into the night. It was initially a rolly, but comfortable-ish shift, and I enjoyed listening to podcasts and watching out for fishing pots or other hazards.

Unfortunately, as we approached the point of Cabo Frances Viejo it got more and more rolly as the swell from the bay currents interacted around the point. The last hour was very uncomfortable and getting a bit bleurgh.

To counteract this though, the moonlight over the water was beautiful, and there was constant sparks of bio-luminesce in the wake of the boat that made me feel like I was a Disney princess floating through a sea of sparkles.

Day 2 – Saturday

Ryan awoke at midnight, after a not great sleep, and took over, while I went down, showered and hit the hay to attempt some sleep. Showering in a very rolly sea state is, … interesting? Challenging? Difficult? Haha. The shower water seems to have a mind of its own somehow. I felt a bit off afterwards and was ready to lay down.

The first hour continued to be very rolly and uncomfortable, then finally Ryan was able to turn downwind even further and we were finally heading westward and not fighting for north quite so much. I struggled to get any sleep at first, then finally dropped off around 1.30am when we turned down and it settled off.

The rest of Ryan’s shift was calm and uneventful, and he spent the entire time following a large storm front which was blowing ahead of us. It was strangely empty with no other ships seen at all.

0300 Signs of Seasickness

Three am, and I was up to relieve Ryan for the next shift. It was again, fairly uneventful, and not too much happened. I was feeling extremely fatigued by the end though, and the last hour was quite challenging. I felt like I couldn’t stay awake and had to walk laps back and forth across the pilot house to push through the fatigue. It felt like more than just the normal tired you would expect but I wasn’t sure why.

0600 Sunrise

Ryan was up again at 6, ready for breakfast and to take over. I was so tired I think I staggered down and was asleep within moments. Ryan reports another uneventful shift, with only a few boats to pass through the morning.

0900 Seasickness Strikes

It was 9am, and I needed to get up to take over for my next shift. I woke up, and started prepping breakfast while Ryan was still at the helm. Groo. Breakfast looked, revolting. I forced down a few bites and wanted to throw up each one. Then spent a half hour massaging my stomach. Stay down. Stay down. I felt utterly exhausted and was lying on the bench seat in the pilot house.

Could it be, was I seasick? Neither of us have ever gotten seasick before so I wasn’t totally sure.

After struggling to feel normal for a bit, I forced Ryan to let me take over around 1045 as we did need to swap at some point.

1100 Ryan Carries the Team

Nope. I lasted about fifteen minutes and was such a mess. Exhausted, holding back nausea and feeling like I was going to collapse. Ryan looked at me falling to pieces and sent me back to bed.

1230 Managing Symptoms

I staggered back upstairs again around 1230 feeling beyond awful. Hungry, faint, nauseous, exhausted. What a combination. I ended up asking a few sailor friends what to do! The advice – drugs, sip lots of water, eat bland food like crackers, and maybe a ginger ale or ginger related food. Sit looking at the horizon and try and distract your brain with some music.

So, I did all of the above. Except the drugs, we rather foolishly have no seasickness drugs onboard! After slowly drinking the ginger ale, intaking lots of water and eating a few crackers I was feeling like maybe I could continue living.

1400 Engine Work

I was slowly getting some life back and Ryan took the opportunity to check over our engine and make sure all was looking good (it was). We have a pretty old engine and this was definitely the longest we had pushed it for. Ryan had noticed that the alternator was doing some strange things that day so was a bit worried about that too. We figured it would be OK and carried on!

I was also hailed on the radio by an approaching ship which made me jump! We have never previously been hailed as we usually turn early and aim at the tail of their ship so that they will pass well in front of us. The big ships go so fast and we would never try to go in front of one! But this ship hailed us a couple of times, unfortunately our antenna is very low to the water as we don’t have a mast so they were unable to hear us responding. Given that we were essentially non-communicative (from their point of view) they actually made a fairly wide turn going all the way around us. Thanks giant ship! Always glad we have AIS so that we are visible to these behemoths plowing through the waves out here.

We had to turn sharply to the north to avoid an opposing current along the northern edge of the Dominican Republic and we waved farewell to the land receding out of sight.

1630 Ryan Continues to Carry the Team

Despite the improvements, I was still feeling utterly exhausted and super nauseous. I headed back down to sleep and try and recover a bit more. Ryan listened to a few podcasts and just generally kept us going.

Ryan wove his way between a line of container ships heading in the opposite direction as we unwittingly crossed a bit of a shipping route. By this time we had started to head more north into the open water between the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

Ryan got to enjoy another sunset – although “enjoy” is a loose term when you are heading directly into the setting sun. The glare on the water can get intense for that last couple of hours.

2030 Night Two

I woke up and felt functional enough to take over the helm for the first night shift. Ryan was able to get a shower and take some sleep for a few hours. The sea state had calmed significantly over the course of the day and we had a long sea swell pushing us along from behind. As we were continuing to go across it slightly to make our way north, we were still getting rolled occasionally but not too bad. More like a rock, roll then slide down the back of a big wave.

This was the hardest shift I did on the passage. I was so tired and feeling so sick. I had no energy because I hadn’t really eaten for the whole day and then I was super sleepy.

I tried to keep myself awake by doing a series of stretches and then standing up to watch, but then would feel dizzy and too weak to stand up meaning I had to then sit down again. Within minutes of sitting down I’d be nearly dozing off in spite of the waves of nausea that I was fighting off. The last hour approaching midnight was so hard. I remember thinking this is the longest three hours of my life. Every time I looked at the clock I thought, “It must have been another twenty minutes by now” only to find that it had been two. I just wanted to vomit or die. Anything to make it end.

Day 3 – Sunday

Finally midnight arrived, and Ryan appeared to take over. I was so wrecked. I staggered down the stairs and just passed out immediately. Ryan tells me his three hours flew by and he greatly enjoyed his podcast; and dodged a few ships along the way.

0300 Sunrise

We switched out for the last part of the night and I was finally feeling not so truly awful. I nibbled on some crackers and kept drinking a bit of water and managed to feel only slightly nauseous instead of totally nauseous. I had one sailboat coming at me in the darkness for a long time, but we both turned port to port fairly early so even though we passed close by it wasn’t too close. Our AIS system only detected the sailboat when it was well and truly behind us then scared me with a completely unnecessary collision alert haha.

As morning arrived, I was surrounded by dark, black storm clouds in every direction. I dodged an ominous looking cloud formation and threaded the needle between the storm fronts, we were lucky to never truly be in the storms beneath.

I was also treated to a brief show of bioluminescence in the twenty minutes been moonset and sunrise. It was a very strange bioluminescence… big chunks in isolated patches rather than the smaller sparkles we were used to.

I was struggling a bit after three hours but I knew that Ryan would have to get us anchored as we came into Matthew Town. He had also done so much extra the day before when I was so sick, so I pushed through and let him sleep through til 7 for the extra hour. The sunrise was quite beautiful also.

0700 The Final Leg

I went down and slept until 9 while Ryan enjoyed seeing the coastline of Great Inagua island appear. He was watching a huge school of fish, they were following the boat and then as the bow stirred up the flying fish and bugs, he would see them jump to catch the little critters. They followed us for over an hour along the southern coast!

0900 Made it to Matthew Town

Ryan woke me at 9 and we motored into Matthew Town bay, we were both absolutely in awe of the amazing blue colours of the water, and that was probably the easiest anchor we have ever done. The water was so clear and gorgeous, we could literally see the anchor and the chain on the bottom in a great big sandy shelf! Just perfect.

0930 Engine Off

I can’t describe the intensity of the sheer relief of turning the engine off. 44 hours of constant engine motoring noise drilling into your brain. We had both been wearing noise cancelling headphones while on shift and earplugs to sleep… but nothing beats that sudden quiet when it turns off. What a relief.

The anchorage was absolutely stunning but we were both so tired. I wanted to appreciate it but I just literally couldn’t care less at that point. I just wanted to be still and quiet.

Unfortunately Matthew Town anchorage is known for being insanely rolly. So within five minutes we were lowering the dinghy and heading to shore to check in as I was feeling somehow even more seasick and getting more nauseous by the second.

When we got to the dinghy dock some friendly guy in his dinghy there was being all chatty and I just apologised, climbed right out and went and sat on the ground on the dock. Dear sweet land. I was so, so happy to sit there. It felt so good to be still.

1000 Checking Into the Bahamas!

The check in was kind of hilarious as we used an incredibly clunky website – each time we had a question about it we would ask the harbourmaster, who would call the customs guy, who would then drive to the dock from his office, answer our one question then drive back to his office. I think he drove down four times in total to help us get through haha.

Besides the website dramas, it was all smooth. Everyone here is super friendly and nice and we wandered down the main road to find an ATM and lunch, only to realise that everything was closed. Of course! It was a Sunday!

1230 So, so close

Giving up on getting lunch and a bit more land time, we headed back to the boat, and gathering our final bit of resolve, we pulled up the anchor and headed north. After a final hour and a half of motoring we made it to Man of War Bay slightly further up the island, a beautiful, well protected bay where we could ride out the incoming winds.

48 Hours After Starting

Turning off that engine the second time and knowing we wouldn’t have to move again for days was bliss. Turning off all the cooling fans a few hours later, leaving us in true peace and quiet, in a stunning bay was just the most amazing feeling of relief. I was utterly exhausted and knowing we didn’t have to go any further was overwhelming. I may have cried a little.

Later that evening, we both knew that despite how challenging the trip had been, we had absolutely made the right choice to come when we saw a pilot whale “logging” – sleeping on the surface just a hundred meters or so away, during a gorgeous sunset.

It’s finally over.

Was this a super long blog post? Yes, yes it was. I hope you experienced a feeling of “will this ever end?” while you read it. I hope it felt like it just went on and on and on. Exactly how I felt for the longest 48 hours of my life hahaha.