After waiting for a long time in the Bahamas Out Islands, mom and dad finally decided we had a weather window. When they first told us it would be about 5 days or more, we thought that’s a long time, almost a week. When we were out at sea it felt like 3 months. It was crazy long.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

For long passages, we like to drop the salon table. It becomes a big bed. Mom calls it the nest. We have blankets, stuffed animals and pillows. It’s comfortable.

“The Nest” in Izula’s main salon

We were heading north and east of Turks & Caicos, and dad caught a Mahi. It had a lot of color. Dad fileted the fish and we had Mahi sandwiches on fresh bread that mom made. It was really good.

The 3^rd day was pretty boring, we were still heading east into the Atlantic Ocean to longitude 65w. We saw lots of flying fish. One landed in the cockpit and dad showed us his wings in the morning. He looked like a giant silvery blue mullet with patterned wings.

Bodin and I took Gravol that our Canadians friends on Tarika gave us and nobody barfed. The waves were medium and the wind was pretty high. We had the all the sails up.

On the 4^th day, we watched movies all day. Wall-e, Captain Ron and They Spy Next Door. We were bored. We drank ginger ales and ate ginger biscuits to help calm our bellies. It was hard to go to sleep at night. It seems like you get more seasick at night. Even when you do fall asleep you keep waking up. Mom and dad did shifts of 3 hours on and 3 hours off. They were tired.

The 5^th day, we were headed south on 65w and had our best sailing day ever. It was awesome.We traveled 161 miles in 24 hours. No motors. And that night a shoal of squid hit us. Dad went up to put a reef in the sail the next morning and found 3 squid and lots of ink everywhere. He found even more squid and ink at the back. Izula was full of ink.

Izula with St. Thomas in view

Land Ho, on the 6^th day, we saw land in the distance. When I saw the huge mountains of St Thomas, I said, we’re not in the Bahamas anymore! Then a curious brown booby circled Izula. He flew next to us and stared in the cockpit for while. As we got closer, we passed Cricket Rock, Cockroach Cay, Dutchcap Cay, and we rounded Salt Cay through the Salt Cay Passage. It was calm when we turned the corner.

Izula is anchored next to black-hulled pirate ship in Charlotte Amalie harbor

We had a cup of tea and looked at the houses on the island through the binoculars. There were a lot of houses. When we got closer to Charlotte Amalie anchorage, there were so many boats. We could not find anchoring spot at Water Island. We came through the cut and into Long Bay next to the cruise ship docks. When we anchored, we celebrated.

Cheers we made it to USVI!

.