Goodbye to these welcome islands of easy eastward breezes.

Goodbye to the lovely Brewers Bay, our home base for four months, somehow still hidden from tourists, although the occasional dolphin would swing by to lazily swim about with us.

Brewers Bay sits in the shadow of the University of the Virgin Islands campus, where I think I need a job, lol. Where each morning the locals would wade into the water and sing a sunrise Kumbaya to welcome in the day. Imagine having your morning coffee to this sweet celebration.

Come by here, oh Lord, come by here.

But now, with hurricane season fast approaching we have to set all these lovely people and places to stern and face forward, eastward to Europe, with no hurricane season, and much steadier seas. This trip would take us first up to Bermuda, due north for 850ish miles. Then, the long 2,000 mile trip to the Azores, followed by another thousandish miles to Lagos, Portugal.

Prior to leaving, Grace came onboard as new crew, to get used to Amari, to us as a sailing team, and tighten up our partnership at sea. The passage from BVI to Bermuda would be a good maiden passage for our team to make together.

But we weren’t doing this alone.

We enrolled in the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) organization, which shepherds fleets of boats on passages around the world. The benefit of being with them is that you’re with a group of sailors many of whom have done this before. Also the organization handles much of the logistics of getting in and out of new countries.

And we would soon find out just how important this collective safety net would be, far out at sea.

But first, before heading off to brave the kraken, rogue waves, and other Jack Sparrowy pirates to send you down to Davy Jones’ Locker, there is the matter of food.

So we bought cans and cans and cans, potatoes, onions, and the fruit/veg you have to eat right away (based on it’s rapid ETTR, or estimated time to rot). This seems like so much food, but honestly its better to be overprepared in this case. If you think you’ll be at sea for X days, you provision for X times 2.

Then there is perhaps the best thing about the ARC rally organization, the people you meet. At this point in our adventure we knew practically no one, and yet these would be people we would come to love in our lives.

Bye Caribbean, see you in 6 months!