11.24.2021 Sandy Island & Night Sail

We started our morning by taking the dinghy ashore for some boat supplies and additional grocery provisions.

We spent about 3-4 hours doing docking practice on the docks at Tyrrel Bay. Docking refers to steering a boat into a dock (e.g. fuel dock, marina slip). We went through several drills, alternating roles and routes based on wind.

We then left Tyrrel Bay and motored 3.5NM to Sandy Island and setup another anchor. Our plan was to relax for a bit, then go out for a night sail. This was a request I made, because when it's just the two of us on a passage, we'll be sailing continuously along our route and alternating watches. Captain Andy plotted a course surrounding the Sandy Island area that spanned 7.7NM. We waited until nightfall and then began.

At the time, our night sail was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. We started by me taking the helm while Mike and Captain Andy worked to get the headsail up. At night, you have reduced visibility because of the obvious of working at night, but you also are limited to only using red lighting. Red lighting is used because it doesn't affect your night vision like white or blue lights will. Both Captain and Andy and Mike used headlamps with a red light setting. Once the mainsail was up, we started the process of raising the anchor. This was challenging because I needed to keep the steering pointed to the wind, but I felt more disoriented being in the dark. It was also terrifying because we were at a busy anchorage and it was so much harder to gauge distance between us and the other boats. We are fortunate to have radar as part of our electronics systems at the helm, which showed all the boats in the anchorage - if I didn't have that, I wouldn't gone into a full-blown panic attack (I was doing some serious deep-breathing instead). After the anchor was pulled up, we motored out and away from the anchorage, then raised the headsail. When we were out a more open water, Captain Andy went through the navigation lights and what the different configurations indicate (e.g. type of vessel, direct of another vessel). It was much easier being out in the open water, and we were able to mostly stay on the plotted course. We sailed 3.1NM over 2 hours and 18 minutes, then re-anchored at Sandy Island. The re-anchoring was also nerve-wracking because we were again close to other boats in a busy anchorage, but we had the radar to guide us and used the Anchor Pro phone app.

Once re-anchored, we had a good debrief with Captain Andy.

• I felt under-prepared because we didn't go through our normal boat prep prior to the night sail. There were lines confining the headsail that need to be released and weren't, and trying to do those steps in the dark was extra challenging.

• I didn't have a red light headlamp. This made me more confined to the helm until my night vision kicked in, which also took longer because I had more white lighting at the helm (it was better once I moved to the outside edge of the helm).

• I didn't realize that the night sail was going to involve raising the sails. This probably sounds silly because the name of what we did is self-explanatory, but sailing is a general term of being out on a boat. I was expecting to motor around a route at night and get orientated to the difference of experience at night versus during the day. This came back to me not communicating expectations clearly with Captain Andy, as Mike and I have already decided that for our first few passages, we'll sail with the sails during the day and motor at night.

After having about a week to process, although it was terrifying, I think I kept myself pretty composed during the experience. This was partly because I didn't really have a choice and partly because I knew this was something we had to do (but Mike says he knew I was freaking out at the time!). It was a good first nighttime experience and I'm glad we were able to do it with a Captain and not on our own so that we could learn what to do next time.