British Virgin Islands to New York City

We don’t want to be in the Caribbean during the summer months — hurricane season in the Atlantic. The risk of experiencing a hurricane up close is simply too great.

With a ship you are pretty independent. Where you can sail is determined to a certain extent by your own will and to a larger extent by the weather. Since you can theoretically sail “anywhere,” you need a plan. Our options for avoiding hurricane season:

1. Sail to Grenada and stay there for the whole summer, the ship anchored - it’s basically a summer camp with many other children’s boats. Many of our friends boats are there.
2. Keep moving and head south into the heat. To the Venezuelan islands, the ABC islands, Colombia, Panama and in December towards the northeast to Cuba and so back to the Antilles.
3. Follow our original plan and move north towards Canada, so keep moving.

We stay true to our original plan and sail north. We are the only ones of the kids boat community who head north from the Caribbean. Most boats stay in Grenada for the hurricane season.

On May 17th we head off from Road Harbor in the British Virgin Islands on a northbound course. We are traveling fast with a stern wind and occasional swells. We write daily via our satellite phone to the crew on our buddy boat AVANTI, who are accompanied by a weather advisor on land to give advice. The exchange is interesting and soon shows us, what we assumed: a low pressure system from Puerto Rico is heading up north. However, it is traveling a lot faster than us, so it will soon overtake us and bring strong winds against the Gulf Stream and very uncomfortable conditions at sea. AVANTI is recommended to stop in Bermuda and sit out this low. That’s how we are going to do it. We enter the ‘Town Cut’ right on time with the first rain and anchor in Saint George’s harbour in the north of Bermuda, where all ships arrive and clear in.

After 2 days of pure rain, we experience a sunny and warm week in Bermuda, where we explore Cooper Island by bus. We find the old NASA tracking station, which was of great importance for the Apollo program. We also go out to eat with the (new) crew from Flux III.

Silvio loses his glasses during the picnic on the deck: they are kicked into the water by Chloé’s foot while fooling around 😱. The morning before we set off for New York, we ask our neighboring boat — the Swiss catamaran VENGO — if they can help us. We saw their diving tanks on deck and hope that Rolf can dive to recover the glasses from a depth of about 10m because Silvio should probably not dive them with his broken rib.

In fact, after less than 5 minutes under water, he finds them exactly where we created a waypoint with the GPS the evening before and we are eternally grateful! We help other boats whenever we can and this time we were helped. Now we can set off for New York! There was still sunshine when we were diving with goggles, then pouring rain came, with which we said goodbye to Bermuda. It was beautiful — but also expensive — on this island in the middle of the Atlantic.

There is heavy rain for the first few hours as we leave Bermuda, but the rain soon subsides. After three days we enter the Gulf Stream, which is noticeable through larger waves, gusty winds and then a strong current — 4 knots against us. Thunderstorm cells brush past us and the mood is not exactly great because we are now moving much, much more slowly. Hopefully the Gulf Stream will spit us out again soon!

The next morning we see nothing but fog and even a ‘fog bow’, but the conditions have normalized. The water is colder now, so we’re out of the Gulf Stream. In the afternoon the wind even dies completely and we have to use the engine to help.

A little later: dolphins! First we bake some out of dough and then we see them in real life — always a wonderful experience. We drive into the night, which is brightly lit by the moon.

At around 3 a.m. we see the New York City skyline — unbelievable! At 5 a.m. we approach the Verrazzano Bridge and are radioed by the Coast Guard, who have noticed our arrival and are making sure we get done with the formalities. We pass the Verrazzano Bridge near Brooklyn and sail directly in front of the Statue of Liberty, which can be seen from afar after passing the bridge. After a short photo stop in a lot of ferry swell, we decide to sail straight up the Hudson River north of the George Washington Bridge, where we anchor at Dyckmann Street on the Jersey side.

From the anchorage on the Jersey side, we cross the Hudson every time like a ferry to get to the New York side. The current in the river sure is impressive, especially on an ebb tide and since it is exactly one day before full moon.

Silvio sets off by taxi to Newark to clear customs. The officers are a little challenged: Hundreds of container ships are cleared every day, cruisers much less. In the evening we finally clear customs: Welcome to NYC!