This is our first episode of our first Caribbean season; We're so excited to share our journey with you! We untie the lines and leave Nova Scotia for our epi...

Closed Captions (CC):
I feel sick to my stomach I am so

worried

I got Zeus strapped onto me it just

makes life a lot easier

yeah

last time on Sailing Balachandra we

prepared for hurricane Dorian and we

took an offshore survival course

so it's October 20th 2019 but it's

actually a beautiful day today. it's a

little windy, a little cold but not

terrible we are bundled up

how you doing Nawal? yeah? where are we now?

we've cleared Halifax just about. We got a

new crew member on board this is Bob!

Bob's gonna come with us all the way to

Bermuda. Seven months or so preparing for

this-it's pretty exciting!

we have two other boats with us living

at the same time our goal is to get down

to New York or Newport where we're gonna

meet with other boats who are crossing

the Gulf Stream over to Bermuda so

that's our plan. We're going to join them

Hi Zeus sailor dog! .. and there's our

friends up there you can see a couple

boats ahead of us we all left together

and we're looking forward to that warm

Caribbean air! We will probably cross the

Gulf Stream on the 1st of November there

is a hurricane heading this way right

now but in Shelburne we'll be able to

tie up and be prepared for it and the

winds won't be like hurricane force by

the time it gets here so we don't have

to do too much prep but we should be ok

this is a Emilien. He's our friend. He sailed

here from Greenland he's sailed

almost all over the world and we're

passing him right now

State your name and purpose: Robert Towers sailing from Halifax to

Bermuda. What's your favorite sailing channel?

The old Seadog...

RAN Sailing. Ran Sailing?... What about Sailing Balachandra?

Oh yes! that was just in my mind! Sorry it slipped my mind!

we came in pretty late last night

we're just getting tired it's about 8

a.m. now and our fellow sailboats are

ready to go well it's gonna be dead calm

we're probably gonna have to motor all

day and once we get to Liverpool I'm

hoping we'll find a mooring ball because

we got some wind coming

we're expecting 26 knots gusting to 40 knots

of wind tomorrow so hopefully get a good

Anchorage

or even better a mooring ball

this is what we're riding out right now

outside right inside a Shelburne here

it's been going for how many hours I

don't even know since this morning. high

tide right now and we are just moving

but you know what our anchor has not

moved I'm really glad we splurged and

got ourselves Rocna because we feel so

well anchored. The anchor alarm went off few times

but that was just the chain adjusting

itself like it took us two hours

motoring to get into this Harbor and

these swells are just going down that

river I'd hate to be out there right

now. 6-7 foot waves! yeah we get those occasionally. the wind is changing and we're

gonna have to reset the anchor soon. The Club that used to be here

burned down a while ago and they brought

up all their mooring balls

and we didn't know that when we

pulled in here. we figured we would find a mooring but no.. So our anchor slipped we

turned on our engine Dan's out there cold

dripping wet and shaking

it should be almost over now...

they were predicting that the winds

would die down shortly... I feel sick to

my stomach I am so worried

I got Zeus strapped on to me it just

makes life a lot easier

yeah

the winds started to die down a the sea looks a

lot calmer a little but 31 Knots still...

whatcha doing Zeus? We

anchored in Shelburne and the remnants

of hurricane or tropical storm Nestor

we're supposed to blow through the very

next day and we thought we had a pretty

safe Anchorage plus we have this 55

pound rocna anchor so we felt pretty

confident that we'd be all right

and then the very next day we were just

doing some chores whatever and then the

wind picked up and started to blow we

knew that the remnants of nestor were

coming through and we were just kind of

hanging out playing cards and just

chillin the anchor was doing a great job

and we had an anchor alarm set up so

that would let us know you know if we we

dragged the alarm went off once. I had it

set to about 0.2 nautical miles so

I thought oh it's just moving around so

I set it again and then it went off

again and then went off again but I

still had my chart open and it showed

that we had dragged 20 30 feet in like a

minute! it was so fast

that's the Rocna flipping over and then

resetting itself. Rocnas are dynamite anchors

and I'm sure it was resetting at that

moment but where we were anchored

and after the wind had shifted the the

land behind us was extremely shallow

like we were gonna back off and run

aground into like four feet of water and

I knew that so I I ran up top in my

pajamas it was probably like 8

degrees and I was shaking and shivering

and we started the engine and we drove

the boat into the storm it was nuts then

Bob went up on at the bow and showed me

where the anchor chain was and I would

gun the engine and ride it one way and

run the other and then the waves picked

up and we had six seven foot waves right

there in front of Shelburne this little

tiny little tiny Harbor..

yeah I thought the chain might wrap

around the keel but it didn't we just

fought it like that for an hour but the

whole time we're thinking oh my god

we're gonna lose it we're gonna run

aground

you know this whole adventure is over...

we definitely had at least 50 knot winds

pretty crazy we probably should have had 2 anchors out

actually but we made it

through and then the next morning we

said let's get the heck out of here and

we packed up and hit the Gulf of Maine

just like that.. I mean some people say

you're supposed to wait 24 to 48 hours

and you know .. you know I don't

want to make policy or whatever and I

highly recommend people do wait

after a storm to go out but we looked at

the the wave state that the sea state

and we knew that we could handle it and

we did get out and there was some

swell but it was okay we had a great

wind maiking 5 to 8 knots on average. we made incredible headway and

like by the end of the day by sunset we

were well into the gulf of maine and we

just sailed all night still going fast

with all of our sails out and Zeus!

there there's dolphins! there! right here

look see the fins! look! I was really

hoping

dirty old buoy!

yeah

we're just about to pull into Portland

Maine it's been a pretty crazy two days

of sailing crossing the Gulf of Maine

two days and two nights to get here we

left Shelburne Nova Scotia and sailed

straight across we were trying to maybe

go to Glouchester we weren't sure where

to go but Portland has customs to

check us into the United States so that

makes more sense but it's been a bit of

a hard time to get in here because

there's these crab pots everywhere we've

been trying to avoid them and

we sailed right into a whole bunch of

them we heard that they're connected so

we were trying not to land one right in

the middle it's really frustrating when

you're trying to try to get in somewhere

these things are everywhere! anyway I

think we finally cleared all the crab

pots and we're just coming into the main

area of Portland we can see downtown

already and it's nice out. we got the jib

up

and the quarantine flag is up and we're

all set we're doing about five knots and

we're motor sailing because it's

starting to get late now we want to get

in and get anchored in daylight so we

know what we're doing and maybe customs

will want to see us today. if we don't see

customs today we might get stuck on the

boat overnight. what are you

doing? Finding my shoes... We just cleared customs via phone

through an app on our phone called CBP

Roam it was really easy

thank you so much for sticking with us

and being patient honestly I know that

we haven't been on the ball we've been

really busy it's been a lot of hard work

finding the time to edit these videos

and hasn't really been our main focus

the main focus lately has been ensuring

that we had everything we needed and

ensuring that we were gonna be safe and

secure but this said now that we're in

warmer waters we are gonna be getting

new videos every week I promise and

we're gonna be getting really good

footage and I can't wait to share

everything with you I'm just so happy

you stuck with us this far

yes and thank you just please continue

to watch a lot of more good things are

about to happen! yeah absolutely now that

we're traveling and we're actually

underway we're actually doing it yeah

and tell your friends! Yeah! Right!

like tell your friends to share these-share

our videos with your family and your

friends and tell them about us

tell them what we're doing I mean these

two crazy Nova Scotians if you want to

support us don't forget to check out our

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haven't had much support on there so far

but now that we're traveling and

cruising in the Bahamas we need that

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much for watching see ya