Closed Captions (CC):
[Music]
last time
on sailing bella chandra we showed you
all of the diy maintenance we did on
bella chandra
since the beginning in one video
if you're new to the channel hi i'm
noelle and i'm dan and we're sailing
bella chandra
we're just a couple canadians sailing
around the caribbean making youtube
videos and if you like our channel and
you want to subscribe just go below this
channel look for the big red subscribe
button
press that button so this week's video
is a recap
of everything that we've achieved
since the very beginning of our journey
here on sailing bella chandra
yeah that's right it goes right back to
the very beginning the day i bought the
boat in st
john new brunswick through to sailing it
to nova scotia canada and everything
that's happened since
now we're in the caribbean so you know
clearly a lot has happened for those of
you that are just joining us the new
viewers and new subscribers we know
there's quite a few new subscribers
lately
this would be a nice way to get caught
up and
get to know us and what we're all about
so i hope you enjoy it
i'm in st john i just arrived at
the marina where
breakaway is where it's in the water
right now and i'm gonna go check it out
i've seen it before but not in the water
and uh hopefully we'll be doing a sea
trial
today
[Music]
we are sailing in the bay of fundy right
now
[Music]
so yeah the very first winter in halifax
was a rough one we had a storm on
christmas day and a second storm on
boxing day and the dock that the boats
tied to
actually broke up into pieces and i had
to rush home
from christmas with my parents to
babysit the boat and get us out of that
situation and well joined me
shortly after and our holidays was kind
of half
babysitting the boat and on a broken
dock it was crazy
it turns out that while i was gone and
during the night
um the dock that was holding my boat
ended up splitting up
i rushed down here to see what had
happened and
looked like my boat was okay a good
scratch on one side where the dock had
kind of run against it i checked my
bulkheads in my hull and everything's
fine
we have a plank here temporarily but
everything's just kind of just
jimmy rigged right now so we had our
first real snowfall of the winter last
night
and the boat is covered in snow the dock
is covered in snow
so let's check it out i've been knocking
snow off the boat all night actually
[Music]
the first time i came aboard sailing
bella chandra was
during the winter the boat was
completely covered in plastic there's
just this little wooden
door that you'd have to crawl into into
this like little nook it was pretty
interesting um going below i was
surprised actually as
to how warm the boat was dan had the
furnace running
for a good hour before i had actually
arrived that was back before our furnace
actually worked
yeah yeah our furnace is no longer
working right now
but thank god we're in the caribbean
my name is noelle or
finally i'm starving yeah looks good
looks delicious
[Music]
it was really nice to take the plastic
enclosure off for that first sailing
season with noel this would have been
noel's first time sailing ever and
it you know it all kind of happened
around the same time we got the plastic
off and brought the boat back to its
original state
[Music]
so this morning dan sent me a text
saying he found the perfect dinghy and i
agree we're really really excited about
checking this out we're on the road
as we speak yeah we just bought
our first tender what are we doing
we're getting her out of the water today
yeah
yeah going up on the heart
[Music]
so my first real trip on the boat was a
trip to mahome bay
we stopped along the way of course and
we had some friends
at the very beginning of our journey we
dropped them off in prospect
yeah it was a good trip we caught some
fish we went swimming
it was probably one of the best summers
we've spent in nova scotia on the boat
[Music]
i feel like i'm riding this
[Music]
wait
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oh
[Music]
we're on this little tiny island it's
completely deserted nobody lives here
there's this beautiful beach that goes
the whole length of the island
it's refreshing hey guys guess what
what this is our one year anniversary of
making sailing bella chandra
we are one year old today i'm off to
lebanon
for an entire month i'm really excited
it's been about eight years
i'm taking you guys along
[Music]
oh
[Music]
so we've made it to valva so you can see
behind me
we rented a bus me and about eight
family members are here
yeah we are getting in some sun
we got a big announcement to make we're
planning on sailing to the bahamas next
winter
that's right we're going to spend
possibly up to six months in the bahamas
and avoid the canadian winter so
all of you guys who've been watching and
telling us to get the hell down there
we're listening we're taking a surprise
what you got there little baby boy
see how that was that looks like a boat
dog
it is a boat dog deuce
zeus the boat dog so yeah we just got
our newest
crew member zeus
hi zus our brand new little doggy dog
for the boat hey guys so as you know
we're taking the mast off the boat as
one of the first steps in getting her
ready for the bahamas
this is it here it's so heavy and so
large
that there was virtually nowhere else to
move it without
some kind of heavy equipment
you can do it yeah you can do it buddy
hey guys so we're hauled out of the
water you can see here
our bottom paint is still in really good
shape so yeah we're going to drop the
rudder today
the main reason we're dropping the
rudder is because we're going to be
cruising in the bahamas for a long time
and i was told
when i bought the boat that the rudder
wasn't in great shape i'm pretty sure
that
it's delaminated but it's definitely a
wet rudder so the boat's back in the
water finally
and we're out on a mooring still
massless
but hey we're in the water and look
over there sailing
uma the offshore survival training
was intense i have to say
uh getting into that wave pool and
having the wind machine blowing and the
rain and the sound effects
it was very intimidating after that
whole experience of like
uh i don't even know if i want to go
with you anymore
but overall i was very happy to have
done it
so that i was aware of how treacherous
the ocean can be
yeah i think for me the craziest part
was immersing ourselves
in a four degree celsius cold tank to
kind of get the feel for what it would
be like to fall
in the frigid north atlantic that sucked
this is it
survival training center
are you doing well how'd you like that
cold tank
yeah it seemed we had just filled the
boat with food and we're just getting
ready to leave nova scotia when
hurricane dorian hit
and that was uh just wild we were we had
our heads
varied in provisioning and all of our
plans and then suddenly here's this big
threat that could just end the whole
thing it was
it was a very trying moment for us well
there's those hurricane warnings you
don't see very often atlantic canada
the national hurricane center is
acknowledging the intensity
increase of hurricane dorian you kind of
hear it just starting now
the rain's just kind of starting we're
going to hop in the dinghy and get the
heck out of here
spend some time on shore while this
hurricane
goes by so we didn't have to take down
our sails because our sails are already
off the dodger was up the bimini was up
so the dodger and bimini came off
and i strapped down the frames for those
and secured everything on deck cleared
the deck of any
anything out there that might be in the
way roll the fenders in everything
because we're on a mooring so we don't
need to tie up we don't need benders or
anything like that
it's been go go go getting our prep for
the
caribbean so we're on our way back now
to check out the boat
suspect the damage kind of nervous we
made it
there's no chafe on the lines and these
cleats held up everything looks really
good
when i started provisioning for our trip
to the caribbean i
kind of went a little above and beyond
actually
a lot of people at the marina had quite
a few comments about
how crazy had gone with my provisioning
although i spent
quite a lot and stocked up so much so
that the
water line was pretty much submerged
into the water
at that point by the time i was done
provisioning i'm really glad i have done
the provisioning i had
because kovid19 hit us by surprise and
our journey ended up extending by six
months
and that food really helped us out with
expenses
yeah absolutely
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 are you doing well yeah where are we
now
chilled out of the arm and now we're
we've cleared halifax just about
got a new crew member on board
this is bob how you doing bob's gonna
come with us all the way
to bermuda this is what we're riding at
right now
outside right inside uh shelburne here
it's been going for how many hours i
don't even know
since uh this morning it's 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 a rocna
so our anchor slipped we turned on our
engine
dan's out there soaked dripping wet
i don't even shaking it should be almost
over now
i hope we don't have to ride it out for
too long they were predicting that the
winds would die down shortly so
i feel sick to my stomach and i am
so worried
[Music]
we've accumulated more stuff backpacks
are full of groceries
new boat hook we're just trying to find
a gas station now to fill our diesel
tank so we just left portland
and i'm motor sailing now noel is just
taking a nap we're going back out into
the gulf of maine so that we can go from
portland
down to cape cod and then we're going to
try and hook up with some friends
and i think we're going to try to cross
the bermuda
so we pulled into marblehead which is
just outside of boston
it's going to be pretty intense tonight
they're calling for up to 50 knots of
wind tonight
you're going to see me diving in cold
frigid north atlantic water to
cut stuff off of our prop
[Music]
once you get in it's really not that bad
you can go down you can work
so seven mil wetsuit for the north
atlantic we need to make cape cod today
so we had to leave that early and there
was better wind in the morning just
sailing past the city of boston now
we're gonna get through the cape cod
canal hopefully today in into buzzards
bay and
tomorrow head for bermuda
hey guys so we're in newport rhode
island right now this is
where we were going to jump off from the
united states to bermuda
we kind of hauled butt getting down from
the cape cod canal through buzzard's bay
and then we spent the night in new
bedford because it was dark and we
wanted to get a little bit of sleep
before we made the crossing to bermuda
we had bought a sat phone
and we were going to use that sat phone
to get our grib files and
have weather updates for the next uh
five to seven days we put in the sim
card into the sat phone
and there was an error and the sat phone
didn't work so we didn't have a sat
phone
so we made a judgment call to tuck in it
was a depressing night last night it was
very very depressing coming into newport
here hey guys
we're just sailing through long island
sound right now
on our way to new york city we figured
either we stay in newport
and wait for the next bermuda window
which may or may not happen it's getting
colder every day you know
or head for new york and make our way
down to norfolk where we can cross with
a lot of other boats that will be doing
the same thing
going through hell's gate right now
we're in new york city
that is ice
we are in manhattan and there we are
anchored out on the hudson river
there's a crazy current here we're in
cape may and we've talked to a lot of
the locals and
everyone said that we're perfectly fine
on anchor and they're not concerned
in the slightest so i don't think we
should be either yeah and the storm's
pretty much offshore
uh from what i've read and what people
have been telling us kate may here is
pretty well protected
we made it out of cape may yesterday
around 1 2 p.m
we were watching the weather really
closely and it looked like
we have a bermuda window it only works
if we time it perfectly we had to leave
cape may at that exact time
following a big storm that just passed
through the one that we rode on
anchorage we had two anchors though so
that was a bit of a challenge but we
were able to do it
what we need to do is get past norfolk
and then
south of cape hatteras and if we can get
to that
area tonight
then we have the rest of the week to get
to bermuda
without any storms or bad wind
[Music]
it went hell of a night last night
like i thought fighting hurricane nestor
is probably the hardest thing i've ever
done on this sailboat
and it was but last night
it was it was all the way it went all
the way i mean all the sailing
stories you hear about from people and
they say it was hard you know we hit the
worst conditions and
we wrote out storms like it was one of
those it was very serious
it was a life-threatening experience i
said it several times during
that we needed to do something because
we our lives were in danger otherwise
one is i guess the gulf stream moving
north and the other would be the
north korean water current moving south
and when they meet there at cape
hatteras
man it is insane we had
large breaking waves these waves were
like
probably 20 feet high at least breaking
waves
we crashed into the mall like they would
hit us on the beam they'd hit us on the
stern like
no consistency it was like a washing
machine like you said just waves from
all directions
and one in every fifth wave was a rogue
wave it's so great to be
tied up to a dock oh my god we've been
going hard
since nova scotia
[Music]
it's my early birthday celebration
since we'll be out to see on my actual
birthday although
i was told that when it's your birthday
on a boat
that it's whatever that person wants to
do that day that's right
[Music]
we're just outside charleston south
carolina we just left there this morning
and we are sailing for florida trying to
make as much ground as we can
we have three maybe three and a half
days of really good wind
constantly blowing down the coast so it
makes a coastal passage like this really
ideal we are in
st augustine florida we just got here
last
night wearing t-shirts and shorts it's
like 25
degrees we're in florida in the winter
there's a safe zone
we fought hard to get away the heck out
here but we're in the safety zone now
we're not interfering with the launch i
guess if your boat is
inside that zone they might not launch
the rocket it's that serious
t-minus 60 seconds or so
it's gonna be good
fishy fishy fishy fishy call the fishies
how the fishies where are they get those
fish
fish for dinner
good morning seals where are we where
are we
where's palm beach baby
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
that's the ocean just out there through
the inlet we're anchored over here
peanut island is just really close to
this part of palm beach
here we are at peanut island on the
beach it's beautiful
no barking zeus we just left west palm
beach
we're sailing right along the coast here
because the gulf stream is actually
pretty close here
in this part of florida so we have to
get really close to shore
just to avoid that current today we're
sailing for fort lauderdale
we got into fort lauderdale last night
it was a little difficult there was uh
some bridges to go under the anchorages
were hard to find and
there was a lot of shallow water and
really narrow channels and a lot of
partiers and a lot of crazy stuff going
on but we did
sunday night monday night there was so
many partiers because they were just
zooming past us there was crazy wakes
there was like
so many cruise ships and the police were
like oh
stay southbound we we had cops on
megaphones yelling at us and you do come
in here make sure it's high tide we ran
aground twice
[Music]
hey guys it's the middle of the night
and we are about to leave fort
lauderdale for the bahamas
so we are crossing the gulf stream from
florida to
the bahamas where we're going to do our
customs and everything in the berry
islands
we only had the engine on maybe for
four hours out of the 27 it took us to
get here from fort lauderdale
i can't believe it finally
and it's new year's eve
hey guys so we're still in the berry
islands we left great harbor kay
yesterday and arrived between devils k
and hoffman's k here and uh it's just
gorgeous here the watercolor is amazing
it's just paradise so right now we're at
devil's k
and we're gonna jump into the blue hole
i don't think dan's gonna jump i don't
know why am i so nervous
okay here we go thank you one
two
we left nassau harbor this morning
fairly early we're heading to the exum
list today
[Music]
[Music]
so we're in allen key and we were
checking out iguana beach this morning
there's some
big iguanas
[Music]
so we're island hopping we've made it to
shroud key so far this is my favorite
spot
looks like our friends sailing doodles
were here not very long ago
[Music]
look this is amazing here at compass key
marina
and they have over there swimming all
around people
they're pretty tame so today we got up
bright and early
and we decided to sail on the outside so
we've been sailing in the
shallow like turquoise water of the
zuma's now we're on the outside today
where the water is really blue and it's
like hundreds of feet deep
we're at samuel key yacht club right now
and we just ordered some burgers and
fries
[Music]
thunderball grotto that's daniel
and we're just coming up on the pig
beach and it's raining
but yeah
[Music]
georgetown on this lovely long stretch
of beach
giving zeus a chance to stretch his legs
he did a night sail last night we're
sailing for about 24 hours
yeah we're in georgetown bahamas now
just did a little bit of
shopping in town here picked up a few uh
groceries and things we needed and we
had contra fitters for the first time
and they were delicious
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
we're at sea again we left georgetown
just this morning
and here we are
so noel and i decided to come to shore
today here in long island
and check things out so today it's just
sailing up the inside of long island to
calabash bay
and then tomorrow ourselves and two
other boats will be sailing from
calabash bay
north of long island to conception and
we'll spend about a day in conception
and conception will be our last
jumping point off the bahamas
we took an entire day to enjoy the
island of conception
this island is beautiful it has
incredible beaches the water is crystal
clear
in the afternoon we explored the
mangroves
another true gem of this island the
mangroves go for miles and miles
hey guys so we have now left conception
and we are sailing
for the dominican republic luperon is
the name of the port that we'll be going
into
it's a lovely morning here in luperon
dominican republic
while still in luperon we were fortunate
enough to catch up with our friends bums
on a boat
we talked youtube had a couple beers and
played some pool
see you guys down the line fair winds
and following seas
we are about to arrive in salmona
dominican republic we left looper on
yesterday we sailed all day sailed all
night and sailed all day again today
[Music]
yeah they're doing the local elections
today here in dominican republic
and they've had a pretty good turnout
for voting so far it looks like so
yeah pretty great salmon is pretty cool
place
but i'm looking forward to going into
the mountains going on some hikes
hopefully
we're heading over to the national park
just on the other side of the somana bay
the reason we're doing this is because
of this outbreak of the coronavirus
and the dominican republic they only
have 11 cases but this morning they shut
the borders down
for two weeks and we are stuck in the
dominican republic
we shared this anchorage with five other
boats making up a small group that we
aptly named
the quarantilla at that time we were
still allowed to go ashore and explore
the park
[Music]
so we're gonna fast track here and give
you guys an
update on the coronavirus and how it's
affecting us
i'm sure uh some of you back home even
just other viewers out there
curious about how us cruisers
are dealing with this issue
once our quarantine period in the
dominican republic was ended we decided
it was a good time to push on
as the bay of samana has no ideal place
to ride out a hurricane and it was
important for us to move on so we could
find a place where we could survive the
upcoming hurricane season
we're just bumping along in the mona
passage it's the piece of water written
between dominican republic and puerto
rico
and it is really our first taste of the
actual caribbean sea
yeah they didn't seem too pleased about
us coming here but anyway
it wasn't illegal or wrong at the time
but uh they told us that we had to stay
on our boat
and that we're not allowed to there's a
heavy curfew and everything and if they
catch you ashore there's like a five
thousand dollar
fine and six months in prison and all
this bad stuff so it's a shame that
we're gonna miss
uh what beauty puerto rico has to offer
but
sometimes you have to roll with the
punches i guess
we decided to leave puerto rial
and move along the coast so now we're
sailing
along the south coast of puerto rico
goodbye puerto rico
we are in st thomas u.s virgin islands
we spent a week or so in charlotte emile
today we decided to pull anchor and
we're heading to megan's bay
[Music]
yeah we're feeling very fortunate to be
here to have been accepted into the
country
and we haven't been going to shore very
often we've mostly been staying
quarantined
on the boat whenever we do go to shore
we're practicing
our you know social distances
we just left christmas cove st thomas
and we're heading south towards saint
croix now
[Music]
uh oh he goes
i went spearfishing with friends in
beautiful megan's bay
we're sailing to st john today just for
an overnight stay
and then off the same tray after
cruising for almost a year straight our
tacking has become
a very efficient maneuver
[Music]
hey guys we have some really great news
we were approved to enter
grenada the government in grenada is
going to allow
uh private yachts and cruisers to come
to grenada
during the crowbit 19 crisis we're going
to st croy to stage
our departure for grenada we're leaving
for grenada in just a few days and
saint croix is kind of our last stop
it's getting us about a day closer to
grenada
and also we should be able to pick up
some supplies and stuff
[Music]
hey guys we've officially left saint
croix for grenada
and we are on our way there it's the
first day we're motoring now
because today uh we had some pretty high
winds this morning
and it looks like some stitches were
coming out of the main the stitching
just kept
removing and now there's like a whole
a boat of you know three or four foot
section of the mainsail that
needs to be re-zoned made it to grenada
guys we're here
we have to serve a two-week quarantine
and there's kind of a changeover so
boats are coming and going all the time
here so we have completed
our quarantine we did our two weeks here
in grenada
in the designated quarantine anchorage
we kind of got in line and we're
supposed to stay
six feet apart and wait to have our
covid19 test
just as soon as we finished our
quarantine i borrowed this barracuda
heavy duty sewing machine from a friend
so we could repair our mainsail
we stayed in st george's for about a
week just last night the coast guard
asked us to move
they told us it's not an approved
anchorage so we left without any
argument
and moved north to grand mall bay
hey guys we're still in grand mal bay
and today we're going to jump in the
dinghy and we're going to go check out
an underwater sculpture park should be
pretty fun
[Music]
we were fortunate to be diving with
other cruisers who also had gopro
cameras
and we were able to capture our dive
from multiple angles for the first time
[Music]
how cool is this we're at the top of an
extinct volcano
walking through a rainforest looking for
monkeys
it doesn't get any cooler hey so we're
just heading into this seven
sisters waterfall here in grenada it's
supposed to be pretty amazing
we're just leaving grand mall today and
sailing
up to laurent island
so as you can see we are missing one of
our lower shrouds
we had it snap on us while under heavy
roll back in grand mall
we arrived in rond island to the perfect
anchorage
and this beautiful black sand beach
exactly what we were hoping for
and perfect for zeus to stretch his legs
[Music]
on the north side we found this
incredible white sand beach
the perfect spot to chill out and go for
a swim after being swarmed by mosquitoes
in 35 degrees celsius heat
we checked out some of rond island's
snorkeling and diving spots
but all within just a few miles of
kikkum jenny the underwater active
[Applause]
[Music]
volcano
soon it was time to say goodbye and sail
on for the island of keraku
today i am participating in a race it's
a circumnavigation of the entire island
of kyraku
so we got a little team together and we
took one of the fastest cruiser boats
that we had
and we entered the race
[Music]
we decided to hop over to saline island
for a few days to enjoy the privacy of a
beautiful anchorage
in a nearby white sandy beach this beach
here at white island has to be one of
the best
beaches here in carrico
so i hope you guys enjoyed our little
trip back in time and our recap
of sailing bellachandra since the
beginning back in 2017 until today if
you enjoyed what you had seen
and like to go back and actually watch
the full episodes they're all there for
you to go and enjoy
if you want to ask us any questions or
if you have any comments you can leave
them in the comment section below or you
can email me on facebook
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