Spring Cleaning

So the motoring continues, our range anxiety increases but our distance to the way point decreases.

We are becoming increasingly concerned that the wind hole may well persist, and so we throttled back to 1000 revs reducing our speed to 3.2 kn but increasing our range.

We transferred the diesel from our jerrycans to the tank.

We have a main and a reserve tank. The reserve, which we have not touched, contains 165 L of diesel and the main, of which we had used perhaps 2/3 , is 200L. By transferring 120 L, the main tank was nearly full giving us an appropriate range of 650m. Our distance to St Lucia was 850m meaning that in order to be confident of avoiding being becalmed we needed to bank 200m of sailing. Unfortunately that appeared an elusive prospect.

So we had a little time to play with our camera settings!

We also encountered massive weed banks. Hundreds of acres of the stuff.

It was rather eerie to see such massive tracts, in dead calm seas. We had no choice but to cut through it, but unfortunately it jammed the propeller and we had to switch the engine off and see whether we could simply float through it. That proved impossible, and so we had to reverse, to free the propeller, move ahead, get through the bank, and then reverse again to free the propeller. We were at one point surrounded by the stuff, which was a little bit smelly! Under the bank of seaweed was the most amazing aquarium. We saw very large mahi-mahi and lots of other species, that we couldn’t identify. It was truly something to behold, in the beautiful azure waters.

The next morning, I downloaded four different weather models from the weather apps, including (what some say is the most accurate) the European model (ECMWF), a US model (GFS), a Caribbean model (NBM Caribbean) and an aggregating model (NBM), which collects many models and produces an average. Each of them showed the prospect of the wind hole persisting right through until the weekend. I might have explained in the past that some of these models actually produce recommended sailing plans, even telling you at what time during your planned passage you should tack, or if you should put the engine on. Our model showed a six day passage, with four days of motoring, but even then suggested that we might be able to sail in 6 kn of wind, which will just not happen as the winds are cycling from E to S to W and around to N!

No sooner had the crew conferred on a plan of action (don’t panic!), than we felt a zephyr of wind and we put the headsail out. The wind increased, and we put the main sail out. We then proceeded to sail from 8:30 am through to 8:30 pm before again the wind completely died. But we managed to bank 50 miles of sailing, which was very satisfying if a little slow. At one point though we encountered our biggest squall so far. We had windspeeds approaching 30 kn, seas increased to 20 foot and the rain was biblical. Luckily we managed to reef in (reduce the sails) in time and the boat got a jolly good wash; not surprisingly really, but everything on the boat becomes encrusted with salt, and after a while it becomes rather annoying. When the rain does come it washes it all away, and it’s very satisfying.

Add to that the fact that in the morning we engaged in a full deep clean of the boat inside, we are now left with a very shiny, pleasantly clean and fresh smelling vessel!

As I write we have continued to make way. Our distance to St Lucia now starts with a 5 – OK 599 miles but I’ll take it!

On my 6 pm watch, I was sitting talking to Pete, when we heard an a very odd noise from the Bimini. It sounded like there were squirrels running across it. We looked, but couldn’t see anything. We were then carrying on with our conversation when we heard a horrible screeching sound. We went out onto the deck (it was pitch black) to find five beautiful looking birds sitting on the boom having a conversation. When we went out, they flew away, but in our direction, causing us somewhat of a fright. But they came back all night, journeying with us to St Lucia.

Here’s hoping for another 150m of sailing!