The Clock is Ticking – Charlestown, Nevis, April 21, 2023
Sailing Hubby finished his rigging project while we rested in Marigot Bay, St. Martin. Even though he is diligent in inspecting our rigging and I also keep an eye on it when I clean the stainless on the boat, it had been over a year since we had had an official inspection. St. Martin is the cruising capitol of the Caribbean, and we had a rare opportunity to get access to some top-notch riggers. We were lucky enough to be able to get an appointment with one of these such riggers, and had them come to take a look.
I swear he is part monkey climbing the rig bar hands
This included them reviewing all our running rigging, Ron’s new re-rig of the main sail to be operated from the helm and take a run up the mast. This is a job Ron hates to do and was well worth the money to have done. Good news is they didn’t find any major issues even after the rough sailing we through the thorny path.
As much as we had enjoyed the people and food of St. Martin, the clock is ticking for us to get south before hurricane season begins. Our haul out date is mid June and we would like to be to Grenada well before this time. In an effort to make our next jump shorter we took a quick 4-hour day sail over to St. Barth’s. And let me tell you as we passed the Rolex store on our way to customs that it is every bit as high class as its reputation implies. There was a lot of money sitting in the harbor between the racing and mega yachts.
Relic from a tall ship I suppose Incredible how clean the island is. Beautiful island
And then after paying $9 per beer, we had dinner on the boat and left the next morning to make out way to Nevis, the southern island for St. Kitt’s. It’s a beautiful volcano and a clean little town. We got in a bit of trouble for docking the dinghy at the four seasons dock but had a great dinner at a little place down the street, Zanzi. The $2 beers there with vegetarian options were more our style.
Sailing the Thorny Path– En Route to Luperon, Dominican Republic, January 11, 2023
We left the Bahamas via George Town, north of Long Island, sailed north of Rum Cay, passing San Salvador, and are currently passing north of the Turks and Caicos in route to Luperon, Dominican Republic. A sailor’s plan is always drawn in sand, ready to change at a moments notice, and ours certainly has since Puerto Rico is no longer the goal. How has the sail been you ask? Well…let me explain our change in plans. We started out at dawn on Monday, and it was choppy. I mean we motored into 20 knot winds kind of choppy.
The weather predicted this to change so we only had to endure this for today so to distract ourselves, Sailing hubby put out a fishing pole to see if he could catch something when we left the Land and Sea Park. A couple hours later we heard a large BANG. Thinking something on the rigging had broken, Ron checks over everything and it’s OK. We discovered, a large fish had taken all of his line and actually broken it off the pole. Well, I guess we are done fishing.
Meanwhile, the weather hasn’t changed except to say that now the swell is worse and it is all on our beam making the boat in a state where you cannot stand up if you are not hanging onto something. Boiling water for coffee is out of the question.
Then strike two was after the boat banged around like crazy, the first night it finally broke the latch on one of my kitchen cupboards causing everything in it to fall out and shatter. I was scared, now awake (in bare feet) to a bouncing boat, and now there is shattered glass EVERYWHERE. Ron was on watch so I cleaned it up as best I could and fixed the cupboard. Apparently our standards of “fixing” are on a different page.
We made it through the night and most of the next day was squalls (aka storms). This means it’s all hands-on deck since we need to reef the sails and the other person is at the helm steering and controlling the speed. We did that roughly 4-5 times so no one slept during the day. It is also a bit dangerous with the boat bouncing so much and Ron having the clip in to go to the front of the boat. We wear life jackets when outside at any time and are clipped in, in case we fall off. They are heavy and uncomfortable but necessary. So, Ron took the first night shift til about 10 and then I took the graveyard shift. It wasn’t until then that all hell broke loose…except not on our boat. Strike three was we had our main sail down, and since our jib was inverted, we barely got that furled in before the winds picked up to 25 knots and the rain started again. Our buddy boat was not so lucky.
We had decided to take this journey with a boat we travelled a lot with last season, Caribbean Dream. They are experienced sailors and have sailed to Puerto Rico before. They sail a 45’ monohaul, (honestly, I cannot remember which kind – Hunter maybe?) and the captain is an engineer and pilot.
On this stormy night, Caribbean Dream had also gotten down the main sail, however when trying to furl their jib, the rigging broke and it was now flailing in the 25 knot winds. The captain had to go up to the front of their horribly rolling boat, in the rain, 25 knot winds, to try and tie down the sail before it got worse! The first mate was at their helm talking to Ron, panicking, trying to figure out how to help beside slowing the boat down. Ron is talking her and helping keep her calm, and after a terrifying scene, he was able to secure their sail, stay on the boat, and get back to the helm. Whew!
The two captains have had very little sleep after the squalls all day and after nearly loosing his life trying to get the sails down, they were both ready for a few hours rest. The two first mates took the helm for the graveyard shift but now we had some decisions to make. The weather had not improved, we had expected to make 5.5 knots and due to the wind were going slower than that, which meant it was unlikely we would make Puerto Rico within our weather window. With still 3 days to go, and now Caribbean Dream was limping badly with no head sail, I had been half seasick (thank you 6-8 foot sea swell) even with Bonine (even Ron was taking it now), and our captains were exhausted. It was time to call it and start taking about where to divert. This is why we had planned bail out routes ahead of time.
It now looks like we will not make it to Puerto Rice but have a marina chosen in the Dominica Republic where we will stop which is pretty reputable. There, we can lick our wounds, get a glass of rum or El Presedente, Fix Caribbean Dream’s sail, refuel, and start to look for the next weather window for the jump to Puerto Rice. Planning Plan B in advance is always a good idea rather than when you are exhausted, the last thing is to start this process from scratch. Dominican…here we come. At least we celebrated surviving the night a cracked open a bag of Funyuns. Breakfast of champions :)!
Cement Donkeys 