Caribbean Sea
15.12.687N
61.52.173W
9:50PM

Our big transit started today. It looked to be a great day for a sail. The skies were only slightly cloudy and the winds were hardly more than a breeze but we were still being protected by the harbor in St. Anne, Martinique.

We stored and secured everything as we have done in all of our other transits, laid out the jacklines, brought up the lifejackets and harnesses and the proceeded to unfurl our main sail and hoist the anchor. We were a bit surprised when we had to slide ourselves between two boats on either side of our anchor. With the wind changing everyone’s direction, boats coming and going, and us letting out enough scope to withstand the substantial winds that were associated with the rains that passed through, the new boats were closer to our anchor than we had previously thought. No problem really, we usually lift our anchor slowly; we just had to edge a little closer to them than we normally like to do and keep going as soon as the anchor was off the bottom.

By 8:45 am, the anchor was secured in its locker and we pointed our bow in the direction of St. Croix. As I mentioned before, the winds were light as we were on the lee side of Martinique and since the island is relatively large, we were in the lee the remainder of the day. This also protected us from the 10’ sea swell that we knew was out beyond the protection of the island. Unfortunately, it was almost noon when we were able to cut the engine, unfurl our jib to sail unaided, even if it was only at 4-4.5 kts. Mentally, I was already recalculating how long it was going to take us to cross. As long as we arrived in daylight, I didn’t care how many days it was going to take.

We continued at the 4-4.5 kts for the remainder of the day. The 10’ swells gradually made their appearance out of the northeast but with a good 10 seconds between each, they were only noticeable when we were in a trough looking up at one of them. They silently lifted us up, moved along their path beneath us and then gently lowered us back. If they had been the only swells, they would have been disregarded. However, there was another set of swells about half their size coming in from the southeast. At first we thought that these were waves wrapping around the island but the farther away from Martinique the more it became obvious that they were probably the result of the tropical wave that was supposed to have dissipated farther to the south of us. So in addition to the up and down, we now had a rock, rock thrown in for good measure. As the day progressed into the evening, this motion became more and more severe as the southeast swells grew in intensity.

With the nightfall came the full moon we considered ourselves blessed to have for a long transit. However, nightfall also revealed the lightening in the clouds around us we had previously been unaware of.