Caribbean Sea

Dale had no sooner taken over watch from me in the wee hours of the morning when he turned on the engine. I assumed that it was because the winds were coming further and further astern of us and progressively lighter in strength as the evening wore on. Lying in my bunk, I was trying to find a way to sleep and hang on at the same time; the swells were making our ride really uncomfortable. Within minutes, I heard the wind pick up and intensify to the point where they were howling, the Palace picked up speed but would list dramatically then round up. I hung on tighter. I didn’t release my purchase on the mattress until I heard what sounded like a bucket of water landing on the salon floor.

I stepped out of the stateroom onto a wet floor. A glance up told me the companionway door was still closed. A flashlight that was normally stored in the well by the nav table was lying at my feet. A further search showed that one of the small hatches on the overhead was wide open and clearly we had taken a wave over the top. I turned on a light. Pillows, books and papers were on the floor but where had they come from? The salon looked as secure as when I had left it. A potato rolled by. I keep potatoes in a bin all the way forward in another stateroom.

I opened the companionway to check on Dale. One look told me all I needed to know. He was hand steering and trying to adjust one of the sails at the same time. I grabbed my lifejacket and harness and gingerly worked my way up the stairs, hanging onto the rails for dear life, trying not to slip on the saltwater that covered everything.

He told me that he had seen the straight line that the leading edge of clouds sometimes take that contain high winds. The radar had not shown rain but he turned on the engine just in case. Sure enough the wind went from 8kts to over 25 kts.

We had rigged a preventer to the boom to keep it stationary in the light winds from astern and rolling seas. When the high winds hit, the jib sheet let go (we really don’t know how that happened) and the preventer rig wrapped itself around it. While Dale controlled the boat, I grabbed the jib sheet (we keep the end tied off inside the cockpit) and wrapped it back around the winch to bring the jib back under control. The problem now was that part of the jib sheet and the preventer line were tangled in a giant knot outside of the cockpit. We couldn’t bring in either sail the way things stood and the wind wasn’t going to die down for a while. Dale did a great job keeping the boat under control with full sails in winds averaging 25 kts and in confused seas.

A while later the winds fell below 20 kts and I was able to crawl out onto the deck to untangle the knot. During my watch, it was Dale’s turn to hook on and make his way to the bow to untangle the roller furling line that had slipped between the spokes on the roller furling drum and refused to straighten when I tried to bring the sail in. While he was out on a pitching deck, lightening would flash blinding both of us and the jib would flap over his head when the Palace would round up. Each of us met the challenges presented but it was not fun.

The sun rose to another day but unfortunately, the conditions didn’t improve so we continued to motor. I was glad that Dale had decided to fill up in St. Lucia because we eventually motored over 24 hours; I like to sail everywhere but today it was one of those rides where you can only hang on as best as you can.

With daylight I was able to see that the forward stateroom bunk had started to slip and everything wedged on or around it gave with it. Even the bicycles that have always been secure before, started to slide off. The forward head where we keep our wet gear, hammocks, sunshades, etc, looked like it had been tipped upside down.

By evening the swells and waves started to lie down but unlike last night, the moon was obscured by thick clouds. Once the wind rose over 10 kts and remained consistent, I let out the jib and turned off the engine hoping Dale could sleep better. We were once again sailing at 4-5 kts but the ride felt better. I turned on the radar about once every hour to make sure I wasn’t sending us into showers but other than that, just tried to aim between the clouds that held lightening.

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.