Sailing South

Ah, yes. It all looks so peaceful and beautiful, doesn't it? The sun setting, the soft slap of the waves on the hull as the sails drive the boat through the water. The crew introspective as they contemplate the waning day.

Cut to four hours later when night has fallen, the winds have built and now the reefed sails are moaning as if possessed by witches. Ah, yes...this is sailing too. I don't seem to take as many pictures when I'm distracted by hectic conditions.

This sail south was supposed to be a chance to do a 48 hour non-stop passage. Of course since we were headed south, the wind would be on the beam, or even behind us. Wouldn't it? Plans changed about 10 minutes outside of St. Martin when we realized that our back-up GPS was not cooperating. We like our Garmond handheld device because it gives us the security of a second way to pinpoint our location and it also features various entertaining options to play with during the long hours underway. It also saves the guy who isn't behind the instruments from asking; how fast are we going? where is the wind coming from? what is our COG? You can imagine this gets old pretty quick. So no back up GPS and no favorite toy ten minutes into a long, long journey.

By the end of the first day we decide to drop anchor in Ballast Bay, St. Kitts to regroup. Read: Get over the loss of our favorite GPS and find the old other backup GPS. Redundancy is good when it comes to boat electronics. We get to the anchorage after dark, but it isn't crowded so we are able to find a spot without incident. We sleep. We get going the next morning - heading once again to Bequia, SVG. Really this time.

By night fall the weather is definitely not behaving as advertised. Instead of the 10-15 wind speed, it's built to a solid 25 knots. This is a lot of wind. This is when the rigging starts to make scary noises and you definitely begin to feel out of control as you hurtle into the darkness. Did I mention that there were rain squalls as well. Oh, yes and the waves. Did I mention that when winds pick up this high the sea likes to get in the act too. At times like this night is good. It hides how high the waves are beginning to look from the waterlevel cockpit. Now we are almost to the coastline of Guadalupe which is a good thing because there is shelter from the waves here. Of course, because the wind is blowing like the devil we are moving along at a good clip. We decide to head for the anchorage in Portsmouth Dominica. That's only about 8 hours away.

Now it is dawn. We have come into the bay and are drifting with the engine on in neutral until there is enough light to see the other boats in the anchorage. Roy eats some Honey Nut Cheerios, but I'm not ready for breakfast yet. Stopping first would be nice. Even at the crack of dawn, the intrepid Dominican boat boys are on the job. Chatty Morley escorts us into the anchorage and welcomes us to Dominica. We tell Morley we are going right to sleep and won't be going on the Indian River Guided trip later on. Next time. We get going the next morning - heading once again for Bequia. Really this time.

Until we get as far as Rosseau, at the south end of Dominica. It's about 4:30pm and I go below to check the fuel filter because we are about to head into the pass between Dominica and Martinique. The pass is usually kind of rough and will require a few hours of motoring to get through in these light winds. The filter is not happy and has to be changed. We think the fuel we got in Puerto Rico was contaminated which is why the filter is dirty and needs to be replaced. We are just off the town anchorage so in we go. So much easier to deal with diesel fuel and filters while stopped. We grab a mooring, change the filter and discover we can pick up free wifi. We decide to stay the night and head out to Bequia tomorrow.

Free wifi is a very good thing. Roy - who was not over the GPS fiasco - gets the info he needs to fix the problem from the Garmond website. Yeah, our favorite GPS in the whole world is back online. Now we can get to Bequia. After all, all these delays and pit stops are still bringing us closer and closer - though slowly - to our goal. We sail in beautiful conditions for about five hours. Full sails up and the day passes like a scene from a sailing commercial. Beautiful. Until we get too close to Martinique. The massive volcano on the north end of the island steals all the wind. Now we are motoring. That's not bad in itself, but there is an uncomfortable swell building. The water is looking more and more like a washing machine and my stomach is starting to feel like I'm inside of one. Lots of sloshing around that does not feel good. Another stop at Anse Mitan to quell the sloshing and catch some shut eye.

We have lost track of how many days we've been going. All we know is that Bequia is still on the agenda and now it's only two more islands south of us. Sailing again we cross the channel to St. Lucia and keep up a good pace all the way through to St. Vincent. Near the end of St. Vincent we see a relatively rare sight. Two freighters cross each other's track within 1 mile of each other. This doesn't sound very dramatic, but from our vantage point we felt like we could have been a freighter sandwich. Good thing this happened during daylight.

Only a few more hours to the tiny island of Bequia and one more obstacle: the Bequia Blast. This refers to the windy, choppy piece of water between ST. Vincent and Bequia. We enter it around 9pm and get spit out into the harbour at Port Elizabeth around midnight. We were hoping the fullish moon would light our way into the anchorage, but big dark clouds are looming. We anchor out in the back of the pack and drink a victory beer. Bequia. Really this time.