776 Nautical Miles in 140 hours Non-Stop

Well, it is time for a blog about “the trip”. I was thinking about how to describe our journey from Curacao to Antigua and realized there was not really a lot to write about but there was so much we learned.
Back to basics – in case you have missed out last blogs, we spent Christmas with Rob and the Perrys at Lucy’s Place, a villa we rented in Santa Marta Bay. On the 27th we sailed to Spanish Waters with Rob and on the 28th he left for home. The weather had been bad over the Christmas season with lots of winds and lots of rain and lots of squalls out to sea so Cheryl and I ended up leaving Tuesday the 30th for Antigua where we were to meet Holly (my sister) and Joe (her husband). They had flown in Jan. 1 and booked a villa at Jolly Harbour until the 6th when we were going to take them aboard Mystic Journey until the 15th. Okay, stage is set.
Cheryl and I left about mid morning on the 30th and sailed south to go around the end of Curacao and get into the “heading” of our journey as soon as possible. We needed to go basically Northeast to get to Antigua and unfortunately the prevailing winds this time of year are from the Northeast so we knew we would have to do lots of open sea tacking (a zigzag path that allows us to make some way against wind). We had gotten a custom report from Chris Parker – a supposed weather guru who forecasts for Carib Wx and also offers subscriptions and custom forecasts to yachties. He had advised that we head east as much as possible for the first couple of days because the wind was going to be turning more easterly later in the journey.
One word to describe dealing with the winds and seas on this adventure – frustrating!!! It was not so much sailing against the wind as the fact that the only thing you could count on as far as direction and strength of wind, seas and current was that you could not count on anything. We at first tried going by Parker’s report until we discovered it was for the wrong area of the Caribbean. Even after that was corrected, we found it highly suspect most of the time.
Graham (Perry) very thoughtfully sent us nearly daily updates on the weather based on sources available to him but unfortunately these forecasts were also mostly inaccurate (nothing to do with you Graham – you sent the information – you didn’t forecast it!!!) We also sent for weather specific to the latitude and longitude that we provided but again, they forecast based on computer models and ocean buoy information and it was not that helpful. The main frustration – we would be in certain conditions i.e. winds from 070 degrees (ENE) so we would set our course to 115 degrees and plan on tacking to 025 degrees after 6 hours. Sure as shooting before we got to that point or even sometimes just as we got to it, the 070 wind would change to something totally unsuitable for the tack we needed. When this happens once or twice, it is annoying – when it happens constantly it is depressing.
We ended up with far too much northerly so that when we got up almost directly East of Antigua we were still 250 nm from where we needed to be. I won’t bore you with the details of how we dealt with that other than to say we did. I don’t want this blog to sound like a whine session (too late you say – ha!) so I will talk a little about the logistics of the trip.
Sleep – in the evening we split the watches into 3 hour shifts beginning at 6 PM and ending at 6 AM. This seemed to work best for us. I found that I could not sleep during the day but Cheryl was usually able to grab a couple of hours lying on one side or the other in the cockpit – usually the “down” (leeward) side because the boat was usually at about a 20/25 degree angle so if you didn’t stay on the down side you could roll off.
Food – Cheryl is usually the chef on Mystic Journey but she found that if she stayed downstairs too long she felt queasy so I became the sous-chef. Because of the angle of the boat, we didn’t do a lot of cooking. Even though the stove is gimbaled (set to swing on a pivot so the top surface stays parallel to the “ground”) neither of us felt that with the boat heeled over so far that it was safe to heat liquids or liquid materials. It is also very difficult to pour things in a boat with about 5 different directions of motion due to the seas. Anyway, I was able to keep us sustained for the trip. Would you believe that I had to do without my tea on all but 2 days of the trip – horror at sea!!!
Passing the time- during the day it was not difficult to pass the time. We talked about the trip, about people, about plans and sometimes just vegged. One very positive thing about the trip is we never had rain and more importantly we never had squalls or really high winds. I think probably 30 knots was the highest wind we had and that was mostly for short periods of time. The fact that we were sailing so close to the wind also lessened the effect of the wind because it was not pushing from the side but from more to the front. It actually sounded a lot worse than it was. Usually when you hear wind howl the way it did sometimes, it means you are really moving. Not so in this case because of the direction.
What helped - One thing we did see every day was birds, either frigate birds or brown boobies. It was in a sense comforting because it gave us the feeling we were not that far from land. Another very supportive aid was the fact that we were able to communicate by winlink email with the people that have been so helpful in our lives and on our journey, both family and friends. When we lost our MaxSea (our navigation tool), the fact that we were able to contact Graham (another big kudo to GP for his instant and effective help) kept us from panicking or going off the deep end. Finally, the contact we made with other yacht people via the Coconut Net every morning at 0800 was a real grounding for us. Special thanks to Dee and Don on Southern Cross for the extra contact they initiated after the net so let us know they were thinking of us and praying for us.
To finish up our trip – we arrived at Nevis about 0600 on the 5th. If we had been experiencing better wind conditions during our trip we might have carried on and tried for Antigua that day but the way things had been happening, we thought it likely that we would have the same problems we had been having all along and end up getting to Jolly Harbour after sunset and that is not a harbour that I would want to navigate to and then set anchor in after dark. This we decided to pick up a mooring ball in Nevis, stay for the day, have a refreshing swim, a warm meal and then leave that evening to arrive in Antigua bright and early on the morning of the 6th, which in fact we did.
Next blog I will fill in some of the spaces in our trip that I missed here, little items or anecdotes that we will carry as memories when our journey is over. For now I have gone on long enough so until next time – ciao.