Sun 18 Dec, Passage to Colombia, day 9: Midnight and early hours see us passing the SW corner of Haiti, readying ourselves mentally and physically for the high wind dash across the Caribbean Sea to Santa Marta, Colombia. ETA Tuesday.
Haiti’s western coast comprises of two long peninsulas and a 60nm wide bay in between. With the constant easterly trade winds, this coast is very protected from waves, swell, and wind. So it’s been a bit like the-calm-before-the-storm for us.
The southernmost peninsula, the one we are now rounding, Grand Anse Sud, has ~20m depth shoals extending 10nm out to sea. We note all shipping is navigating outside these shoals, not surprisingly. Given the easterly wind direction for our last leg to Columbia we didn’t want to go those 10 extra miles down wind. Hence in normal Glen-navigation style, we cut-the corner straight across the shallow bank and well inside the 3nm territorial limit. Would Haiti have marine border patrols? Naaah, not a chance in hell. But what they will likely have: fishing nets, floats, unlit boats and canoes. And that’s not considered anything unexpected. In anticipation of this, we sailed very gently through this shoal area, so the propeller would be folded away and not catch ropes; radar set to 1nm range and on-deck eyes to view where we are going (what we might hit!) and armed with handheld bright search light.
The coastline itself is impressively mountainous but with very few lights on the shore. Normally that means low habitation but not the case for Haiti. The very pungent smell of wood smoke told us people are living there.
Once onto the 23m depth bank we immediately start seeing fishing float pass by. Or more precisely, plastic bottles with lines leading below. We just hope they mark fish traps and not nets.
Initially, out to sea, we could see the odd white light flicker on and off. Fishing activity we assume, but gladly not in our inshore pathway. But that soon changed. Despite the 1/3 moon 🌙 we could not see boats nor canoes. But every now and then a light would come on in front of us and point at us. And in response we would shine our torch into the sails so they (he?) could see what was ghosting silently passed them. Some have passed pretty close, but thankfully nothing thumping on the bow. Not least that we heard! We think they were fishermen in canoes with small torches.
At one point the wind turned really fickle, dropping our speed to just 3 kts. “Ray, I really don’t want to motor, or more to the point I don’t want a rope wrapped around the prop removing all my expensive PropSpeed paint!” But we had no choice. And sure enough, within just 1 minute there was a “clunk” and an odd noise from the propeller. With the engine in neutral we looked for any lines or nets trailing behind. None to be seen. And once back into drive it ran again as normal. Maybe the “clunk” was the rope cutter doing its job. Just hope my Prospeed is still mostly there!
Very soon after that we were off the bank and into the Caribbean Sea. And similar to coming out the lee side of any Windward Island, we first start to feel the swell, then the wind fills in.
By mid-morning wind was 16-20kts and short (6 second) 3m high waves coming directly at us as we sailed 55deg off the wind. Conditions that cause Cloudy to hobbyhorse: the bow raising up and over the incoming wave, then quickly dipping down through the next, and occasionally burying itself into the next wave, throwing a wall of green water up and backwards. This water would then rush up the foredeck reaching the mast base. But occasionally big enough and forceful enough to come all the way back to the cockpit, up the windscreen and over the tent cockpit enclosure, finally losing its energy as it lands on the aft deck. Exhilarating conditions! And makes us wonder “if this is 16-20kts of wind, what is 35-40 going to be as we near Columbia?”
On that theme let’s discuss strategy for this leg.
Winds on this north side are normal trade strength, but as we steadily go south, they dramatically increase due to the mountain ranges around the Venezuela-Columbia border region squeezing them. Bit like how a river flows faster when an obstacle causes the river to narrow – a gorge for instance.
Fastest route to Santa Marta would be straight line course south at 90deg to the trade wind direction. But in the higher winds, for comfort I want the wind angle to the boat at aft of the beam, not in front of it.
So the strategy is to sail a banana course. Starting by pointing east of the straight line for about a day then steering more west, easing the sails for the 2nd half, where the strong winds are. Hence to start with, now, we are thumping upwind a bit. And with hind sight probably a bit too much, because during the day the wind anyway backed (rotated anti-clockwise) 10-15 degrees and by later morning we were at 70deg apparent wind and much more comfortable with a much better angle to the waves and a higher speed (8kts).
Sail plan? We are conservative with 1/2 the area of main out and 2 reefs in the genoa. Occasionally we would bring the genoa back out to full in the lulls. Lulls being 14-15 kts, highs being 20.
After another spectacular sunset, on the radar we started to see rain squalls up ahead. We thought we’d just skip in front of it but instead we caught the edge. Nasty little bugger it was too. As the boat icon of Cloudy started to dip into the red-radar imaged squall I said to Ray: “Ok, if and when the wind goes over 22kts, you grab the remote control for furling and get the deck light on, and I’ll jump outside to the genoa winch. We’ll furl into reef 4 (from full genoa)”. And just as I finished saying this the wind jumped 16 up to 26. ACTION STATIONS! We had the sail reefed in seconds, but the wind was quickly touching 30kts. And as rain pelted us, Cloudy simply took off like a spurred horse, quickly up to 10+kts speed and the foredeck just a mist of wild spray. Man she was going for it! One of those moments when you are left speechless … and just hanging on, watching in awe as Cloudy does her stuff. What a thrill! But only for 5 minutes by which time we had surged in front of the rain cell and the winds quickly died back to normal. And genoa unfurled again.
There, that pretty much describes what happens when a trade wind squall hits you.
Into the evening the wind gradually increased to the point it is more above 20kts true than below. At this point the genoa, even heavily reefed, is too powerful. And it especially “helps” forcing the bow down into the water. At 9.5kts boat speed I know we are starting to push Cloudy too hard. It’s time for the cutter sail. We already had it rigged. It was just a simple case of furling the genoa completely away and unfurling the cutter. Once the cutter is trimmed, we are still doing 8kts yet only 10 degree heel and now almost no waves over the bow. Still a bumpy ride though, and over the next 36 hrs it’s only going to get worse.
I think our arrival to Santa Marta will be one of relief!
1 comment
So good to see you sailing again!!!
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