Sunday 23 Feb: Day 2 of passage BHS to Cayman becomes passage to Jamaica.
At midnight we are passing Punta Maisi light house on the eastern tip of Cuba. We naughtily took a short cut inside the traffic separation system, staying only 3 miles offshore, firmly in Cuban territorial waters. But no authorities came to say hello, thank goodness. A ship that had previously overtaken us had to over take us again because he took the shipping lane! Love a good race with a cargo ship. This one was the Oslo Bulker no.9.
As we round the point, the sea is incredibly disturbed and the motion onboard is pretty severe. Must be a mixture of currents and winds just here. Oana leaves her clothes cupboard door open to allow good ventilation. And all those incredibly neatly folded clothes just got thrown out all over her while she slept. Oopsy! 🙂 The things Cloudy can get away with. I’d be crucified if I’d even throw just one folded blouse at her! haha 🙂
Once through this disturbance we settle down again into a fast downwind run. At some point we need to turn to starboard, towards Cayman, and gybe. But we hold our SW course for now to ensure we get clear away from the lee of Cuba. Those mountains will not only block the northerly wind but also risk katabatic gusts.
At 2am, just about the time I wanted to gybe, a squall hits us and the wind clocks back to north, putting us on a SE course. Not the direction we want to go! (we are autohelm sailing by the wind, to prevent an accidental gybe, so Cloudy has turned with the wind shift). I grit my teeth and wait for 30 minutes thinking it will blow through any moment. But it doesn’t, and with the wind blowing 25-30kts my patience runs out and I go out into the pouring rain to get the gybe done.
This is the gybe sequence: furl away genoa; drop pole and lash it to the cutter stay; head upwind -20degrees (to ensure main cannot accidentally gybe); remove the gybe preventer; winch in the main while giving the autohelm a +40degrees; gybe the mainsail over and let it back out on the new side; make sure we are not dead downwind, risking a gybe; re-rig the preventer; launch pole on opposite side; unfurl genoa on new side; get back on course; tidy up the ropes. See, all very simple! But all this time the 30kt wind is whipping across the deck, it’s dark, and Cloudy is surfing down the waves at 9kts…. yes, even with no genoa!
And to show how well thought out this boat is, I don’t even need to wake Oana to perform all this. Not to mention the new remote control for furling, which is really getting some use these days. A brilliant addition. It’s my favorite gadget at the moment. Needless to say, by the time Cloudy is settled again, I’m soaking wet with both the rain and perspiration. Time for a shower and wake Oana up for her shift as we sail along the south of Cuba in a gradually decreasing wind.
I wake again at 8am and the wind has all but gone. But the waves are big and the sails are clattering all over the place. One look from Oana is all I need, the engine goes on! We motor for a few hours and while Oana is in the shower I sneak the spinnaker back up on deck and set it up again. The wind shows 11kts now. Should be enough. Once up it pulls us at 4-5kts with the engine off. But the boat motions not good, the wind is fickle anywhere between 7-11kts, and the spinnaker is flogging a lot.
Another look from Oana and the spinnaker is back down and we are back to motoring! Well, she was right of course, it was a bit tedious.
Up till now we had been sitting in a counter current of 1 kt against us. Now that we are fully in the deep water (it’s over 6km deep here!) we have the easterly equatorial current of 1.5kts helping us to our destination. So at only 1300RPM, with the Gori propeller set in overdrive, we have a speed of 7.5kts but SOG of 9kts.
While Oana sunbathes on the aft deck, I read the pilot for Cayman and Jamaica. I know … bit late, right? And all of a sudden, considering Plan-C, I realise it may be better to see Jamaica now, while we are passing so close to it, rather than head back upwind after Cuba. It’s currently only 85miles to the south of us. As so often happens with us, a spur of the moment cruising decision is made. We have a quick chat about the merits of it and Oana says “let’s go to Jamaica then!” And just like that, we are on our way!
Well, not quite that instantly. We will be upwind for the first part and for the last part there will be 25kts winds on a broad reach. So we make the 80degrees port turn towards our new destination, but we don’t power up the sails until the spinnaker is safely back in the fore cabin and all the downwind sheets, tacklines, guys, barber-haulers, blocks and pole are all removed from the deck and stowed. No point to get them all salty after that lovely rinsing rain we had yesterday.
With the weather checked we power up the main and genoa and set course to Port Antonio on the NE corner of Jamaica as the sun goes down. This is more like it. After a stinking hot day of motoring downwind, it’s lovely to have breeze through the cockpit and engine finally off. Actually, we don’t go direct to our destination. First we head further east so that when the NW waves kick-in we can be running with them on a broad reach, rather than across them on a beam reach.
As we progress, the wind steadily increases and shifts anti clockwise. The waves increase too. And as we come off the wind, now aiming directly to Port Antonio, we are on another sleigh ride in 20-25kts of wind, surfing with the waves at 8-11kts. The noise of the waves breaking and Cloudy ploughing through them is quite something. In the darkness we can see their white caps breaking above our stern, just before the transom tilts up and over the oncoming wave. The phosphorescence sparkles in the water are also quite a spectacle, especially in the stern wake. And with the under-boom light on, we see the white foamy water rushing passed us, like we are on turbo speed! Somehow, in the darkness these visions and sounds all seem to be very enhanced. Oh, and yes, having stowed the pole and pole guys, they have to come out again. We need the genoa poled-out for the last 40 nm. It’s quite “fun” putting it up in these conditions!
At midnight we are 20nm upwind of Port Antonio. It will be 2am when we arrive. I have to admit I’m rather nervous. The pilot doesn’t mention any particular hazard but these waves will certainly be coming directly into the narrow entrance of East Harbour. And, almost immediately after we enter we will need to turn hard to starboard down a narrower channel to enter the sheltered West Harbour, behind Navy Island. And then find somewhere to drop the anchor or a buoy to tie up to. So a tricky entry into an unknown lee-shore harbour, at night, with no moonlight. “Oana, pass me the Valium pills, please!”
