Saturday 22 Feb, Passage BHS to Cayman, day 2: From Clarence Town to the Windward Passage, east end of Cuba. Great day sailing with Parasailor until the squally weather front caught us up.
From 1 to 4am, while Oana is on shift, we motored SE, away from Long Island in very light winds. This was actually good because we needed to recharge batteries and make water too. By 4am the wind was back with 12-14kts from astern (from NNW) and we started sailing on starboard tack with poled-out genoa to starboard. Relatively slow progress and a lot of clattering as the sails shake when Cloudy rolls on the small waves that are now coming from the NW.
Dawn breaks behind a menacing looking bank of clouds. But thankfully they blow away downwind, leaving clear skies with the odd puffy cloud. After breakfast, armed with the latest forecast from PredictWind downloaded using IridiumGo, it looks like good conditions for the spinnaker until late afternoon when the front will catch us.
So up it goes and we 2-sail run on starboard tack with wind slightly on the quarter. Thank goodness, the spinnaker stabilizes the boat and also stops all the clattering we get from the poled-out genoa. The wind is 10-15kts and we are doing 6-7kts. Should be faster than this, but sea is rather choppy and is throwing the spinnaker about a bit, disturbing any smooth airflow. We sail like this for the next 8 hours.
At 4pm dark clouds come from behind and we are sure the wind will blow. But I’m rather determined to hold onto the spinnaker for as long as possible following my regrets last night. On the radar we can see the first rain squall approaching. It’s still 6 miles away and we monitor the rain-track until we are sure it’s gonna get us! When 3 miles away I start thinking about dropping the spinnaker. Seems a shame because the wind is only 8-10kts. We’ll be dead in the water without it.
But then, just off our starboard side, I spot a twister. A dark spiral reaching down from a particularly dark patch of angry cloud. It almost touches the water. In an instant I’m calling Oana on deck and I’ve already started to pull the snuffler over the spinnaker. Once snuffled, Oana drops the halyard while I stuff the sock & spinnaker down the fore hatch. The very moment we close the hatch, the rain starts and the wind steadily increases. Then it’s all hands to put the sides and rear panels on the cockpit tent.
I just finish this when Oana shouts from the cockpit “27kts!” (wind speed). We still have the full mainsail out. I try to furl some away but it’s hopeless downwind, the pressure on it is already too much. So we hang on as Cloudy just takes off, energised by the squall. Her bow wave is curling away like we are a speed boat! The autohelm is doing its job but I sit behind the wheel ready for action. Even though we have the gybe preventer on, we can’t afford an accidental gybe in these conditions.
The peak wind in the squall was 32kts but mostly top 20s. And our top speed 11.5kts. Quite a thrill. And best of all, Cloudy gets really stable in such conditions. Rather nice after all the previous rolling downwind.
Then comes the rain. Absolute buckets of it. It’s coming off the foot of the mainsail onto the deck in a sheet of water, flooding the side decks. The scuppers cannot keep up with the flow. Nothing like a good rain shower to desalt the boat though. And nice to have such rain without lightening for once. We hate electrical storms.
Once it’s passed the wind stays at 20-25kts and we unfurl the genoa on the pole to get some more stability. With main only, Cloudy has the tendency to corkscrew to windward when caught on a bad wave. With genoa out (with 2 reef dots in) we are sitting at a steady 9-10kts, going like a freight train (that is: not very fast, but bloody fast for a yacht, and not stoppable!).
We stay like this till darkness approaches. With the arrival of the front the wind has also clocked round to east of north so we gybe over the mainsail in a lull of wind and re-pole-out the genoa on the opposite side. We are now on port tack directly on track for the East tip of Cuba.
Lots of shipping around here, and it’s not long before we have an encounter. The Severn Seas Explorer, a 750ft cruiseliner, is on a close collision course approaching us at 22kts from our starboard side. We call on VHF saying that it looks like we will just narrowly cross his bow, and would he please turn slightly to port, because THIS freight train ain’t stopping! He replies that he has seen us on AIS, but says he will turn to starboard. Odd, port would be the obvious. We see him turn (on AIS) then hold steady, now on an absolute collision course with us! But 3 miles away he turns even more, likely over 20degees in total and eventually passes in front of us at 1/2nm distance. A slight port turn would surely have been easier? But we are happy to see his stern rather than narrowly cross his bow, so all is well that ends well. And the huge brightly lit floating city disappears off in the distance. To Antigua, according to his AIS data. Always nice to chat to someone on the high seas. But I wonder if his first mate is as gorgeous as mine 🙂
Talking of which, Oana has not had a great day. She’s been reading most of the time but is generally feeling seasick. And once darkness comes she gets worse. So she retires to bed early. I hope she can get some sleep. Cloudy is rather playing the bucking-bronco this evening as we approach the windward passage between Haiti and Cuba.
At midnight we are 3nm offshore from the lighthouse on the eastern tip of Cuba. The sea is even more bouncy here. Must be conflicting currents. But once around the Cabo, the Caribbean sea becomes very tranquil, as does the wind which has dropped to 15kts. And we finish the day gently sailing downwind again at a tidy 7.5kts. We are about half way to Cayman now.