Passage Notes Cape Verde - Martinique, part 2

Thursday (13th), night shift we are picking up the wind and moving along, just tweaking the course up and down a few degrees keeps the sail from flogging. Fortunately we are still on the pole. We have received texts from family and friends who are following our track asking exactly where the heck we are going. Chasing the wind we are heading more northward but we still have over 1000 nautical miles to go so there is plenty of time to deal with that. We are trying to keep everyone happy, including Destiny, and are working together much better now as a crew.

The night sky continues its entertainment offering up incredibly multicolored and brilliantly glistening stars with the occasional falling star thrown in for good measure. Late morning brought even more whales. We are certainly enjoying their curiosity as they approach Destiny for a close inspection. We have all tried to photograph them but they become elusive when the iPhones come out. During the afternoon I went out on the bow for a while to get a better look and found that this brought them even closer, perhaps wondering what this creature was that was walking around on the big sand-colored fish. To say it was thrilling, even exhilarating being up there with them so close as they breached for a better look and then pirouetted in Destiny’s bow wake is a grand understatement. The color of the water is becoming a gorgeous aquamarine blue and with the sunlight at just the right angle it is easy to see these fantastic creatures shooting just under the surface of the waves. They swim by just abeam then turn to show us their white underside before breaching and then ducking under the bow, ever so gracefully. For a good while several were taking turns and then eventually just one stuck around to circle back time and again. Jim had gone down for a nap but decided this was worth missing a few winks, so he came up to get a few minutes on the bow with the whale. Frank just enjoyed them from the cockpit. He’s had enough time on the foredeck lately. Later in the afternoon I was alone on watch when a large number of dolphins of varying sizes appeared on both sides, some of them must be babies because they would pop straight up out of the water, backs bowed like little bunnies. They frolicked for a short while and then dashed off as quickly as they had come.

Another rough night. Erratic big seas, boat not happy, sail not happy as the date becomes Friday, 14 December. We have a little over 930 nm to go. The promised winds must be hiding somewhere because we are chasing them as best we can, the boat rocking side to side but still getting forward motion. The night was filled with stars spilling gold and silver streaks from the heavens. It gives the impression of Angel tears streaming down. I wonder for whom or what are they crying.

Friday was a good one for sailing, riding the waves and making fair progress; the seas are lumpy and building, but occasionally the swells become organized. It’s quite beautiful to watch a big roller come up behind us building into a great blue wall and then just when you think it will swallow us whole it tucks under Destiny giving her a lift as she surfs it down, then we see the wall emerge at the front of the bow. This sound is soothing to the soul. We are all smilin’ and chillin’.

Saturday, December 15, the wee hours of my night shift the seas are calmer but only just. We are still under sail, thank God. No stars tonight. Clouds and a half moon are prevalent. We are making good time. 

Daytime Saturday has continued to bring enough of a downwind lift to keep the genny filled. Sometimes the side to side rocking gets going like a child having a tantrum, and it takes a while to calm back down. No complaints though as long as we are marching onward. It is now 6 pm, and we have just 690 miles to go.

Night shift, early Sunday (16th),  the shooting, or rather falling stars continue in between cloud cover. I hear but cannot see whales. A squall came through on my watch bringing short-lived good wind and a little rain but when the second one passed we nearly stopped dead in the water. Reluctantly I turned on the engine. Progress is slowing but it has been up and down anyway during this passage. Daytime brought the return of the whales around mid-day. They entertained us for a good while, and when the big swells arrived they surfed with and circled about Destiny. Eventually, the wind abated and the engine came back on. During the evening I received a text from my friend Lynn (Wind Pony), alerting us to watch for a comet tonight that should be visible with the naked eye near The 7 Sisters constellation. She indicated that this comet comes around every 20 years. Sure enough in the hours just before dawn (around 0730 UTC) Frank and I spotted it’s brilliance. From our perspective it looked more like an elongated kaleidoscopic capsule. 

Monday, December 17th. We have had somewhat overcast skies today and are making only fair progress but hoping for a Thursday arrival. We had engine assist for a short while and are enjoying a quiet sail today. No whales or dolphins today as of 3:30 pm. I am exhausted. I try to sleep during my off time but there is so much noise, slamming and pitching that I feel like a zombie with a very sore backside and so many bruises all over my body I’m beginning to resemble a Dalmatian. A few days ago a large wave hit us broadside just as I was entering the cockpit to sit, knocking me backward and slamming my tailbone right down onto the metal adjustment piece of the binoculars.Tonight is my night for two stands of night watches and yet I got up early deciding I might as well sit with Frank for his last hour. The comet was rising just about then so I had it to keep me company. During the next couple of hours it conveyed two separate massive “meteors” that - to my eye - fell ever so slowly and quite brightly down the entire stretch of the sky before suddenly going dark.

Tuesday, December 18th. We have turned southward in order to get a little more comfortable and also to correct our course from the northing we have done. We had a close call with a French sailing yacht last night just as I was coming up to relieve Frank on my 2nd night-watch. Frank had already moved a few degrees off our course because the guy was coming up quickly from behind, bearing directly for us then he drew abeam of Destiny and refused to answer repeated hailing attempts on the VHF. I’m not sure what the CPA indicated on AIS, but I lit up the running lights as Frank made ready to correct yet again when the guy began speaking French into the radio. I answered him in English letting him know we felt he had unnecessarily breached what we consider a safe nighttime radius. He casually bid us a fond good night and continued on toward Martinique. BTW, this is the third encounter we’ve had since leaving Cape Verde. The other two were commercial vessels who were extremely responsive and helpful, passing to our stern once radio contact was established and inevitably these all happened at night.

Wednesday morning, 9:30 am. Engine on, track on for a direct approach to the first waypoint at Martinique. This has been a no drama day. We managed to get below the 200 miles to go mark by afternoon. I’ve been asked what we do while on passage. We read books, sit and contemplate, watch the sea and the skies. We text and call on the “IridiumGo!”, I do squats, stretches and workouts using the companionway steps. I do Sudoku and other puzzle games. Jim spends a lot of time in his cabin reading and he writes a lot. We sit and contemplate some more. I journal. Everyone naps whenever possible. Each day, the person who gets off watch at 4:00 pm is responsible for cooking dinner that night for everyone. I have a lot of prepared meals in the freezer, so that all we have to do is nuke many night. I have stocked this boat with as much imaginative food as possible so that no one will starve. If they do it’s their own fault. We are mostly on our own for lunch and breakfast, and take turns making the morning pot of coffee. Exciting stuff, I know.

Thursday, December 20th. Last night passed without incident. Today we did move the pole to starboard, making the sail a bit happier and are enjoying being under sail again. Our distance to go at 2:00, UTC is 67 nautical miles. Eventually we lost good wind and motorsailed on and off through the day. Before dusk we could see the hazy outlines of Martinique mountains on the distant horizon. Again no drama as night’s velvet blanket fell and we prayed for the moon to rise high enough for us to pick our way into St. Anne’s bay. 

2:00 AM, UTC we motored into the wide open bay, dropped the hook by 2:08, and then Frank popped the champagne cork to celebrate our good and safe arrival. We have finally fulfilled an 11-year dream to sail Destiny into the Caribbean. It will feel real good to sleep as long as we want and without being tossed out of bed or jarred awake by creaking sheets and stressed rigging.

Passage notes Cape Verde to Martinique - part 1

Wednesday, December 5 - Wednesday, December 12th

The date is not optimal for leaving but we are ready and there are schedules to keep so we are going to make a go of it. PredictWind’s passage tool indicates that if we depart today we should have some decent wind 50% of the time, fair wind 30%, and then days without much wind on three of the four forecast models. Forecasts tend to change regularly so we might as well get going. By late morning we had weighed anchor and were off for a rough ride at first “motor-bobbing”, trying to clear the island and then we took off like a shot when the genoa caught the wind. 2080 NM to go to our first waypoint just outside the southern tip of Martinique. Estimated date of arrival if all goes well should be December 21st, and as always we give or take a couple of days so that we have no expectations. At the very least we hope to spend Christmas in a nice French restaurant.

We were going well, averaging about 7 knots and enjoying the ride until we hit the lee of the big island of Santo Antao. Once clearing that island we continued trying to sail for the better part of the day until the decreased wind drove us to deploy the gennaker (asymmetrical spinnaker). Eventually, during the darkest part of the predawn, the winds were giving up on us so the kite came down and the motor cranked on.

We enjoyed a daily dolphin show for the first few days out. At times there were at least a dozen swimming in synch along both sides of Destiny’s bow ducking and weaving as though choreographed by Esther Williams herself. Nothing much else is going on but standing our watches, enjoying some great meals (since it’s calm enough to cook), and also never tiring of the the starlit, moonless nights. Normally, the smell of ocean air is pleasant. The air in this part of the Atlantic Ocean, however, is not. There is something dirty and repugnant about the air here, a smell that I cannot describe and surely wouldn’t want to put into any air freshener. It permeates the skin and irritates our sinuses. The horizon is heavy with haze that likely comes from W. Africa. Perhaps we are picking up the odiferous lingerings of camel dung that travels in the trade winds!

Today is Sunday, Happy Birthday to my little sis, Bev. I called her from the IridiumGo! It’s so nice to have that capability out here to call anyone anytime, and we do. We are back on course yet disappointedly still motoring. We had turned south about a day out from Cape Verde hoping to scoop up some wind but then realized we not only were NOT finding our elusive friend but are going to end up in S. America if we don’t veer northward. We simply must get some wind because, although we carry a lot of fuel there simply isn’t enough to keep this up all the way across this big ocean. We are beginning to see a lot of small blobs of Sargasso weed floating by in the water. Nasty stuff. It will adhere to the hull and slow us even more if we are unlucky enough to hit larger patches of it. PredictWind is forecasting a hopeful 12+ knots of wind in our favor around 2:30 on Monday morning. 

Still Sunday, we were treated to an extraordinary Green Flash tonight! To top off the evening’s entertainment it feels as though those Trades are freshening so the gennaker is going up at last, not yet seeing consistent double digit wind but it feels great not to hear the droning of the engine.

Monday, Dec 10, the wee hours, we are doing very well with sustained winds in the low teens and hitting up to 8 knots SOG. It is a beautiful, albeit stinky night. The eyelash of a new moon crept up into the sky for a very short while only to quickly slip back down the horizon leaving zillions of bright stars above like pinholes in the floor of Heaven. The Southern Cross is visible. There have been quite a lot of falling stars leaving me to wonder if there’s a meteor shower going on out there. Beautiful night.

Daytime...what a day. With the kite we are making up a lot of lost time sometimes reaching up to 10 knots. In the late afternoon two young whales raced up behind and passed us as though we were moving backwards. Later in the day...the winds aren’t terribly high, gusting up to the low 20’s and yet both the halyard and sheet are sounding stressed. The seas are choppy and we are making such good time the decision was made to leave the kite up for the night.  Wee hours again brought action on the deck as the gennaker sheet popped loose from the winch during Frank’s watch. He fought it bucking violently back into place but because it bore so much pressure it took quite an effort. A short while later during my night shift I noticed the block that conveys the sheet from the tack to the winch wasn’t responding so I lit it up for inspection to find that the wheel had broken, probably when the sheet had snapped from the winch, causing it to slip into the mechanism itself. It was now in danger of chafing through so, as much as I hated to wake him, I called Frank up to help me. Jim heard the commotion and came back up as well. There was no possibility of getting the sheet off that block, so Frank set up a backup line to grab the sheet in the event the block blows. Without going into a lot of detail, later in the night during Jim’s watch the kite eventually came down of its own accord when the halyard snapped. The guys wrestled it back up out of the water and it is now secured on deck. I cannot say whether it will be used again on this passage. We are now two sails down, leaving only the poled-out genoa to move us downwind.

When I came back up to relieve Frank a short time after the first incident of the night, he told me he had seen the strangest phenomenon in the sky...he noticed a white blinking light, thinking it was an airplane but then a green laser shot out the front of it into a cloud. The laser extinguished after a few seconds; the white flashing light continued for a few more seconds and then it too went dark and the craft disappeared. I told him (tongue in cheek) it must’ve been a UFO. About an hour into my watch I saw a bright flash light up the southern sky but when I looked out there were no clouds and no lightning. It didn’t happen again. Very strange. When Frank relayed his sighting to Jim, he said it must be the military conducting secret tests where no one would see. Now that’s a bit discomforting.

The 11th, no one got a lot of sleep during last night, with all the theatrics and the disturbed seas, so I slept during my off time during the day and I’ve no idea what the men did. The genoa is up and we are still making fair progress. Night watch was once again filled with falling stars but no drama.

Wednesday, December 12th, a strange day. Wind’s up and down. The seas are all over the place with not much rhythm or consistency. Poor Destiny is tossing about. 10:30 a.m., GMT, marked our 1st week down and we are not yet quite at the half-way point. Feeling frustrated and a bit sore from being tossed around. Praying for wind. As if to send us a little spiritual lift, however, the whales are back now with some traveling in small pods. We think these are juvenile humpbacks. We have counted three different types of dorsal fins in the water; one might be a pilot whale, one was definitely an orca and the humpbacks. None are larger than about 15 - 20 feet in length. Jim spotted something that he thought might have been a turtle. Later in the evening, Frank and I felt like we were in the middle of a highway with whales passing by and then a pod of dolphins shot past. This is the bonus that brings us joy during what could otherwise be a very long, arduous passage. So we are bobbing and hardly moving but hey, we are being treated to a real-time Sea-world out here.