With this huge gusty weather system blowing around as of late and showing no signs of letting up, Dave has been studying the various weather sites with the Passage Weather charts showing impressive colors of warning dark blues and foreboding blobs of greens and after much eyebrow crossing and consternation, he hemmed and hawed and said:

"Well Babe, there might be a small little lull in this wind..."
(key word here folks would be "small")
"Yes, Dear, and..."

"And, well, we could consider crossing Rodney Bay Thursday morning, wait out the next blow there?"

"Hmm, like what do you mean by a small little lull ?"
(See I'm learning to ask quite specific questions).

"Well, 20 knots. We've done that before..."
"Hmm, ya ok, and what about the seas?"

(See I'm learning that there's more than one specific question to ask!)
"Well, 2 to 2.5 meters. We've done that before too..."

(And i'm learning to do a type of math that increases all official predictions by at least 5 knots and .5 to 1 meters in the seas).

And so come Thursday morning, we found ourselves waving bye, when just a few days ago we were waving helllo-hi-hi, to Mike and Rebecca !! Man how time flies, and well, weather waits for no one right ?



It was clear and smooth sailing (quite literally) as we made our way out of our anchorage in Le Marin. As we reached the open mouth of the bay, the sea breezes picked up as did the increased motion of the ocean. The winds were still blowing but good, 15-20 knots on the beam, and we were into 2 meter seas within seconds. Once our course was set and heading established, we were admittedly sort of gliding along almost quite quickly and almost quite nicely. Still faster and more turbulent than what I'm used to, but this is a different type of sailing too.

We heard Arctic Tern who had left a good 45 minutes before us, provide a condition report to the boaters that had chosen to stay put for the week while this system blows through. Their current conditions were a tad smoother and better than ours, but time and distance had a play in that, as did the fact that we were still in the Bay and hadn't quite yet cleared the effects of the land. Both winds and waters were more agitated and turbulent and should, in theory dwindle down somewhat as we moved along and got closer to Saint-Lucia.

A short while later, out in the Big Blue and clear of the land masses, we were clocking up in wind speeds and inching up and over the rising seas but still moving along more or less nicely. We radioed Zero to Cruising who told us they had just cleared out and were on their way. Straight to Grenada. Overnight.

I looked at Dave and mentioned how I seriosuly wished that I had a few years additional experience under my belt so that I wouldn't mind (or better yet would even consider) overnighting in conditions such as this. Kudos to them.

And so it was. Hot. Humid. Which is a bit of an oxymoron given the winds were gusting at 20 plus knots and the sun more often than not hidden behind the clouds.

And then skies seemed to haze over. No worries, just a passing rain squall. A light mist of wet stuff.

Afterwards the winds backed off a tad and we adjusted our sheets. And the winds would pick up and we would adjust again. Two, two-and-a-half meter seas right on our beam. Don't much care for those. A few rogue waves aren't so nice either. Thank goodness for the comfort and safety of hiding behind the "windshield".



I would find myself just getting into my "ok, this is ok" zone when the wind or the seas would jolt me out of my happy place and rock my world for a moment or two. And sway me back and forth into an indecisiveness, or rather love hate relationship with everything around me.

Another passing grey haze of a misty squall, more gusts of wind, bigger seas. More wind. More rain. More waves. More Seas.

"Dave honey... dear... darling.... Are we THERE yet??" I knew with the odometer reading at over 10nm done, we were halfway... We could almost see the faint outline of the dark rocks of Saint Lucia looming on the horizon in front of us, slightly to port. We sailed by some boats heading the other way, the seas so big that that would almost disappear for a split second before the would reappear, bouncing back up on the tip of the wave.

I honestly couldn't believe that there were a few fishermen out, in their brightly coloured fishing boats, in these types of conditions, the gusts of wind and the waves hydroplaning them into the air for a few brief seconds before they landed with a splash into an oncoming wave. In a warped vein of thought, I realized that if they were out here doing this in a tiny, open 6 foot boat (and did they even have PFD's??) then so could I. HA !

And remembering back to shows I sometimes catched a glimpse of, Reality T.V at its best, that there are boaters in conditions that are a gazillion times worse than this, and by the photos with the smiles on their faces, seemingly having fun. No.Thank.You.

Its hard to picture you with words an image that could and would best describe the movement, the feel, the sights and sounds...



or the roller coaster pit in your stomach type of back and forth movements as you careen into the peaks and valleys of 3 meter waves on the beam





especially since life on a heel does not make for conducive perfect shots of Mother Nature in her indecisive confusion of what to throw us next. I was getting into the groove and allowing my body and my knees to get used to the sudden onslaughts of unpredictable gusts of both wind and waves.

Don't fight the heel, breathe, bend into it, hold the sheet we might have to let the main out, breathe, just move with the waves, breathe, ok, this is good, breathe, breathe, breathe, smile, alright... oh, that was (almost) fun, breathe, and just look ahead...







And then the skies darkened to a greyish shade of slate blue. The maddened white caps just ahead of us ferocious, and within a second my whole world was different shades of lacklustre color, with a definite taste of this is going to get ugly but fast.

Squall number three packed an instant punch of wind of 35 plus knots. The dark grey seas didn't even need a split second to react as they reached for the skies. We were caught in a torrential downpour that didn't even allow us to see the bow of our boat and the driving wind pelting us with prickly darts of cold wet water as the howling winds made the sails moan and groan and shudder in protest.

And then we were out of it. Dare I say after that experience, I more than welcomed the 2.5 meter seas with anticipated comfort, the winds back to an acceptable 20-25 knot range.



Coming into the lee of the land called Saint Lucia, the winds had us surfing the waves at a ferocious speed of 8 knots, propelling us along towards Rodney Bay, white caps and all and once almost inside to the beaches, the jet skis racing by us, the tourists enjoying their parasailing their legs just barely skimming the tip of our mast, we doused our sails, VHF'd the marina,



received our berth assignment, got ourselves tied up alongside, and with some shaky knees on my part, we high-fived a few "thank you know who's".

Look how remarkably accurate the chartplotter is,



this is EXACTLY where we are, at the moment.

Dave's first attempt to check us in with customs was a no-go. The agents were playing cards as it was lunchtime don't you know? And unless you want to pay overtime or buy them lunch (same thing non?), best to come back after 1:30. Ah, so sorry.

Dave's second attempt proved to be more successful, other than the fact that he still had to pay overtime as today was a holiday. No, what, really?

As we took in our bearing who do we see but Mike and Rebecca dinghy by on their way to the Customs Office. We waved them over, and on their way back they dropped by for some refreshing drinks of water and lime on ice. Turns out they had resorted to their Plan B as they were not up to the demanding call of nature by hand steering all day and all night long in these conditions and this weather. Glad to know they were tucked in and safe.



Et voilà. We're all safe and sound for a couple of days anyways. We have running water and power and a list of boat chores to attack.