While Bill contemplates yet another sail change, Carl and Isobel hung out on the dinghy and ate oranges in hopes of staving off scurvy. (photo credit Carl Lill)

We left Grenada at 1130 on Thursday and arrived here at 1530 (3:30 pm AST). 359 miles...

We expected a pleasant downwind run... and didn't quite have that as there was a pretty good swell out of the NE that gave the boat a pretty good roll as we zoomed along. It was a fast passage. With new bottom paint and a current with us we had speeds in excess of 7 knots over the ground with hours sailing at around 8 knots! That is fast for our boat as the theoretical hull speed is around 8.1 knots.

We started with the main and genoa "wing and wing"... realizing during the middle of the night that at first light we should change to two head sails poled out and ditch the main. This is what we did... poling out our genoa and code zero. Even though this was too much sail, the ride was much smoother as the boat was being pulled evenly... I have a 100% storm jib I need to sew up so we can fly it from our continuous line furler... that would have been a much more appropriate sail than the code zero which is about 150% of the fore triangle space.

This was Carl's first passage and I was hoping it would be nice for him... he described it as "knarley"... sorry Carl. it was knarley, even after the swell dissipated after 24 hours... there was still a good swell from behind and since we were over canvassed it felt like a headlong rush... Luckily at Los Aves there are no airports... so, I guess he will stay for the ride to Bonaire... then we will see!

All it well once we are here. A really beautiful anchorage with two other boats and a lot of Gannets and Brown Footed Boobies. We might have to stay for a couple days to snorkel and explore...