Do we go or not? The winds pick up as we round Capo Falso.

We have all been feeling like moving on. Yes, the beach has been great... and yet there is another around the corner. We had seen photos of Isla Beata at the very point of the cape and so we made the boat ship shape and headed out in light winds. "it is like lake sailing" is what I said as we plinked along at 4.5 knots in 10 knots of wind NW on the beam...

As we neared Cape Falso, we could see white caps in the distance. We double reefed the main, prepared the genoa for furling and waited. As we approached the white caps the wind died and it was clear now that the white caps were caused by wind from the SE, which was on our nose once we rounded the cape... Then the wind filled in blowing 20 to 25 and as we proceeded, the seas also started to round the cape at about 5'... It would only be 14 miles, but that would be at least 3 hours of pounding... no one wanted that! So we tacked back to a nice beach south of Cabo Falso and dropped the anchor in 20' on a patch of sand, surrounded by coral. And that is where we sit! 17 47.408'n 071 39.691'w

We have not seen any other boats since we left Haiti, so we were excited to see a cruiser come in last night. They didn't respond to a radio call and left this morning headed south... Yet this afternoon we saw a boat leaving from where we are now anchored... to pound around the cape. We spoke on the radio to another headed into Bahia de Las Agillas and we have seen another Ketch sailing into the same bay. We have thought that we might move back over, just to be social... but it is late now. We will try again early tomorrow morning to head south when the land has not yet heated up to accentuate the gradient wind.

Our weather guy, Chris Parker of Caribbean Weather has told us to wait until the weekend before attempting to round the big Cape... so we will go to Isla Beata and wait until then...