We left Curacao(which I would give a big miss), yesterday for the much dreaded trip to Columbia which has been hanging over our heads, especially considering our self imposed Christmas deadline.
We had a nice steady twenty knot breeze maybe two foot seas and we were off. Salt and Light were behind us and Uliad was about an hour behind them
Indy is a fast boat even as far as catamarans, which are normally faster than monohulls. She easily cruises at 10kts with 15/20 kt breeze. It can be exhilarating but it can also be a little intimidating, especially when you are hand steering. As the wind started to pipe up and we started moving, we put two reefs in the main to slow the old girl down. Initially we put one reef in but that didn't slow her down too much and we didn't want to move too far ahead of Salt and Light/Uliad. We were also a bit concerned that when we came out from the lee of the island we would get hit with big winds and seas. With two reefs in the main and a reef in he Genny we were moving at a nice 8.5.
Sailing Indy without an autopilot involves two people. If you need to adjust sails, or do anything, one of us HAS to steer especially in the winds we had, hand steering is not only mentally exhausting it is physically exhausting as well ( no I did not lose weight doing this . So there will be no "Indy:Sail Your Way to Thin' video).
After catching a nice BIG tuna, having dinner and putting the kids to bed , O told me to go lay down(on the main salon couch, so i could help him in case he needed me.). Around 11:30 O was yelling for me to look at the radar because there was a mast light about a mile ahead of us. After some discussion we figured out it was Uliad!!! They had snuck up on us without a word and easily passed us. I seriously thought O's hair and teeth were going to fall out. O called Uliad on the radio and Kath acted like she hadn't even realized they passed us.."oh, yeah, that's us..etc" Well, this was war...let the competition begin! Deck lights went on as we beat feet to shake out those reefs. I offered to take the helm O told me there was no way he was going to bed until we were well past Uliad. He was totally charged up so I went back to bed. About two hours later O woke me up relieved and exhausted, we had put Uliad safely behind us. O told me that Uliad put up quite a fight. She is a fast sleek boat and easily justified her name Uliad which is Celtic for silent strong warrior. Next time we will have to be a little more careful.
Because of the strong consistent winds were were able to make the twenty hour trip in 15 hours..not bad. We came around the corner of Monje Du Sur and were quite surprised by what we saw. The 'anchorage' and I use that term loosely, was nothing more than a LITTLE cove in the middle of a big rock. The coast guard had strung a line between the two rocks with about six eye-splices along the way. Basically you pull up and have to grab a splice(our friends on Coqueliocot arrived the night before so Helge jumped in the water and handed it to us) and we tied off. There is not much room and on either side are pretty unforgiving rocky shores. The island itself consisted of one big rock with a light house at the top and a dilapidated 70's looking coastguard station. We managed to get Salt and Light, Uliad, Coquelicot and us jammed together. Thank god we had fenders.
After arriving we all pretty much crashed for a few hours. About two hours later we saw our friends Helge and Therese were rowing the coast guard out to the boats for check in. It seems that while yes, they are the coast guard they just lack boats! I'm not quite sure what they would do if they get called for an emergency at sea but thankfully we never had to find out!!!
After a good nights sleep, we were up and off by 7:00AM the next day. We had planned on going fifty five miles to the next anchorage, but once we arrived there, Salt and Light, who had left in the middle of the night, said it was way too rolly and untenable given the swell direction, so we were forced to continue on the two hundred miles to Five Bays.
This leg of the trip was ok. We had 15-25kts of wind directly behind us. We put up the MPS but there was too much wind and it just ended up banging like crazy. It was a nightmare. As O and I were yelling trying to get her down, I looked inside at the kids. Sam was sitting on Ben's lap and both had a look of sheer terror on their faces which broke my heart. After much hassle we finally wrestled it down.
Next trick...wing on wing..UGH. This did not quite work either because by this time there was not enough wind.
I was becoming increasingly frustrated with Otis and his fierce determination to sail. It was hard steering with the wind so close from behind because anytime you went off course for a moment you would gibe! And sailing with the wind directly behind us without an Asym. or a code 0 is not very efficient. Thus we sailed along at 6 kts.... Suddenly O had become this sailing purist! I was starting to lobby heavily to just turn on the engines and get there..BUT NO!!!!...we had to jibe out thirty miles and back etc..all while hand steering. Something about making a long trip longer sent me into a total, meltdown. At one point I had had enough and screamed at O "How about Merry Christmas to me and turn those god damned engines on!!!" My lobbying only strengthened his resolve.
Finally after thirty hours we had our destination in site. We had full main and genny up and were making pretty good time(we would have made better time with the engines on), when about 2 hours from our destination the wind started to kick up. We rolled up the genny, I took the helm and O finally kicked back. As we started to approach the cape and Five Bays the wind started howling. With a real sense of urgency, I told O we needed to reef the main asap because we had a 30-35 kt wind and Indy was becoming increasingly hard to control. I turned up into the wind while O went forward to take the main down, but NATURALLY the main would not come down! When turning into the wind in such a heavy breeze our battcars jammed in the track and then broke from too much stress, thus we could not get the main down. I had visions of running down stairs to get a knife and slashing the sail...thus saving the day, but it never came to that because O was able to get it partially down, at least enough to put 1 reef in it even though we should have had 2 by this time, and we limped into the anchorage....with gusts to 40kts!
So, what should have taken 25 hours ended up taking 33 long hours AND we were the last to arrive.
FYI: we did manage to catch FOUR tuna along the way and Sam was thrilled because flying fish kept landing on deck. Strangely, Sam became quite attached to the fish, he would hold them, cradle and cuddle them and even cover them with his blanket as if he were tucking them in for the night. This was a little disgusting because a). they were dead and b. they stunk!
Again, the next day bright and early we pulled anchor and took off for Punta Hermosa (50 miles from Cartagena). I was sad to be leaving the Five Bays because it was stunningly beautiful, and very remote. The 'bays' were like fjords surrounded by huge mountains but we had to leave because Christmas was four days away AND most importantly, this weather window was rapidly closing and the next day it was forecast to get nasty with forty kt winds blowing throughout the remainder of the week. If we did not leave immediately, we would have been socked in the Five Bays for at least a week. So we upped anchor and made our way to the next destination.
We arrived in Cartagena Monday afternoon much relieved and very anxious to get off of the boat. We had been on board for five days and we all needed to stretch our legs....and run....but remarkably after a few tense moments we were all still getting along pretty well. Trip