Manana
12 February 2012 | Milagro Marina, Isla Mujeres, Mexico
Beth / sunshine and 80's
In the Bahamas, we had "Island Time". I've already discovered that here in Mexico, we have "Manana" (tomorrow). I have no trouble with this concept!!
I've got 45 minutes between munching on delicious fresh corn tortillas and local cheese before walking down the road to a baseball game so I will try to get a start on our journey over the last week. (Couldn't do it yesterday like I thought because - well - there were folks to talk to and lunch at Bally Hoo and a walk to the north beach and limonada at the Avalon bar and laundry to take care of and then a party here at the marina and - well - then we just had to sleep.)
We left Key West on Monday at noon just as planned. It has taken most everyone else about 72 hours to do the trip so we thought it would be the same for us. Uh uh. Our first afternoon and evening were delightful - smooth water, some wind for sailing, a gorgeous sky in the west and a beautiful full moon coming up all silvery over the water to the east. We knew we needed to sail some and be cautious with our fuel because we can't carry enough to go full speed on the engine all the way. The sailing on Monday was lovely although slow - the Gulf Stream current against us seemed to go on forever. We saw the mountains of Cuba early in the morning and kept heading in closer to shore to try and catch the elusive counter current. We never did find that, but at least we weren't being pushed eastward anymore. Our slow speed did mean that we weren't as far along the coast as we had hoped though and we spent all Tuesday and Tuesday night making slow headway westward - again with mostly starry skies overnight, and the occasional downpour. The sky on Wednesday morning was a brilliant scarlet showing between the Cuban hilltops and if I didn't have "Red sky at night sailors' delight, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning" looping endlessly through my brain, it would have been pure joy to feast my eyes upon.
We finally rounded the western corner of Cuba at midday on Wednesday and had some decision making to do. Because of the north current in the Yucatan Channel, boats go either S 25 nautical miles or so and then W across the channel to Mexico, or head SW from there, hoping to end up a little N of where they're steering. We knew the forecast was for squalls and strong winds in the channel on Thursday and Chris Parker had originally warned us to either dawdle on the Cuban side and get in Friday, or hustle up and get there early Thurs. Well - Madcap is not a fast boat unless we've got a nice big wind from exactly the right angle and no counter current, and we dawdle in ports and anchorages, not on a passage.
We emailed our friend, Mary (Strathspey) for some up to date weather info which basically confirmed what we already knew. Wouldn't you know that our best sailing so far was S from Cabo San Antonio putting us at a good setting off point to start that W push just before midnight. It seemed so hard to contemplate the idea of dawdling there and we thought maybe there was a chance that we could make it across before the bad weather started, so being ever the optimists, we decided to just try it and turn around if it got bad.
We weren't too far into it when we realized that we really did not want to be out there. It was not terrible but it was uncomfortable and that warning about Thurs was hanging over our heads. It was pitch dark, the rain came down in 30 minute deluges and about 2 am our staysail (the smaller of our foresails) fell down. It stayed attached to the boat but was mostly hanging down in the water. Jim tethered his life jacket to the jack line (that runs from bow to stern and, with any luck, keeps a person from falling into the sea) and crawled forward on the pitching deck to haul the soggy thing out of the water. He stuffed it down between jerry cans and the cabintop to keep it from blowing away in the 23 kt gusts and successfuly crawled back to the cockpit. All the while, I was mentally running through our man overboard procedures as I tried to keep the boat as steady as I could and shine the spotlight on him so he could see what he was doing.
We got ourselves turned around - no easy task in 8 ft swells - and took turns trying to get some sleep as we headed back Eastward and then Northward to try to get in the lee of Cuba where we could wait out the weather with a little more protection.
Let's talk now about ships at night. Mostly they are fairly easy to figure out. Their lights show up in a standard pattern - red on the port side and green to starboard. Cargo ships have a high white light at the stern so you can tell which way they are going. We always have our radar up at night and that helps us spot ships and identify direction too. Our AIS isn't working right now - but it would have identified the ship and helped even more to determine its course. Jim was sleeping and I watched a boat get closer and closer - thinking I knew where it was headed and that it would cross our path long before we got close. Then I realized that it had a high bow light and it wasn't on the course I had been thinking. I took evasive action and we passed with no less than a mile between us, but it was too close for my comfort at night and it left me shaken. By then the seas were really up, the wind was NE still - just where we were heading. The radar showed squalls all around and while the wind never amounted to more than 20 kt of sustained wind, we got occasional heavy downpours and it was just plain miserable out there. As dawn came, we saw that our topping lift (the line from the stern end of the boom and the top of the mast) was frayed. With the sail up we knew the boom wouldn't come crashing down, but it was still a worry.
We kept pounding north in search of shelter, each of us trying to get a little sleep in spite of the crashing and banging that filled our ears, and the rolling that kept us hanging on to the side of the berth. But in the amazing way of weather patterns, by noon, when we were still a couple of hours away from the shelter we were hoping to find, the wind died, the seas calmed quickly and we thought - Let's turn around again and give it another try. Dawdling is certainly not the word I would use to describe what we did, but it had the same effect.
It is just incredible what a difference 24 hours will make on the water. We were unable to sail at all with a 4 kt wind on the nose, and our progress was in the range of 4 - 5 knots, but we were on the last leg, we knew we had enough fuel to make it, and the sea was smooth. The moon came up all golden this time, squalls showed on the radar but never came close to us, there were no close calls with ships and we were each so exhausted that we were able to get some sleep.
In that miraculous way of discovering light after dark, I awoke on Friday to find brilliant sunshine sparkling all over the water's surface and a clear blue sky overhead. Jim called out, "You have got to see this!" and I came up into the cockpit to share his excitement over masses of silvery flying fish undulating over the water and 7 or 8 dolphins diving and rising up to dive again just off our starboard side. Black frigate birds with their broad wings and long tails stretched out and snowy white terns fished from the sky - swooping down and rising skyward again. The sight was breathtaking in its abundance and beauty, and was probably even better than it would have been without all the troubles of the day before.
Before long, we spotted the landmarks of Isla Mujeres - the Avalon Hotel, and Anvil Rock and we set our minds to arriving. I'll tell you about that in the next posting. We covered 420 nautical miles in 95 hours - fewer miles and more hours than we covered in our passage from Veradero to Fernandina Beach last year - 4 consecutive nights - our longest yet.
We were tired. We were excited. We were never in danger but we had been challenged. The risk was worth it and the high of stretching ourselves this way was priceless.