08/16/2009, Colombia
Voyage Across the Caribbean
To be honest, the trip from Jamaica to Colombia was awful yet fascinating. The myriad of forces present and how they acted toward boat and crew defined this dichotomy between horror as to what could be and the uniqueness of being in its naked grip..
It was an angry sea from the start...no, that "nice" little Caribbean and its idyllic islands that we are so used to hearing about is, at its heart, a strong and aggressive sea.
I hated it and yet I loved it. I cursed ...begged to slow down. The winds, sustained at 30 knots, heard nothing of it. Every curse seemed only to egg her on to gusts of 40 knots. Shearwater was now going 15 knots regularly and she too.....I now hated and loved. I admired her as she plunged through the waves yet the clashes shook her to the core and also us.....at what point was she going to come apart? When a boat shivers below one.....it tends to cool ones blood. Again, in the pitch black, the wind howled and Shearwater continued. One day gone....two days to go.....
Now the auto pilot is gone, necessitating someone at the helm every moment of the hours that passed. For a minute or two it would function giving small relief.... yet ones eyes could never left the display.....for when that awful word "FAULT" appeared in the display the boat, in about 5 seconds, would be 90 degrees to our course.
My crew was sick in both ways and ......
Morning came on the second day......the winds had picked up and all hopes of a calming were gone......the light showed the jib beginning to part - the Cuban fix was not holding - how long before it went ... the reduced speed would add another day to this already strained trip.
That....was the question....slow down and face more time in this grip or keep going, faster to the end.
The night once again came and anxiousness mounted.....those dark hours are long. As the light left, I noticed the No. 1 reef line was almost chaffed through. Would it hold another night?
How important is the three hours of rest one has, off duty. Yet by now, my berth is completely wet ....as upon every clash the window would open and the waves would be on the bed.
In each berth... an engine.... sort of like the heart in ones body....they must be protected at any cost ... now, it was only the doors of the engine cover stopping the engines from drowning in this wetness.
This second night.... the wind increased and the sounds of Shearwater and the ocean ....surreal. As I sat at the helm in the darkness with only the light of my GPS display, I tried to describe it...that surreality......it seemed the water was full of creatures that lashed upwards through the netting behind me... as though to pull Mangoandme down. Mango sat at my side. It was a sound I had not heard..... like giant cats hissing and the sound of lightning as it strikes close, aggressively and quick....dimly, one could see something but that dimness caused the sounds to be ever more dominant.
Shearwater continued, the wind continued and the waves kept crashing her bows and the windward side. And then luck and horror. In the night and in those conditions it is the last thing one wants to do.....to leave the cockpit.....to go around the boat...up to its bow... to inspect ......I took everything off my body, put a harness on and, with my light, started this most important of tasks. I had gone but a few steps when I saw at the end of the beam of light what no sailor wants to see....the pin holding the boom to the mast had come loose ....there was now a quarter of an inch left.... holding the boat together....I was stunned. The boom weighs about 200 lbs and had it left the mast, the sail would have pulled it from the boat in an instant destroying everything in its path. It is my guess the forces and that flying boom would have brought the whole rig down ....all would have dove into the sea leaving......I don't know what..... we sit at the back of the boat ... in its furious path. The pin was almost out, the 'lock' nut was gone...quickly we combed the boat for a replacement ... we had none....and then luck......the nut had fallen into the traveler track and remained on the boat!!...never had a nut been so praised and coveted. With great difficulty and with determined resistance from Shearwater we stopped the boat in a maneuver we call "heaving to" and wrestled these masses of steel and aluminum back together and to their proper places......
On we went......wetter, more tired and resigned to no change......but ...we were now past half way.
......Noticing the rotated mast looked exaggerated to the port side, I rushed up and again was aghast at what I saw. Every mast has "spreaders" which are the cross pieces extruding from the mast. Seemingly, at one point the jib and the starboard spreader had collided and now the jib was ripped beyond use.....I had no choice but to take it down.
What was next....I was now truly worried....and wondering.... on a superstitious level.....too much had happened.
How would this trip end? As Colombia approached the conditions worsened. But...... because of the speed of Shearwater for all those hours in this enormous wind, we were 12 hours ahead of schedule. Eagerly as the third night came we peered out begging for lights of a city..... and then.... they appeared.....Cartagena was in sight - the lights caused a warm glow on the horizon and seemingly instantaneously, the seas calmed, the wind lost its fury, Shearwater slowed...... this inexorable dash across the Caribbean had ended.
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Comments [6]
08/08/2009
After about 6 weeks with Zach, I want to take this opportunity to wish him and "hug it forward' the best of luck in the future-Im glad to have been able to, in some little way, further the cause
david
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08/08/2009, Jamaica to Cartagena, Colombia
As the sun comes up tomorrow, Sunday August9th we, Mango and Me and new crew member Lou will set sail across the heart of the Caribbean with the destination of Cartagena Colombia.
This is a rather hasty departure for upon arrival we were greeted by the very unfriendly news that if my dear dog Mango was caught off the boat, he would probably be shot. Looking further into such a monstrous law, I discovered that indeed the law is even more insidious. If a boat with a dog on board comes within ONE mile of the Jamaican 3 mile territorial waters, the boat can be boarded and the dog shot. This puts Mango in violation of the law as we sit on the dock.
More later on efforts to insulate him.....corruption corruption.
So...needless to say, I have little to say for Jamaica and hence the speedy departure.
Zach Heenal left the boat to have a look around Jamaica.
In their place comes Lou from West Palm Beach. Lou knows the boat well as we tested the boat on numerous occasions together. It will be good to have an experienced hand on board.
We are expecting r ather big seas and waves.....averaging 20-30 knots and 6-10 foot waves. The jib worries me as it is now 3-4 days straight with no stops.
We need to be in Cartagena by Wednesday morning before the conditions worsen.
I promise when I arrive in Cartagena I will put together a video of two of our experiences, especially Cuba.
All the best and thanks ever so much for checking in
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08/02/2009, Cuba to Jamaica
On the eve of our departure from Cuba, we sit quietly on the side of the dock, the quiet waves lapping against the side of the boat....the moonlit night....all give us a false sense of quiet for we are in a protected harbor with tallish mountains on all sides. But... all day... the 'elephants danced'. As we peered out through the narrow gap delineating the harbor from the Caribbean sea the outlines of the waves could be seen dancing across the gap.....almost as though to playfully beckon us out. The weather forecasts all predict mild seas but, as usual, one little snag....three tropical waves are making their way from east to west, their broadness over large areas give us little to go on......tomorrow will tell....should be an exhilarating ride to Jamaica.
Cuba, we leave with affection for its people and generosity and spirit. We hope to post a video snapshot of our time here when we once again enter the world of Internet in Jamaica. It is our hope and the hope of every Cuban we have talked to that our idiotic politicians get their act together and stop this shameful policy toward such a warm and generous neighbor.....
Aboard we have a third crewmember, a friend of Zach named Heenal and thankfully he is a better cook than I....so as is usually the case...the best.....cooks.
The voyage is 110 miles more or less and with a departure time of about 3 pm tomorrow, August 3rd we hope to make Jamaica the next morning, August 4th on an almost direct course of 197 degrees.
Jamaica has a miserable dog policy...'no dogs from the usa'....so we are bit anxious, once again for Mango.
An attempted fix of the jib is all we have ..... we are ready for it to collapse....we have two other spinnaker type sails aboard which might have to be pressed into service of some sort.
The reef lines have been fixed and antichaffing gear put in place.
Shearwater is about to begin the next leg.
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07/16/2009, Windward Passage
Being in the grips of a Tropical Wave Shearwater and the three of us have taken quite a beating. We have been experiencing 10-15 foot waves with winds sustained in the mid 20s with gust into the 30s. Very difficult following seas, the big mountaneous swell types punctuated by nasty smaller waves that often break into the cockpit over the back of the boat. After trying to decide if the boat could take another 24 hours of this not to mention the crew.....we have decided not to attempt our destination, Jamaica, and instead will divert to Cuba. With things like the two main reefing lines almost cut through and water slowly filling our bilges and an auto pilot that without warning turns off (that can lead to catastrophic results should it do so when Shearwater is surfing down a wave at 15 knots)with all these things needing attention, we will for safety reasons divert to Cuba. Obviously, this will met with differing attitudes on the part of the americans and the cubans. In fact, as I write I see Guantanamo Base to our right.....any moment now I expect to contacted by the americans who, ironically, cant offer refuge to their own countrymen.
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07/16/2009, Long Island to ...Cuba
In building seas as we headed south and with things getting progressively worse we headed to the windward passage which is like a scoop, a funnel, if you will between Cuba and Haiti. The winds tend to increase in this decreasing space. As we rounded that eastern tip of Cuba the winds kept building until Shearwater was literally surfing down the faces of these monsters ever threatening from behind. There were moments that I must admit I had to garner all my learnt and instinctive skill to keep her under control. For instance, after waking from sleep for my watch...I came up to find the wind howling at 25 knots, the waves now breaking over the back of the boat and and.....there are two container ships within a few hundred yards.....we were on the run and on a run, meaning the wind was over our stern, pushing the boat. This is the most risky point of sail as with one wrong turn of the rudder the sail can do what is called a jibe. This is when the wind sneaks behind the wrong side of the sail and literally slams it to the other side of the boat and all within an instant.....a not insignificant distance on a cat, namely 24 feet. This is when boats break.
Shearwater was wild and wanted to run, I was having trouble slowing her down and there they were.....the container ships-we seemed not to get out of eachothers way. Had we for a half minute or so lost control she could have sped at 15 knots toward one of those masses of steel. Huge bangs and cracks as the waves would smash the bottom of the nacelle, the area between the two hulls.
Mango cringed at every hit and at times would break out in shivers.
The darkness, the total darkness has a tendency, like fog, to rob one of ones usual equilibrium. Suddenly even the direction of the wind can be, for a moment or two, hard to determine.
One has to quickly to relinquish the usually relied upon inputs and switch to learned knowledge.....GPS and the other instruments wildly flashing information at one.
Slowly and carefully we maneuvered ourselves away from these two ships of the night and spent the next 6 hours, not looking ahead, but peering behind through the dark anxiously trying to find warning of the next wave as it rushed our stern.
Morning finally came and in the tranformation we began to finally see the true forms that had so threatened during the long night.....finally we could anticipate and rest in the comfort of the leader of our senses.... we had sight again.
Surveying Shearwater for damage we discovered to our disappointment that she had in effect blown out her jib Additionally, both the reef lines, the lines that hold the sail down when reduced sail is called for, had chafed through to uselessness....we couldnt face another 24 hours so we diverted to....
CUBA.......
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