Sunday, December 11, 2011

After sleeping like the dead for 10 hours we were up at 5:15 this morning waiting on the sun…while the full moon shone like a beacon leading us straight out of the harbor we waited anyway, just a bit then hauled the anchor and made our way out of the harbor just as the church bells rang 6am. It may seem like we are obsessed with time, but there is a good reason for it. We spend lots of time planning and forecasting, checking the weather, planning routes, in order to make sure we get where we need to go at the right time. For today’s trip that meant leaving before dawn, as early as we possibly could see well enough to make our way thru the net floats that are laid out in front of Deshaias. These are a common occurrence here in the islands, and we do love the fresh fish they gather, but they are worrisome for us as we are cruising along looking for a float about the size of a coconut, or a bleach bottle, that originally was white, probably, but may be yellow, or after so long in the water, brownish…like an actual coconut…which does complicate things. As the float is attached to a long line, which holds a net under the water so, as long as you don’t hit one you’ll be fine…the trick is seeing them so you don’t hit it.

We were heading for Nevis, 70 miles away, where we plan to pick up a mooring overnight and continue on in the morning. Another good night’s sleep is in order before our last overnight passage to the Virgin Islands. The issue, of course is time. If we could sail, we can make 7-8 knts easily, however the forecast is for light and variable winds, well we might still be able to motor sail, but we HAVE to maintain a speed of 7.3 knots in order to make it to Nevis before dark, and as sunset is about 5:40…6pm means pure pitch black…eeek! So we plan for 7 plus knots, planning for the trip to take 10 hours, we should be in by 4pm…giving us an hour margin. Our planning paid off, and we again motor sailed, pushing the boat a little harder to maintain speed. It was a beautiful day, and we saw a few more boats. We practiced with the radar which fortunately does an excellent job, once you learn to read it…but truly regretted the lack of our AIS. The first ship that came close to us passed off our bow about a mile and ½ away. We found that our AIS works inside of 3 miles, which is helpful…but has its disadvantages, like when you see a freighter closing in on you on the radar and realize that you are truly on a collision course. Jim quickly adjusted our course to allow this second vessel to pass. When our AIS finally kicked in we could see they were steaming at 15 knts, and passed us within ½ a mile! Thankfully, we could clearly see them….really glad it wasn’t night. The biggest issue is unless you know their name…they DO NOT answer you on the radio. Here we are sailing along off the coast of the still active volcano Montserrat with 3 boats in sight, a freighter, us and a 4 masted clipper about 5 miles away. So I hail ‘’freighter off the east coast of Montserrat’’…nothing, finally the AIS kicks in and I get the vessel name, when I hail this time,…different story, oh yes, hello, what do you want?.
As we finally approach Nevis, the winds, which had been 5-6 all day pick up to 16 knts, of course. The mooring field at Nevis is huge, probably around 75 moorings, which currently have about 6 boats tied up, seems a little eerie. There is a storm to the west of us that threatens to eliminate our sunset possibilities, and makes it get darker that much faster, and even though the moon is still nearly full, by 7:45 it still hadn’t made an appearance, so contrary to last night, tonight it is pitch black here in the anchorage, and we can see lightening off in the distance and we are grateful that all our planning paid off.