Horrible trip to St Maartin
Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Sat 5 May 2012 22:11
04:05:12, 18:01.98N 63:05.85W
After a month in the BVI’s we’re back in a very hot and still
St Maartin. We had a fantastic time in BVI and I can’t believe we were
there a month, it doesn’t seem like it, it is a very different place to the more
southern Windward and Leeward Islands in terms of culture, but they are very
beautiful, quaint and quiet – and we were there in high season! You could
virtually anchor somewhere new every day for a month and there are so many
beautiful bays with empty beaches and coral reefs. Our favorite inhabited
island was Jost Van Dyke, unfortunately we didn’t go to Anegada but you have to
leave somewhere to go next time!
Our tender suffered a bit of an accident during our sail from
Jost Van Dyke back over to Tortola. We were having a fantastic sail – 18
knot winds and because the area between the islands is relatively enclosed you
don’t get the big atlantic waves so it is like a very warm and pretty version of
the solent. We tacked our way through the narrow gap at the end of Tortola
past Sopers Hole (probably to the annoyance of all the motoring yachts who had
to give way) and out into the Sir Francis Drake Channel where we had great fun
in ‘racing’ everyone going the same way as us and leaving the charter boats in
our wake. All was wonderful until Adam looked back at the tender to see
that the ‘strong point’ used for towing it had actually pulled straight out of
the front leaving a hole in its bow. At least the tender was still there (we
have another rope that is always attached to the inside of the strong point. . .
which was now the outside)! So we hove-to and pulled the tender up
alongside so we could get everything out of it and attach a cats cradle of
multiple lines to tow it from the various D-rings and eyelets on it.
We were happy that once we set off again our main ‘race competition’ had not yet
caught us up.
So it was on from there to Road Town to hope that one of the
chandleries was still open. ... .. . it wasn’t as it was Saturday
afternoon. And we then discovered that the fibreglass resin we have on the
boat for repairs had all turned to treacle as well so we had nothing for a
permanent repair. Never mind – although diving was out for the last couple
of days which was a shame, we did get to do a lot of diving in the time we had
there, we did a temporary repair of gaffer tape, but didn’’t really want to take
a tender with a gaffer-taped hole out diving.
We had wanted to see ‘the Baths’ at Virgin Gorda before we
left so had a day for that – the Baths are actually a couple of little bays on
the south of the island that are surrounded by enormous granite boulders.
Doesn’t sound wildly inspiring but they are beautiful and we had the benefit of
being able to tie Stargazer up there and swim ashore! The bays are very
pretty and there is a trail through the rocks and the caves that they
form. The water there was incredibly clear and although there weren’t the
volumes of fish you see on dives – there were plenty of fish, swimming in and
out of the boulders is like swimming in an aquarium. I climbed up one of
the boulders to have my picture taken – going up was easy, getting down was not
– Adam had to come and catch me. But it was worth a morning to go
and see as the boulders are pretty amazing.
Once our month was up we cleared out and went to Cooper
island to anchor for the night with the intention of setting off at first light
and arriving in St Maartin for a couple of hours after sunset. That was
the plan anyway, what followed was I think we can say just about the most
miserable passage we have done in the Caribbean in 2 years for weather.
The winds weren’t strong so it wasn’t especially rough – it was mainly the
changing winds, endless rain. . .and . . . oh yes. . the
thunderstorms that did it. All started off OK but with light-ish winds and
a bumpy sea we knew it would be a long journey tacking up wind. By mid
afternoon we weren’t even halfway there and had resorted to motoring which we
hate doing, especially as the sea was quite bouncy still from strong winds a few
days back. By late afternoon it was drizzling all the time with the odd
torrential downpour.
By 9pm we were still miles away and the wind had picked right
up, it was bucketing down rain and we were surrounded by thunderstorms, we have
never seen it rain for so long out here – it’s usually all gone in an hour but
we were in full waterproofs pretty much the whole trip. The whole sky was
lighting up pink with the lightening – luckily it seemed to be atmospheric and
not going down to earth but it is still not very nice. As the wind had
been almost zero we had full main up and were motoring – we waited a short time
to see if it would all stop again. . . but then a quick decision to reef
the main down, get the engine off and put some jib out so at least we would be
more comfortable sailing (and why motor when we seemed to have some wind
again). It was the right thing to do as the wind stayed for another 6
hours and got stronger before disappearing completely at about 2am . . . .
we finally pulled into a windless and hot St Maartin at 9:30 in the
morning. The forecast did have occasional thunder storms – I think we
managed to ensure we sailed through every single one!
So now we’re in St Maartin furnished with dingy repair stuff
that Adam has been using today, we have to get some sail repairs done but
essentially we have about 2 weeks to prepare the boat for the big trip to the
Azores. I am hoping we can organise ourselves well enough to have a couple
of days off and visit Anguilla and possibly nip over to St Barts for a couple of
final dives. We don’t have to leave on a set date – it will all be down to
weather but the best time is meant to be around end of May
We have enlisted the help of Stokey Woodhall to do our
weather routing for us on the way home – Stokey taught me my Astronavigation for
my Yachtmaster Ocean and he has a service doing weather routing/forecasting for
yachts. We were happy enough to do it ourselves on the way out here, but
the way back involves finding the location of the Azores high and sailing around
the top of it so we think it is worth getting some professional help and trust
Stokey to do good job. Some people plough straight through the middle of
the high and go direct to the azores from here – but you have to have enough
fuel and be prepared to motor for days on end to do that so we would prefer to
accept that there will be some motoring, but try and get the best route possible
for the winds.
The route back goes through the ‘horse latitudes’ which lie
each side of 30 degrees north where there can be weeks with no wind at all
(hence Horse latitudes as they used to chuck the horses overboard in ye olden
days when they had no engines and they didn’t have food or water for them any
more – I am unclear on why they didn’t just eat the horses rather than throw
them over.. . . .seems a waste so assume they did have enough supplies of weavil
infested biscuits and things to eat). We also may have to go into the
famous Sargasso sea which is in the middle of the north Atlantic Gyre – given
that our Duo-gen power generation device just gives up as soon as it hits
Sargassum seaweed, I am hoping the Sargasso sea isn’t just a giant floating raft
of weed, but suspect it could be. I have three good facts about the
Sargasso sea – It is the only sea on the planet with no shores, the
surface is allegedly 1 metre higher than the atlantic surface is once you reach
the US eastern sea board, all the Eels go there from Europe to breed. I
hope we don’t have to spend too many weeks gazing into the Sargasso sea
ourselves though.
Reading my planning chart today for the
trip home I was concerned to see mention of IceBergs – ICEBERGS – apparently
they have previously made it to south of the Azores before and in one year 12
were spotted between Bermuda and the Azores (basically – where we will
be). So I am hoping that this year is not a good year for travelling
icebergs. The book says that the Azores are always shrouded in Fog, but
offshore is clear – however, if you run into a sudden fog patch whilst out at
sea – then it could be sitting around an Iceberg. I think they are fairly
unusual though – lets hope so, Icebergs was not something we had really
considered on our tropical adventure.
Anyway – back to tidying the boat and writing lists of things
we have to do. . .. .. .
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