Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua (eng) 26./27.5.2012
Andromeda
Michael
Sun 27 May 2012 21:42
High Winds along the Nicaraguan Coast
26./27.5.2012
When we got up this morning in our extremely sheltered bay of Santa Elena, there was no wind and no waves at all and at 8am it was very hot already.
We moved out of the bay and anchored at the entrance of the bay where we had internet one last time, next to some nice snorkel rocks. We were surprised the wind was coming up and the first hours we were sailing with 7-8 knots over white capped waves.
Eventually, the wind went down and we decided to take the sails in and put the spinnaker up. Unfortunately, the fun was very short lived as some dark clouds 8nm ashore suddenly came closer quickly and we managed to pull in the spinnaker just in time before winds with gusts up to 40knots and heavy rain! At least we got some good rain water for our almost empty tanks.
Once the strongest part had passed, we sailed just with a reefed Genoa and still did 7 knots. We never expected so much wind, and in our favour.
Towards the evening, it went calmer and we could sail a lot with the Screacher, every now and then with some help of an engine.
We made such good ways, it took us less then 24 hours for the 140nm!
Though tide was going out when we arrived at the river mouth, great captain Michael got us in nicely into the river mouth against the outgoing current and now we're on the dock at the Marina Puesta del Sol, catching up with some sleep.
Will stay here a few days to explore, and then continue to El Salvador.
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