Las Salinas
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Tue 4 Mar 2008 22:55
|
Chaser and
Waylander departed Boca Chica at daybreak for an anchorage in a
bay called Las Salinas, about 60 miles westwards. The wind was calm as
we motored through the reef but soon picked up to 15 knots. Waylander
had already hoisted their mainsail with 2 reefs before leaving the marina
area, Chaser turned into wind to put up the full main, the wind was
from behind so we need as much sail as possible. We let go the headsail and we
were off. The wind picked up to a steady 20 knots off our stern quarter and
stayed that way til we reached Catalina Point about 45 miles away. What a good
sail we had, boy, what a good sail!!! Waylander was behind us all the
way, oh, they tried so hard to catch us, I've never seen Waylander put
up her full sails normally she travels with one reef, but sure enough they got
shaken out, I'm sure I could hear the screams of the crew as Tony was whipping
them to trim the sails better, but to no avail. Ah what a good sail, far be it
for me to harp on about it though, but try as they did, and they did, they
couldn't catch up.
Anyway, after we reached Catalina Point (first) the
wind started to die and swing more over our stern, our boat speed decreased
which would have made for a late arrival in the anchorage, so we hauled in the
headsail and started the engine. Of course at that time Tony thought he was
catching us (in your dreams) and accused us of giving up, but we'd passed our
finish line and he too started the engine.
On first site we thought the area was not to nice,
but having been ashore and spoken to some of the locals it would appear to be a
really lovely village. The anchorage is great, well protected, which is
fortunate because we need to stay a while waiting for a cold front to pass
giving us some strong winds, we've had 30knots in the anchorage today. Our plan
was to stay here a few days waiting for the weather to move west but
Waylander has a problem with their echo sounder. This is a necessary
instrument for cruising Cuba, and fortunately it stopped working here rather
than there. So we've been trying to get it working with no success, so we tried
to find a wifi signal at the hotel, to make some calls.No luck there, so we
walked along the street and found a house with an unsecured service. Fortunately
there was a nice shady tree to sit under while attempts were made to Skype,
Raymarine, Hallberg Rassey and a local dealer on the island in Santa
Domingo.
Seems like they can get a new one under
guarantee but it could take 7 to 10 days. Nevermind there are worse places to be
stranded in, we're looking forward to doing some exploring here.
Next time there will be some more photos of the
area These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google. Try it out here: http://picasa.google.com/ |
