Reasons to be cheerful

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 6 Jan 2011 15:43

13:15.78N 59.38.67W

 

 

Wednesday 5th & morning of Thursday 6th Jan 2011

 

On Wednesday morning we were joined at 7.00am by a dozen or so Atlantic Spotted dolphins who seemed very pleased to find us racing along at 7 knots in a good breeze. They stayed and played around the bow, dropping back occasionally and then racing in and daring each other ever closer to our bow as it sliced through the deep blue water.

 

The day had a bit of ‘end of term’ about it as we closed in on the island of Barbados, still 140 miles distant, but today we were blessed with 15 to 20 knots of steady breeze all day and so we were able to eat up the miles getting well ahead of our required average. The wind did ease briefly around dusk, but before we had time to consider our options, it picked back up and we fairly raced through the first half of the night, so much so that we had to put in a whole series of reefs to shorten sail and slow up as we had no wish to arrive at the reefs off the northern coast of the island in darkness.

 

All went very well and dawn found us gazing at the lush green island as we sped towards its northern tip. Sarah had to invite a 1000ft tanker to alter course to avoid running us down (we also had to do this earlier in the afternoon with a smaller tanker) which he did very graciously. We immediately then got a call on the VHF from Barbados Port Control who wondered where we were and what our destination was. Sarah explained it all to them and they were charming, wishing us a good end to our journey, a happy New Year and hoping that they would see us at some stage in Bridgetown.

 

As we approached the northern tip of the island, the depth reduced dramatically which forced the big sea to become larger still and we sailed around into the lee of the island with just a reefed main and reefed staysail in around 25 knots of wind. Hopefully this is proper Caribbean sailing as we now raced across the bay at 8 knots enjoying the strong wind and the flat sea and in no time at all fetched up at the entrance to Port St Charles. We dropped the sails and rigged fenders and mooring ropes and tentatively made our way into the little port remembering that over on this side of the Atlantic the buoyage system is the total reverse of Europe!

 

We backed into a huge superyacht berth and once tied up, I nipped off as required to do all the paperwork and complete all the formalities of entering the country, then returned just as Scott-Free docked in the berth next to us. Off now for  “Safe Arrival” drinks on Scott-Free.

 

So here we are in the Caribbean, safe and sound as well as older and wiser.