Tuesday 4th December- Two weeks at sea, two days to go.
Spellbinder
Tue 4 Dec 2007 16:50
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An interesting couple of days since the last report
on Sunday. As we came clear of the heavy rain the wind veered into the south
east, and continued round into the south by dusk on Sunday. With the sails set
for a north easterly prevailing wind, this caused some changes, unrigging the
running backstay and gybing the main sail, and taking down the jib boom which we
had in a semi permanent rig on the port side. After all, we are meant to be on
the conveyor belt of the north easterly trade winds. By the time the wind got
into the south west, with the boat rapidly heading off to the north, followed by
a 360 degree rotation of wind direction, all efforts at sailing abandoned,
and engine on at 11pm. Not until 5am was the wind sufficiently steady to resume
sailing, under full main and jib in a force 3 north easterly.
Monday morning was clear, no rain squalls to
be seen, and with the wind remaining light force 3-4 on the expected starboard
quarter, it was time to dig out our favourite sail, the genneker. Only 36 hours
previously we had prepared the storm jib for hoisting, and now we were
ghosting along at 3-4 knots on a flat sea under the genneker. Our view of the
trade winds will never be the same again! At least the wind is in the expected
direction, but it has continued at force 2-3 for the last 24 hours,
putting paid to any hope of reaching Trinidad on Wednesday. We managed 99 miles
in the 24 hours to noon today, when we had 158 miles to go to our landfall
waypoint on the north east corner of Trinidad. There is then a further 50 miles
to go to take us around the north west corner of the island, and in to our
arrival point of Chaguaramas. At present speed, we will arrive on Thursday
morning, the forecast is for a bit more wind, but if it drops any further
we will resort to the engine, so we are firmly planning on a Thursday arrival.
This will allow Ros to catch her scheduled flight home on Saturday, and
Mike is hoping to get the same flight. Bunny will probably stay on till Monday,
he has to find a barber to shave off his 3 months of beard before he dare
show his face back in Kipp Court.
Just as we settled down to lunch today, a ship came
into view over the horizon, only about the fifth sighting of the whole trip.
This one was heading directly at us, but at about six miles he made a
clear alteration of course to pass under our stern. Always reassuring to know
you have been seen, especially by a big container ship travelling at around 20
knots. Once he was close enough to read his name we called him on VHF to thank
him for making his intentions clear. With a name of Saxonia Express it was no
surprise to hear the correct Germanic accented English of the reply. Our
first contact with the world beyond Spellbinder for two weeks.
So we continue, with genneker out to port, and jib
boomed out to starboard, at about 3.5 knots in a force 2 zephyr, and an end of
term feeling spreading through the boat. Mike is baking his grand finale loaf of
bread, not to be outdone, Ros is making flap jacks, and we will arrive in
Trinidad with enough provisions to see us most of our way round the Caribbean.
More of which later.
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