38:37.699N 000:00.203W
SV Eleonora
Michael A. Andronov
Thu 20 Sep 2018 06:59
We are still on anchor in front of the Greenwich Marina.
I’m planning to stay there for a few days at least, so more about the place later.
Since my Internet is restored — Vodafone UK, thank you!!!! Soon I would be obliged to put your name as official sponsor of the trip! — I’m going to fulfil my promise to tell a bit more on how I managed to get there…
Staying in Mazorron bay was nice and pleasant. But the strategy has been to move further North. To visit Cartagena was very tempting… But I told myself that it is always a good plan to visit Cartagena during the ‘winter time’… and now — to try to go further… Plus, the possibility to meet some friends in Greenwich marina — was dictating some dates…
From the place of my anchorage in Mazorron to Greenwich — according to estimation — about ~100 nm… In ’normal conditions’, as sailing in Caribbean and around, crossing the Atlantic… it should be less then 24 hours of sailing… good or bad… with assumption that at least 4+ kts of speed I would always be able to do…
Reading about the weather in the Med in general, and learning a bit more about the weather on the expecting route in particular — forced me to accept the fact that the wind, if any ’suitable for sailing’, would be from the NW, N, or NE anyway… Meaning — beating all the way up… Take it or… motor it… Or spend unknown period of time on the anchorage, hoping to get the promise of the SW or Southerly wind… and to find that there is no wind ’suitable for sailing’, or the wind is still from the North…
In short, I accepted the fact — sailing in the Mediterranean ( at least this year ), is beating against the wind all the time!
My experience of sailing from Columbia to Grenada against prevailing winds played a bad joke with me. It helped to accept the fact of beating all the time… But at the same time, it provided somehow the assumption — another one — that it could NOT be worth then sailing near Columbia - Venezuela border and Aruba in the fall… We are just in the Med, near the coast… How can it be worth ?!
I heard somewhere that the assumptions are always in the foundation of the big screw-ups… Can not disagree with that one! Going ahead, one of the mistakes I did and learned about — you should NOT sail in pessimistic mode! Can it be worth then sailing from Columbia ? The right answer — the optimistic one! — should be ‘Yes’. My pessimistic one, ’NO’, made me to believe that yankee and main sails would be enough, I did not need to go for dressing the boat into cutter, with second sail in front… It has been forecasted only 10-12 kts… we should be fine…
Assumptions, assumptions…
One of the lessons from the past, the one I have been trying to follow since, — the time of departure should be calculated backward from the time of ETA… Arriving at proper time — much more important… And over ~100 nm leg — it should be relatively easy to calculate and to do…
My plan started to look like —
— to leave the anchorage shortly afternoon…
— with raising the sails, putting the boat ‘in motion'… beating against the wind toward Cabo de Polas ( 20 nm)… with min speed about 4 kts… with forecasted wind… I should be rounding it about sun set…
— the night part of the leg, ’securely far away from the shore’, should be easy… Especially, as the wind was forecasted for being more Easterly… So, no real beating… With some ‘reserve’ to go closer to the wind, if needed…
— and then, after the Sun rise — nice final sailing to destinations…
— Comparing the forecast with Scatterometer confirmed that the forecast is telling like true story, the distances were re-measured, secondary ports marked…
And here we go… Engine started, the anchor lifted, the main sail set up…
As soon as we left the harbour — and its protection… the deviation from the plan started to appear.
First, the boat did not want to move… In apparent wind of 12-13 knots ( true wind less the 10 ), the boat was heeling, jumping, rolling… but not progressing… 3+ knots on some gusts… With the angle about 40 degrees, on port or starboard tacks…
I tried everything… The boat does not want to go at those angles… I can increase the angle… But then… with speed I’m doing, my velocity to destination ( VMG ) is so bad, that actually there is no point to leave the harbour…
Sun set. My wonderful plan to be near Cabo de Polas — long time gone into trash. We barely past the entry to Cartagena bay, and still have more then 10 nm to go… Finally, at 0139 am, we clear Cabo de Polas… The amount of tacking done, dictated by the wind, by dodging from the fishing boats, by dodging from the ships, leaving and going to Cartagena… — made me to believe that racing on the lake would be easier…
I also discovered that in the Med the wind creates the waves with much shorter distance between. At some point I have even observed that my boat is not fitting between 2 waves, in other words, it is less then 15 meters… I also discovered that I have no idea how to sail in those conditions, how the boat is behaving…
With apparent wind about 15 kts on the noise — which should be nothing… with 4-5 ft waves, but very short period… my poor boat was struggling to go through…
I was feeling as being in the washer machine for too long, a bit tired, a bit frustrated, asking myself what am I doing ( in general)… and trying to figure out, what I’m doing wrong ( from sailing point of view… )
But we should be optimistic… So, we turned around Cabo de Polas… The Moon ( a bit more then 1/3 of it ), which was observing our ’sailing’ since the sun set, seems found it too boring, and disappeared… We finally have the ‘direct route’ to destination… And we can stay on it… No, not because the wind became under the better angle, but because it gone completely… zero… nada… The waves stayed with us, but started to diminish quickly, as we we were at the end of the rinse cycle ( comparing to the washing machine analogy… ). Soon, they gone too…
We are motoring… Stars on top of us, lights of big boats approaching TSS to starboard, lights of fishing boats — all around… We are slowly progressing …
Five o’clock in the morning… We are still motoring, steering 014 degrees…. The wind started to appear… half an hour later, the wind about 8 kts is blowing…
Can you guess the direction ? Sure, you can…. 016-017 degrees…. So, we bear off , and started to move in the direction of Torrevieia…
The noon we met ‘below’ Alicante. How many actual miles has been done by that point… I could probably calculate the log in the TimeZero software… But frankly, I’m afraid to do that… Definitely, much more then planned…
Do be fair, the weather decided to give a break — the wind veered, and we were able to progress relatively well along the coast, passing Alicante, and moving towards Benidorm…
I was a bit tired… We were sailing kind of towards our destination…. I’ve seen other boats — motoring hard further into the sea, and then, being far away from us, turn, open the sail, and start to go parallel to us… I should pay attention to that right from the beginning… I should learn for now — the weather here is tricky…
I got it about 0230, when I realise that I’m too deep in the bay… and to clear the next point — Punta De La Escaleta, and then Punta Del Albir — I have to tack…
The wind backed a bit, forcing me a notch more into the shore, and into small flotilla of trawling fishing boats… As soon as I tacked — the wind picked up. No, not to make my life easier, and to help with propulsion, but to create again nasty short waves… Not only I was going in the wrong direction now — VMG became negative — but I could not make enough progress to get the ‘clear line’ to pass the Punta..’s…..
A new round of short tacking started… With increasing waves, and increasing wind… The wind started to increase a bit more, a bit more… I went to check the weather files, and Scatterometter… The weather files said — 7 kts maximum from the East, SE… ( obviously wrong… ), and Scatterometer reported that there is no Internet connection, and nothing he can do for me… ( though Vadofone was telling that the signal is perfect! )
The next 4 hours, I was introduced to winds close to 20 kts, right on the noise… I have learned that at this wind — the waves are growing quickly, much quicker then I have seen before… But the period between — still too short… and consequence — really choppy conditions…
In the middle of all that — the chart on arrival should be studied pretty well…. Since all those high point are playing a lot of tricks with the vision — at least mine — which coast me to make extra couple of tacks… And finally, as the wind was still growing… The dark stormy clouds started to appear from the nowhere…’ Is it one of those famous gales, which nobody can predict? ‘, the question crossed my mind as I noticed it, and put it together with .grib files, which were saying that at that point — no wind at all….
But at certain point, we enter the bay… At certain point — it became obvious that it was an introduction from the Med, kind of a lesson… The wind go down to level of 10 knots… and about 1940 we were sitting on anchor…
Tired, no Internet…, no wind…
The guide was saying that ‘… the anchorage is good, in 5m with sand bottom… protected well. Occasionally, the swell from S or SW may penetrate, making it rolly…’
Can you guess where the swell was coming from ?
But it was nothing in comparison with what we were seeing before, and I was too tired to pay attention…
The leg was over… The next was — rest and recovery!
That is all about that leg.
We are Ok now, Vodafone fixed its mistake…
I have Internet!
It means, I am going to talk later!
Have a great day,
M.