03/01/2009 George Town to Puerto Rico

03/01/2009 This morning I left George Town for the big trip. I am planning an open water crossing to the west end of Puerto Rico. I figure it should take between 4-5 days, but as many as 7 days. I worked with John from the boat Buddy on some weather tracking, plus the information
I have been picking up from Chris Parker. Chris is a weather tracker for cruising sailors and provides a net service on the Marine SSB radio. He broadcasts 6 days a week in the morning across the whole North Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. He not only provides weather including wind speed, direction, sea state, frontal activity and tropical storm warnings, he also provides recommendations to vessels, for a fee, on when and how to move with the weather.
I met John about a week ago. He is on a beautiful 44 foot trimaran that he designed and built. He has made four runs each direction between the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. We reviewed weather forecast maps from NOAA and determined that it is a good time to leave with and on-coming cold front. The winds will shift from the normal Trades direction of east to south, southwest and then northwest as the front passes. This should give me winds that I will be able to carry most of the way into Puerto Rico without the need for tacks.

As I left this morning, I have felt the most prepared. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the jitters. I have been worrying about this day for a couple of weeks now. It did feel good though to pull the anchor and get on my way. I may have been a little anxious as I left maybe a little early in that I should have waited until the wind was coming out of due south. It was coming out of about 160 degrees and that will make for some tight reaching until the front starts to close on me.

The front is suppose to hit George Town about 4:00 or 5:00 AM Monday morning. With me moving now, the good news is it will probably be daylight for me when the front passes me. This is a large front and there are suppose to be some squalls involved with the front. The last weather report I had received indicated that the squally weather should be further north. You know how the weather goes. We will only have to wait and see and be as prepared as possible to slow the boat down.

After pulling the anchor, I was required to motor down the harbor to the east cut as the wind was on my nose. After I made the turn into the cut, the sails filled and off I went. I had a great reach north east to Cape Saint Maria on the north end of Long Island. From there I have had a tight reach and passed Rum Cay on the north side of the island. That may very well be the last land mass I see in the Bahamas for this trip is all goes as planned.

I have had a great time in the Bahamas. When I first arrived I felt like I had been rushing around and really tense. I thought that I might stay the whole winter and spring in the Bahamas and then take the boat back to the States. I had talked with several people about how they would spend three months alone in the Abacos. I thought that was what I wanted, but that is not in my nature at this time. I started to run into people that do the more longer range cruising and that seemed to get me more back on-track. I was excited to move on, but did enjoy myself at the different places I have stopped.

George Town is the winter home for many cruisers and it culminates with a cruiser regatta. The regatta includes dog parades, boat parades, poker and bridge tournaments, volleyball tournaments and even a boat race. There are many people there that will set anchor for three months. There is no way I could do that at this point in my life. I was itching to leave after being there only three days. After a week, I couldn’t wait.

I had a great sunset as I passed Rum Cay.

03/02/2009 0130AM I wake up from a nap with a ship in my sights, a rain squall showing up on my radar and my generator stops. I thought I had my radar to alert me if anything showed up in a security zone. I was wrong. I have a large cargo boat ahead of me and I cannot figure out which way to go to clear the boat safely. I try what I think is cutting across his bow, but I keep seeing in red port bow light. Red means danger in boating also. I start going in circles and I scare the cargo boat away from the crazy sailor. While in the middle of this I have a rain squall approaching from my stern and I have full main up. I lowered the main low enough to set the second reef point. This comes in very handy later in the night. Now I have two issues resolved. The third was the generator. I run the generator at night when I am running the radar. It draws quite a bit of power and this keeps the batteries charged. It turns out the generator was only out of gas. And after all that, as I was being pitched around the cockpit, I put my hand down on the table to catch myself and bent the wire frames on my reading glasses. I have extras and later was able to repair them.

0400AM The front rolls through with a slight fury. I had just cracked off the sails to run as the wind had started to clock from the south. This came just in time as the wind hit apparent wind speeds of 33 knots and the boat was flying along in the pitch black, except for rain and lightning, at 11.5 knots. She handled very well and the front passed over in about an hour.

I figured out all of the settings on the radar. I have it set up to turn on every 5 minutes and take 10 turns. If anything, including a mark, ship or rain, shows up, an alarm will go off until I acknowledge it. This will allow me to sleep easier during my 20 minute cat naps.

0600AM The sun is coming up. I felt I had a great first night for this passage so far. I was able to handle the boat in the weather and overcame each obstacle that came up. It is wonderful though after a long dark night, 12 hours, of seeing the dawn. I was able to make out the seas and watched as the light broke over the clouds ahead of me. There is a lot of comfort in the light. I am north of Samana Cay by about 17 miles. I will be leaving Bahamian Waters and traveling the Atlantic Ocean until I get to Puerto Rico.

0930AM Wind is pretty light. I take the reef out of the main sail and then go to work on the spinnaker. I worked on the spinnaker for about a half an hour. It has a good wrap in it as usual. It is the one thing I don’t like about the spinnaker sock. I have a wrap almost every time I pull it out of the bag. I also notice that I am very irritable this morning. It probably has to do with the lack of sleep.

1300PM Thankfully I wasn’t able to get the spinnaker up earlier. The winds clocked around through the west and now out of the NNW. This was expected and with the winds out of the NNW, the speeds have built, along with the seas. This reminds me of the trip from the Abacos with my parents, except the seas aren’t as big. I decide to put the reef back in the main sail as the auto-pilot is having a tough time keeping up with the waves and power. After that things settle down, but I am still at times surfing in the 14s. I feel more comfortable with the boat than any time in the past with these speeds.

I did realize something today as I was looking around the sea. The sea is a very large area, but all I can see is about 5-7 miles in any direction due to the curvature of the Earth. It really doesn’t look that big from this point of view and not so intimidating. It is sort of like sitting on a knoll on the prairie.

1800PM Time to settle on for the night again. I am trying to get into some sort of routine. I don’t want this trip to be some kind of survival trip. I work on cooking up dinner. I pan fry some pork tenderloin in a cracker crust with parsley, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. As I am cooking, it is the first time on this passage I don’t feel not so well. I need the fresh air. I am sure it was just the fumes from cooking and that I have the seas off my port quarter. That is the worst point of sail as the boat rocks from corner to corner to corner to corner.

Dinner did taste very well and I have found some creature comforts. One is that I noticed my feet are always wet. I was hoping to get them to heal from cuts and scrapes. They are like prunes right now. I slipped on the Crocks and that keeps them off of the wet deck. The other is a good place for me to lie down and for sleeping. I am stretching across the settee form port to starboard.

This does not have the rocking motion to it sleeping forward to aft. I am now able to sleep.
I can sleep on the boat because I have such an alert crew. I have more instrumentation that has alarms than I would like sometimes. I have the radar that tells me if anything above the water is in my proximity (within 4 miles), my auto-pilot to announce a wind shift of more than 15 degrees, my depth alarm for when I go into water that is no more than 100 feet and my watch that awakes me every 20 minutes to verify the rest of the crew is on alert.
As the night before, the radar was working double time due to rain. I rain patches around me and that alarm went off for about an hour until the rain cleared and the auto-pilot was busy all night with wind shifts. I knew though that I was getting sleep. It was not just shut-eye. We are making good time though.

03/03/2009 0200AM I pass a ship about 7 miles off my starboard beam. It is only the third vessel I have seen since I left George Town. Not too busy out here. The skies have also cleared for a time. There is no moon and the stars fill the sky.

0600AM Morning time again. There will be no sunrise as the clouds are so thick. If you have been following the weather since I left on this passage, you should have seen how far spread the clouds are on this front. This is the cost of easy passage making on the fronts, rarely do you get warm sunny skies.

We (No Rush and I) have now made 300 miles distance in less than 48 hours. We are about half way to our destination. It will be great if we can make this passage in four days.
We are out of Bahamian waters now and after almost two months I take down the Bahamian courtesy flag.

1000AM Air has gone flat. It is like drift racing on Chatfield, except for the three foot swell. I am working on a jigsaw puzzle to kill time and try to keep the boat moving.

1220PM I don’t feel like I am giving up, but the auto-pilot will work itself to death at trying to keep up with the rotating light winds. I have dropped the port motor in the water for low RPM cruising looking for some wind. I expect that if this front has blown itself out, I should start to see the NE Trades kick in and hopefully I am far enough north and east to carry them into Puerto Rico.

1430PM I was awaken from a good nap with a breeze on my face. The wind has found us again. I put out the jib shut down the motor. The breeze started to fill in from the north. I decided to try the spinnaker again. This time I was able to clean up the lines and get all of the wraps out of the sail. I had one of the most wonderful sails you dream about on the open waters. It is like showing up at Steamboat and find champagne powder up to your knees at the lift and flowing over your waist as you cut through the trees. I had 10-13 knots of wind with a gentle swell of 3-5 feet. I just coasted along at 7-8 knots enjoying the afternoon after the swirly light winds this morning.
1800PM Another great sunset at sea. I took the spinnaker down for the night. I am still sailing at 7.5 knots with the main and jib. I will probably reef the main as the night goes on. The winds are building a little with the cooler north winds. I am now making time again.
1900PM I put in the double reef. I probably should put in the third reef also, but this worked well last night. I saw the largest ring around the moon this evening. I am not sure, but this maybe what they call a moon bow.

2000PM I should have put in the third reef. The winds and seas have been building all afternoon and they continue this evening. I am seeing wind speeds in the low 20s and boat speeds of 12 knots bursting to 14 sometimes. It is spooky during the day to have these speeds, even that much more at night. I am making real good time.

03/04/2009 0600AM It is good to see the daylight after last night. The boat is handling well, but the noise from the water rushing by is incredible. Now that it is light out, I turn the boat into the wind and put in the third reef. I am still seeing 11-12 knots of boat speed, but the boat feels much more in control.

1445PM I am now making my final turn towards Puerto Rico from the route I programmed into my chart plotter. It is like across the country and know that you only have one more state to travel through. I still have 170 miles to reach Boqueron. That will be my stopping place to check into customs and wait for Christian for a few days. At this rate I expect to arrive there tomorrow evening at sunset. I hope the winds keep up as I don’t want to enter a strange port at night.

2200PM The steering is having trouble keeping up with the waves and wind. I keep trying different sail configurations thinking the boat is out of balance. It is frustrating.

03/05/2009 0400AM I can’t stand listening to the auto-pilot alarm me one more time. I haven’t had much sleep and I am very tired and frustrated right now. I put the boat into a maneuver known as to heave-to or hove-to. The plan is that I tack the boat through the wind, but I don’t release the jib to the other side of the boat. This will cause the sail to backwind and the boat comes to a stop and sits fairly idle in the wind and waves. All has gone quiet. I am now able to take a one hour nap.

0500AM I feel a lot better after the hour nap. I reset the sails and head back towards Puerto Rico again. Now that I am more awake I notice that the auto-pilot is not working correctly. I think the belt or a gear may be failing. I am going to need to hand steer the boat the last 80 miles. I am not looking forward to that, but I know I can do it.

1030AM LAND-HO!!!!! I see land for the first time since Sunday evening. Off my port bow I see Punta Borinquen on the main land and Isla Desecheo (Desolation Island). I am now entering the Mona Passage. I do not have much documentation on it, but everything I have read is that it can be a nasty place to be boating if conditions are bad. What are those conditions? And am I in those? Who knows, not me. I do know I have 20-25 knot winds and seas building to 12 feet.
1300PM I have now made it into Puerto Rico waters. I am excited, but not anchored yet. I have been trying to keep the boat slow as I need to be able to trim the sails and steer at the same time. I am sure I could have been surfing all I could handle, if I was up to it. Big waves all around me. They are not breaking, but they are there. I decide that I need a break and thinking about taking all the sails down and motoring the last 15 miles. I hove-to again. While there I make some lunch and decide it is time for another nap.

1430PM After my nap and lunch I drop the sails and fire up the motors. My original plan was to tuck in behind Punta Higuero> I figured the seas would be lower with the protection and so would the winds. The problem was that the closer I made it towards shore the higher the winds grew. Not only did I have the sea breeze, but the winds coming down off the mountains. I saw 33 knot winds. That was why I decided it was time to motor.

After motoring about 20 minutes, I set the jib again and I was able to make the same or better speeds under jib alone. I pulled the motors and sailed down the coast until I reached Boqueron Bay. This will be my final stopping point for a few days.

1715PM Anchors away. I am now anchored off of the port town of Boqueron. It is a pleasant town from the water. There is a beach lined with palm trees and everything is quiet. There is a light breeze and just a ripple on the water.

After I am anchored I seeing a couple waving to me. It is Graham and Wendy on Bravo 2. They are the first couple I met when I started cruising by myself and I had not seen them since Annapolis in October.