Sail Date #11 of the Sailing Vessel Companion on it’s journey to see new worlds, and get this boat to LaConner. It is 6:30 AM Central Time, but I think we are now on Eastern Time, but time doesn’t matter as much as distance. We are currently about 90 nautical miles from our waypoint - a spot on a chart that we hope to get to. And as Max at the helm stares at the chartplotter and wonders how much VMG, Velocity Made Good that we are making on this tack. He also has a large tanker overlaid on the chartplotter as a target showing it is only a nautical mile away, but moving away at a right angle. I am typing while standing at the Control Panel letting my legs move to the oscillation of the boat.
Two days ago I wrote: It is day 9 of our voyage. We started with a small step of motoring down the Rio Dulce to Texan Bay about 12 Nautical miles away from Rio Dulce, for your information a Nautical Mile is 1.15 miles and equals one minute of latitude on the line of longitude. Monday the eighth we checked out of Guatemala in Livingston, and then it was our first night sail on Companion to Utila Honduras. Mainly motoring because the winds were so light, but the ocean swells were about 3 feet about 50 yards apart. When my watch started at 7 pm, then we entered what I thought was a little squall. Winds picked up and seas became confused, wind from the squall mixing with sea swells produced a very rough sea, but we put up the jib to help stabilize the boat. The boat started slapping down hard with each wave and some banging of the sea under the bridgedeck. To say the least an uncomfortable ride. At the end of my watch at 11:00 Max took over, but not much had changed. We still had weird seas with 17-20 knots of wind, which changed as the squall moved, plus we had some ship traffic into and out of the Port of Cortez. The radar and AIS identified most of these. Well to say the least it was a long night. We arrived at Utila, an Island off Honduras, at about 1 PM and checked in with immigrations. Five dollars per person and a ten-dollar fee to the Port Captain, who used an old manual typewriter to fill out his form and we were cleared into Honduras with a 3 month visa. After a burger in town it was early to bed.
The next day, we sailed to Roatan, another island off of Honduras; these islands are called the Gulf Islands, for they are in the Gulf of Honduras. After about 2 hours the wind died, and after I waited an hour hoping they would build, we turned the motor on, using one motor at a time to save fuel. After a quick buzz around Coxen Bay, the main town near the airport, and not finding any yachts anchored we headed the 6 knots to French Harbour, which has more Shrimping Boats than any other port in the Caribbean. Anchored near a catamaran, where the couple from Colorado has been waiting 6 months for a weather window to Panama (6 months!). Checking out of Honduras, Immigrations took 2 days (but that’s another story) and on Nov. 13 we had our weather window to Jamaica (Really - we checked some satellite weather and an email from Emily and the consensus was “okay let’s go”.
We have been on a close haul tack from Nov. 13 at 6 AM to today Nov. 17. We have sailed (no motors about 45% of the time, with speeds to 8.8 knots, with apparent winds of 12 – 21 knots) Hybrid sailed (one motor on so we can stay closer to the winds about 40% of the time) and have motored (mainly one engine on 15% of the time.).
Night sailing has been interesting. I have the first watch from about 6 PM to 11:00 PM and always something different happens. First night a squall of 27 knots winds hit us, where we had to double reef the single reefed main. Max did a great job of lowing the main in those conditions. Second night another squall, and third some weird winds, but later stars were amazing. And last night a big pinkish, purplish blob tried to eat the vessel. Well not literally, but storms show up on the radar as these vivid, animated images and last night there was a growing blob with fire (lightning) in it’s fists. I tried to maneuver around it, but it found us. So again all hands on deck (I want to make sure my crew gets the full experience), we managed to sail through a smaller part of the blob and felt some winds from this storm. But no lightning hit us, nor winds blew us down so all is well, still trying to make VMG.
We do know the RUM will taste great in Jamaica! And it does, we arrived in Montego Bay at 10:00 AM Eastern Time. Yesterday, late afternoon, we hit another squall which topped out at 38 knot winds and very large ocean swells, but SV Companion weathered that storm well. Well I think it is time for a Red Stripe, I already had my hour shower.
We will be in Jamaica for about 5 days.
Captain Dale
Some stats for the voyage - French Harbour, Honduras to Montego Bay, Jamaica 510 nautical mile as crow flies, We traveled 585 nm, in 5 days 5 hours and 40 minutes, We averaged 4.66 knots and a little over 110 nautical miles a day, Winds were from 6 to 38 knots, waves from 2 feet to ocean swells of 8 to 10 feet. All sailing was close haul between 40˚ to 70˚ to the apparent winds with a top speed a near 9 knots. Max caught 3 small tuna and a 35 lb Wahoo which has fed us for 3 meals and we have 5 more in the freezer.
So if this doesn't sound like fun I don't know what does, so make a point of joining us!!
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