Barbados to Grenada

We planned to stop in Barbados for just a few days, but ended up staying more than a week. The extended stay was partly due to wind and wave forecasts, but largely because we were enjoying ourselves. Upon arrival (the day before John’s birthday), we found several boats who had left Mindelo a week ahead of us, and while we were there, several who crossed at the same time arrived. Our speedy 14-day crossing was noted and admired.

Solstice at anchor

The beach

The information in the cruising guide about clearing into Barbados didn’t say that you couldn’t anchor and take your dinghy ashore to do the formalities, but a neighboring boat told us that they frown on it. That was after we had anchored. You’re supposed to call the port control and ask for permission first, but we listened to the radio and during our stay permission was never granted. Instead, everyone had to go into the commercial harbor and tie to the wall. Since we didn’t ask permission, we begged forgiveness, and it was granted with a scolding from the immigration and customs officials.

When our friends on Jinja arrived, we showed them where to anchor over by the yacht club to pick up the free wireless Internet signal. We weren’t anchored there yet because it was too crowded when we arrived, but we did move the next day. It’s much farther from the dinghy dock in town, but with our fast dinghy, we didn’t mind. In fact, our dinghy made us quite popular since we’re willing to give rides to people who are nice to us.

Together with Jinja, we rented a car to see the island, and Assaf kindly drove. They drive on the left in Barbados and Grenada, a relic of their colonial past, and we weren’t ready to try that. On our tour we went up the west coast to the northern tip of the island and back south through the middle and along a bit of the east coast. What a difference between the resort-lined west and the wild east! And what a beautiful island!

Wild north point with Liat and Assaf

Flora

Fauna

On our own the next day we visited the Mount Gay Rum factory and enjoyed a tasting. Mount Gay was our rum of choice when we did a bareboat charter in the BVI a few years ago, so it was on our must-see list. We also left well supplied at a good price, thanks to a tip from friends on Juno. Although we managed to buy the rum duty free at Cave Shepherd, we won’t be doing the duty-free thing again. It caused all sorts of confusion and dismay when we checked out.

Rum tasting

When the wind and waves settled down a little, three of the boats who had crossed from Mindelo at the same time headed for Grenada: Solstice, Jinja, and Free Spirit. Maintaining our reputation for speed, we were the last to leave and the first to arrive. The passage was punctuated by squalls and lit by a full moon. There was even a moonlight rainbow. Spectacular!

Jinja and Free Spirit ahead of us in a downpour

So far Grenada is great too, and we’ve reconnected with our friends on Avocette and Alua. We’re having so much fun that it’s hard to find time to catch up on the blog.

Arrived in Barbados

We have arrived after 14 days and 2.5 hours to cross the Atlantic. We estimated 17 days and with the weather routing provided by Herb on Southbound II net we did very well on the crossing. We have some minor repairs to make here in Barbados along with a rum and island tour. Now it's time to catch up on some sleep.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Things break

Passage to Barbados, day 13. On a boat something is always breaking. When you're in port or cruising the coast, it's annoying. On a passage it's that plus challenging. Can you fix or replace it? Can you rig a temporary repair? Can you work around it? Is it something you can continue on without?

We've been pretty lucky this passage, and breakage has been minor. First, the boom vang broke, but John was able to fix it. Then the boom bale (an attachment to the boom) where the boom vang and preventer connect broke. That can't be fixed underway, but there's another bale at the end of the boom, and John jerry rigged a combination preventer and boom vang of sorts to it. It makes jibing more cumbersome, but it works quite well. A flying fish knocked our American flag off the back of the boat one night. Bummer! It was brand new, and I'd just put it out after we turned off the engine leaving Mindelo. The old flag is now flying from the radar pole, and I like it there, but we need another new one. When we tried to lower our Cape Verde courtesy flag, we discovered that the flag halyard was fouled. John fixed that. On our five-day tack after we quit zigzagging, we discovered that our new jib sheet was chafed halfway through due to a malfunction in the fairlead. John hasn't been able to fix that, so we've been avoiding bringing the jib to starboard. We did turn the sheet around, though, so we can use it for short periods if we need to on our approach to the anchorage.

We hope that nothing else comes up in the last hundred or so miles before our landfall.

Day 13 stats: 161 nm (6.7 knot average) bearing 274 degrees. Our position at 1500 UTC was 13°16.976'N, 057°01.785'W. All is well aboard Solstice. As of this morning Orinoco hadn't reached St. Lucia, but he was really close. The tear in his genoa was slowing him down.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Reefed

Passage to Barbados, day 12. Around noon today (UTC) we put a reef in the main sail (shortened the sail) because Herb's forecast called for winds a little greater than 20 knots during the day. Although we've seen a few higher gusts, the wind has stayed about 15-20 knots, but we haven't slowed very much by adding the reef. Unfortunately, we're still zigzagging a little because the wind is directly behind us when we head to our waypoint, and we simply aren't rigged to go straight downwind. From the forecasts and with the progress we're currently making, it looks like we'll reach Barbados before dark on Tuesday. A 14-day passage is excellent.

We did hear Orinoco on the net this morning. He was 110 miles from St Lucia then, so he should arrive tomorrow.

Day 12 stats: Much like the past few days, 163 nm bearing 257 degrees, 6.79 knot avg. Position at 1500 UTC Jan. 9 was 13°04.518'N, 054°16.974'W. All is well aboard Solstice, and the little dog's paw seems all better now too.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Continuing problems with Yotreps

Passage to Barbados, day 11. We've had a couple of position reports rejected by Yotreps in the past few days. We don't know what they changed on their end that caused the problems (nothing changed here), but we aren't the only ones having difficulty. It's really too bad because there are a lot of people crossing the Atlantic right now, and Yotreps has been a service we've all counted on to keep our friends and family up-to-date on our progress.

After five days on the same tack running downwind with poled out jib, we jibed this afternoon (actually on day 12). There's a lot more to it with the pole involved and some jerry rigging we've done to work around things that have broken (tomorrow's topic). We're hoping to keep this tack the rest of the way to Barbados. We aren't fishing until we eat more of the fish we already have (wahoo salad sandwiches today), so, no, Shirish, no more wahoo, but thanks for asking. :)

Day 11 stats: 166 nm at 275 degrees (6.9 knots avg.). Position at 1500 UTC Jan. 8 was 13°39.167'N, 051°33.511'W.

We haven't been on the net to hear how Orinoco is doing, but we heard on Herb's net last night that Aquila has arrived, so Orinoco should be close to port. Friends of Orinoco will probably hear from Jim soon.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Changing time

Passage to Barbados, day 10. For this passage we decided not to change our clocks as we pass through time zones. The Canary Islands are on UTC (Universal Time Coordinated), and that's also the time used for our various radio check-ins, so we decided to keep it. Now, more than halfway across the Atlantic, that means that the time on our clocks is out of sync with the sun. I used to have the sunrise and sunset watches from 6 to 9 morning and evening. I still have the same watches, but the sun now rises and sets after nine o'clock. I used to feed the dog on those watches, but now she eats on John's watches. There's a four-hour offset between Barbados and UTC, and we'll deal with that when we arrive.

We have continued to have good wind, although now we are also getting a little rain and a chance of squalls. Day 10 we sailed 166 nm on a course of 259 degrees. All is well aboard Solstice, but we were late checking in this morning and didn't hear Orinoco. Our friends on Aquila have arrived at Antigua, and Orinoco should be close to St. Lucia.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Sea state

Passage to Barbados, day 9: One of the conditions that boats include in their daily check-in to the Rum Runners Net is the sea state. That and wind are the two most important factors in any passage. In the Mediterranean we learned that even moderate winds of 20 knots could make the sea state extremely uncomfortable with high waves very close together. The oceans are a little different. Here in the mid-Atlantic we get swell, which is waves that run in the same direction over great distances, and wind waves. Waves from swell are generally a little further apart with the time in between being important for comfort. Boats report swell, and some include wind waves as a separate thing. Thus, we sometimes hear "2-meter swell from the NE with 1-meter wind waves from the east on top." Where we are, I don't remember hearing anyone report anything less than 2-meter swell. More often it's 2 to 3 meters or more (3 meters is about 10 feet). And that's what we've been having and expect to continue having until we reach the shelter of some islands. As we often hear on the net, we're rocking and rolling. People haven't been reporting the timing, but John estimates about 7 to 8 seconds, which is a little too close for comfort. I don't remember it being this bad (uncomfortable, not dangerous) when we crossed to Europe, but that was summer, and this is winter even if it feels like summer here. Any storm you hear about in western Europe or eastern North America is sending us swell down here in the tropics.

Day 9 statistics: 175 nm, 7.29 knot average, bearing 268 degrees. Yes, that's another record. Position at 1500 UTC Jan. 6 was 13°36.063'N, 045°52.724'W. (We did receive a message that Yotreps rejected one of our earlier position reports.) That's 3 degrees of longitude in one day, which is excellent. We have less than 800 nm miles to go to Barbados. All is well aboard Solstice and Orinoco.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Past the halfway mark

Passage to Barbados, day 8. Today we passed our halfway point on the crossing. Our route from Mindelo to Barbados was nominally 2,010 miles. The distance to our waypoint marking the approach to the anchorage at Bridgetown, Barbados, is now just 930 miles away. We've been making really good time the last couple of days. In fact, day 8 is our record best 24 hours. We covered 171.9 nm for an average speed of 7.16 knots. Our previous best was 171.3 nm crossing toward Europe, so it was really almost a tie.

At 1500 UTC Jan. 5 our position was 13°40.611'N, 042°52.792'W. All is well aboard Solstice and Orinoco.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Go, Speed Racer!

Passage to Barbados, day 7. Sceptres (the kind of boat that Solstice is) are classified as performance cruisers, meaning that they're supposed to go pretty fast for as heavy as they are. We haven't seen much evidence of this with Solstice until this passage. But until now we haven't been going the same direction and maintaining contact with a lot of other cruising boats. Today we caught up with a Swiss boat that left Mindelo a few hours ahead of us, Alua. It was fun to get so close to another passage-making boat (we were less than a quarter mile apart), and we took lots of pictures of each others' boats. We'll trade when we meet again in Grenada. We're hoping that we'll also be able to catch up with our friends on Jinja. Now that we've stopped zigzagging, we're moving right along.

Our position at 1500 UTC was 13°41.699'N, 039°55.874'W. Our 24-hour distance was 155 nm at an average speed of 6.46 knots, bearing 268 degrees. All is well aboard Solstice and Orinoco.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Added in Grenada: sample photos from our picture exchange with Alua.

Alua

Solstice

End of zigzagging

Passage to Barbados, day 6. Today we took advantage of slightly less wind and perhaps reduced swell to pole out the jib and start sailing wing-on-wing. (I think our British friends call it goose-winging.) This means that our foresail, the jib, is held out by the pole on one side while the main sail is on the other. The configuration allows us to sail more nearly straight downwind, which is the direction we need to go to get to Barbados. If we had done this days ago, we could have saved more than 100 miles.

Our end of day 6 position at 1500 UTC was 13°46.157'N, 037°16.665'W. Straight-line distance covered was 127 nm while actual distance was 147 nm at an average speed of 6.125 knots. All of our distance should be in a relatively straight line now, at least until we get close to Barbados.

All is well aboard Solstice.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Wahoo!!!

Passage to Barbados, day 5. This afternoon John landed his first wahoo, a big tasty fish that he's been after since Mexico in 2007. (This occurred after the technical end of day 5, but it's too exciting to save for later.) We had planned to eat mahi-mahi for dinner, but had to try the wahoo instead. It was excellent! We may have enough fish for the rest of the passage. Certainly we have enough that the hand line has been rolled up and put away for a few days.

Day 5 stats: 134 nm made good on a course of 267 degrees. Our actual miles and speed were the same as yesterday. Our position at 1500 UTC Jan. 2 was 14°14.524'N, 035°09.539'W. All is well aboard Solstice and Orinoco. (In case you missed it and have been wondering, we're including Orinoco on behalf of our friend Jim and his friends.)

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Happy New Year from the mid-Atlantic!

Passage to Barbados, day 4. The Rum Runners Net this morning was full of New Year's best wishes, and we know at least one person on each boat was awake to see the new year in regardless of time zone. Both of us were up because midnight is watch change.

Today we saw and talked with another sailboat. Transcendence is an Irish boat with a multi-national crew. We've been hearing them on Rum Runners since before we left Mindelo (they didn't stop) and on check-in with Herb since we've been underway. We knew they were a little ahead of us, but today we caught up. They said we're the first boat they've seen since they left the Canary Islands. John took a picture of them with his long lens, but they were several miles away, so you really can't see much.

Day 4 was a fast one: 161 nm actual (6.7 kn avg) and 138 nm straight-line (5.75kn avg). Our position was 14°21.422'N, 032°51.84'W.

All is well aboard Solstice. Marzen's paw is getting better. On Orinoco Jim is well, but the genoa got a rip in it, so that has slowed him down.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com