Tradewinds Sailing Blog

I hadn’t thought it much, but I haven’t actually seen land for the last 10 days, when I rounded the big corner of Brazil. Since then I’ve been around 100 miles off the coastline all along. So this morning, in the pre-dawn light, I spotted Trinidad on my left, and Tobago on my right. This means I am now officially in the Caribbean Sea.

Although these are the windward islands, the weather forecast for the week has rather light winds every day, near 10 knots mostly, sometimes less, sometimes maybe a little more, so it won’t be a super-fast trip across the bottom of the Caribbean. I am also starting to lose my beloved helpful current, which dragged me along when the winds were light. From now on, I will only get hepful current once in a while, and only up to a knot. My best guess right now is that I will arrive at the Panama Canal next Monday, and will hopefully transit to the Pacific ocean within the week after that.

The direct route from here to the top of Venezuela goes straight through Los Roques islands, and the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). So the decision is whether to sail above them or below them. I think based on the light winds forecast, I will go above them, in hopes of better winds, and not worry about needing protection from wind or waves by sailing below them. And I suppose if I change my mind, I can always zig zag between them.

4/9  8am   11.01N  61.09W   4298nm gone,   1157nm to go

Happy Easter!
It seems Easter describes my day today, too-  the winds are light and easy from the east, making them an easter. The seas are pretty calm, much like yesterday, but there is less wind now, less than 10 knots. It is supposed to increase a bit in the afternoon, which would be welcome, so this may be a fridge-chillin’ battery-chargin’ morning.

We tend to think of North America on top, then Central America, then South America on bottom. But at this moment, somewhere off the border of Guyana and Venezuela, I am already further north than the Panama canal!  I just have to arc over Venezuela a few more degrees, and head west for 1000 miles, then back south a few degrees. And when I transit form the Atlantic to the Pacific, I will be heading due south! It’s all true- check a map.

I took a symbolic step this morning. I removed the South America memory chip from the chart plotter, and replaced it with the Caribbean chip. There’s some overlap between them, and that’s where I am now, so mentally I am ready for the Caribbean. I expect to pass between Trinidad and Tobago early tomorrow morning, which I suppose is officially my entry into the Caribbean sea.

Hope your Easter is a pleasant one, mine looks to be sunny and warm.

4/8  8am   9.51N   58.25W   4126nm gone,  1338nm to go.

Although I enjoyed another 200+ mile day yesterday, conditions are much milder now, and things are slowing down. I normally calculate my day’s run based on 8am to 8am log entries, but my actual best run was from 2pm Thursday to 2pm Friday, when I covered 232 miles, a 9.7 knot average. I don’t expect to repeat that.

I am passing the region of small countries- yesterday I left Brazil and entered French Guiana. This morning I am 100 miles off the coast of Suriname, and will cross into the waters of Guyana this afternoon. Then tomorrow I should cross into Venezuela, and other than a bunch of island nations along the way, I should be with Venezuela for 5 or 6 days.

Each morning now, as part of my 8am routine of log entries and chart plotting and email, I calculate my ETA (estimated time of arrival) into Panama, based on a variety of potential speeds. For example, if I average 200 miles a day the whole time (the high end), I would get there late on the 14th. If I only average 150 miles a day (the low end), I would get there the morning of the 17th. Most likely it will be somewhere in between. But the countdown is on, and my anticipation is growing!

One of the hardest things about a voyage like this is being away from family for so long. Sure, I have email, and make brief daily sat phone calls, but its just not the same. A week feels like vacation, 2 weeks starts feeling a little bit long. This leg will be about 34 days at sea- far too long. One alternative is to stop and cruise along the way, to break things up, but then one month turns into three. Another alternative is to put the boat on a ship, but those costs are astronomical. So I’ll keep using all the free wind I can, and look forward to making up for lost time with loved ones when its over.

4/7  8am   8.28N   55.48W    3953nm gone,   1516nm to go.

Well, yesterday and last night got a bit more blustery and squally than I might have liked, with winds averaging in the mid 20’s the whole time. This also rapidly built up the sea state to an average 8 feet. Fortunately, it was still still just aft of the beam, so no slamming or pounding, but lots of rocking and rolling. I’ve got 2 reefs in the mainsail, and only about 1/3 of the jib out, and the boat is fairly balanced with a neutral helm, so the autopilot isn’t working too hard. We’re just creaming along, and despite the tempest raging outside, inside the boat is warm and dry and comfy. Conditions should start to moderate this afternoon.

The big plus of all this wind, and help from the Guyana Express current, is that I covered a best-ever-for-this-boat 221 miles in the last 24 hours. That’s an average of 9.2 knots. Panama just got a lot closer!

While all this was going on, I had to entertain a lot of company. Last night, a bird got tired of fighting the winds and sought refuge with me. He initially landed on the bimini, but could barely hold on in the wind and rain, so I grabbed him and set him in the cockpit, where he could settle down out of the wind. I think he was half terrified and half thankful.

Early this morning I went on deck and discovered another guest- one of those vellela (sp?) jellyfish, that have the inflated fins sticking out of the water to catch the wind. The ones I’ve seen in the pacific are purple and fairly small, but this guy was as big as my hand and pink. I took a picture, a very low-res version is attached, and then tossed him back into the sea.

Not long after that, a school of dolphin came out to play. Maybe 20 or 30 of them, jumping clear out of the water to get a look at me, playing in the bow wave and along side the boat as it rollicked through the waves. They stayed with me for almost an hour, which was quite entertaining, thank you.

I hope your Friday is a good one, too.

4/6  8am  6.48N  52.39W   3746nm gone,  1727nm to go

This afternoon sometime, I should cross out of Brazilian waters and into the waters of French Guiana. Not that it really makes any difference to me, as I am staying off the continental shelf, 80-100 miles offshore, to catch the best northbound current and avoid fishing boats and nets and stuff. But still, it is another sign of progress.

Yesterday I overtook the mystery sailboat about 11am, when I was about 1 mile to windward of them. We chatted on the radio a bit- it was the Mary Eliza, a Hallberg-Rassy 42 from Holland, sailing from Fortaleza Brazil to Domburg Suriname, where there is a bit of a dutch boater colony. As he carried no treasure worth plundering, I neither boarded him nor sunk his ship, and instead wished him safe travels.

The east winds have been pretty consistent, sometimes a little north of east, sometimes a little south of east, but a steady 12-18 knots, which gave me another 200-mile day. If this pace keeps up, I may well get into Panama on the 16th. But there is still almost 2000 miles between here and there, so we’ll have to wait and see.

4/5  8am   4.54N  49.26W    3525nm gone,  1951nm to go.

Sunrise this morning beheld an amazing sight- another sailboat!  I haven’t even seen a tanker or container ship or anything in over 3 days, so what a surprise is this! It appears to be on the same track I am, maybe 10 miles ahead. I have the weather gauge, and think I am sailing maybe a knot faster, so perhaps this afternoon I can engage them.

Yesterday and last night were thankfully routine and consistent, with boat speed near 8 knots, so another nice chunk of ocean behind me. As expected, I started to pick up some favorable current just below latitude 2, and that has been helping, for sure.

I am still maybe 13 days away from Panama, but I find myself doing the countdown already, and feel like I am getting into the homestretch. I am sure Neptune has more surprises in store for me, but my mind is more and more on being there.

It seems this weather will hold for another 2 days at least, so hopefully more of the same- wind 10 to 15 knots at 120 degrees apparent, which this boat loves, and more uneventful miles under the keel.

4/4  8am   2.56N  46.45W   3326nm gone  2150nm to go

King Neptune granted me permission to cross the equator yesterday evening, and even gave me a gift to help me on my way.

All day yesterday, I had been getting wind from the NE, which was wrong. It was supposed to be just East, from 90 degrees, but I was getting wind from 50 degrees. Even with my NW course, it meant that the wind was forward of the beam- my apparent wind was 70-80 degrees. I had the sails sheeted in, the boat was heeled over, and while the boat wasn’t pounding or anything, it was still wrong. But it was what it was, so I made the best of it.

At 6:27pm yesterday, I crossed the equator, took the obligatory photo of the GPS proving it, shared some rum with Neptune, then went below to enter it in the log. When I came back on deck just a few minutes later, everything had changed! The wind had veered back to East, making my apparent wind at 110 degrees, properly aft of the beam. So I eased the sails, the boat flattened out and sped up, and all was right with the world again. Welcome back to the north!

One temporary setback is the loss of my good current. It turns due east along the equator, which doesn’t help me, but doesn’t hurt either. I should start catching the favorable northbound Guyana current when I get to latitude 2, maybe tonight or tomorrow morning.

4/3  8am  0.59N  44.19W   3138nm gone,  2337nm to go

Today should be the day. Probably this evening around 7pm or 8pm, I will ask permission from King Neptune to cross the line. Time travel in an instant, as I go from Autumn to Spring in the blink of an eye.

Another fast day yesterday, just over 200 miles, so that felt good. It was laundry day yesterday, and being a prudent mariner, I hung everything on the windward lifelines, as I was broad reaching, so that extra sail area may have provided a boost.

The nice thing about sailing mostly west, is that every afternoon I am “sailing off into the sunset”- literally. And now at night I am getting some help from the moon, too. It is finally waxing gibbous, and should provide good light for the rest of the trip to Panama.

More good news, in that it seems the northern and southern hemispheres are enjoying a harmonic convergence in this neighborhood (totally awesome, dude). What that means to me is no doldrums, and maybe no crazy day of squalls coming from two different directions at the same time. I think the southern hemisphere’s southeast trade winds will just shift a bit to the northern hemisphere’s easterly trade winds. The winds may go a bit lighter for a day (today maybe), but hopefully nothing dramatic, and I can just keep on sailing.

4/2  8am   0.45 S   42.00 W    2963nm gone,  2511n to go

Happy April Fools Day!

Despite the temptation to make up a story for today (GPS calibrated for northern hemisphere, so I’ve been going the wrong way, now near Antarctica, etc.), I decided to just do a regular report. So you’ll have imagine something clever and witty, and pretend I wrote it.

Yesterday was interesting, and ultimately very progressive, as it was a 200-mile day. It started out normal enough, but by mid-morning (9am on the clock here), one of those massive 10-mile wide squalls was approaching. It didn’t bring much wind, but it poured rain for an hour, which was welcome, as the boat was getting pretty salty crusty and was due for a good cleaning.

After the squall, there was a huge wind hole, with nothing in it. OK fine, time to turn on the engine for an hour or two, charge up the batteries and cool down the fridge, which I did.

When the wind filled back in, it was more easterly, which is good for me, as it makes for a stable broad reach, instead of the rocky-rolly dead downwind. All was going fast and well, until I noticed 2 rips in the mainsail, where it rubs on the spreader tips. One was about 3″, the other 8″. Hmmm, don’t want that to get worse, so down came the main, and out came the sticky-back repair tape, which seems to be working fine.

According to the odometer, I am halfway to Panama, from a nautical miles standpoint. I expect the second half to be a bit faster, though, so in reality I am already beyond halfway there.

Today is starting out a bit overcast, which is O.K., as being just 150 miles from the equator, it’s plenty warm all the time.

4/1  8am  2.30S  39.02W   2761nm gone,  2719nm to go.

I am there. Finally. Fair winds and following seas, and a current that goes with me, not against me. And it feels nice…

I was reflecting on the trip down to Buenos Aires last year, as I am using the same set of charts to mark my progress. In some stretches, it was quick both ways, due to the different weather of the seasons. But in other places, it was very quick one way, and very slow the other. I wish I had my actual log sheets, to compare conditions. What I now observe as fair winds and following seas and pleasant, last year was probably “more cursed wind on the nose, current against me, pounding in the *$#%! seas!” . How many times am I going to learn that lesson, do you suppose?

As I now travel more west than north, my landmarks up ahead are crossing the equator, and passing through the ITCZ (Inter-tropical convergence zone), also called the doldrums, which should lie around 3 degrees north. After that, entering the Caribbean sea, and then Panama.

3/31 8am   4.14 S   36.17 W    2562nm gone,  2914nm to go