Currently anchored in Admiralty Bay, Bequia
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We left Petite Anse D’arlet, on Martintinique’s southwestern coast, around noon. We wanted to get over to St. Anne in anticipation of my buddy Tim showing up the next day. St. Anne is pretty much straight east, directly to windward, but only 13 miles. No problem.
Once in deep water and out of the fish-pot mine-field, single reefed main and full jib went out. Sheets hauled tight, hard on the wind. 15-20 knots and blue skies speckled with a procession of snail-clouds. Seas friendly with a long period swell and minimal chop. Schools of flying fish launching out of every wave ahead of us and skimming along in formation. A perfect tradewinds day.
Cat went to the bow armed with a beer and bad fiction (Dean Koontz) and I pulled the bimini back to open up the cockpit to the sky and settled in for the ride. We plowed south at 6 knots on port tack, rail down. We scooped the top off of every 10th wave with our bow, the boat lunging through the peak and down the backside with a quick shudder and a surge forward like a wet dog shaking off lake water. This is what it’s all about. Any questions about why we chose this lifestyle were gone with the foam in our stern wake.
St. Lucia lay on our course in the distance. We could make out the sillouhette pretty early in the trip and soon enough we could even make out the distinct outline of The Pitons, the two great peaks that jut straight out of the ocean on the islands south-western coast. The Doyle guide said to tack in close to shore on passages eastward along Martinique’s south coast when sailing east towards St. Anne. He didn’t qualify the statement with an explanation, so I figured we’d keep going offshore as this sailing was too good to pass up. We ought to be able to lay St. Anne on the next tack as long as we go out far enough.
We reveled in the day until we were 10 miles or 12 miles SW of the coast and then called the tack. I spun the wheel over to port, bringing the bow up through the eye of the wind. Cat blew the starboard jib sheet and trimmed hard and fast on the port sheet, setting us racing off on our new course. Our bow was aimed right for St. Anne on the southern tip of Martinique. Quick. Synchronized. We’ve developed a rhythm together.
Except we weren’t going where we were pointing. Or even close.
Our tack was a little more than 90*, taking us from a SSE heading to a a ENE, pretty good for our boat. But what I hadn’t accounted for, and hand’t noticed on our leisurely south-bound tack, was that there was a 1-2 knot west-setting current. Regardless of being pointed in the right direction, the track on the GPS chartplotter showed a tight V rather than a nice right angle. We weren’t going to make landfall anywhere near St. Anne.
I cursed myself for having been oblivious to the current, but the sailing conditions were still wonderful, so I settled in for a longer ride than anticipated. I counted it as an opportunity to work on my windward sailing skills. I sorelely lack in this regard, so not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
The next two hours were spent laying on my back across the helm seat, one hand on the wheel, one eye on our speed and course, and the other eye on the mainsail. I sailed as tight as she’d go. I tried a serpentine pattern weaving into and off the eye of the wind, building speed and trading it for heading. I stayed off the wind and kept the speed up. Constant checking of our GPS-verified course over ground with each variation of heading and sail trim fed me the data I needed. I learned that sailing as close as possible slows the boat too much to make the gain in angle worthwhile. Go fast. Even with the loss of apparent angle by close-reaching rather than close-hauling, we’d still end up at the same spot, but much faster because of the reduced relative impact of the current. But the culmination of all that effort spent scrutinizing every detail was that this tack still only got us 5 miles down wind of St. Anne. With the sun already laying low on the horizon, I calculated a minimum of two more tacks and two more hours, putting us in sometime well after dark. I don’t like approaching new anchorages without good light.
So here we go again, despite my best intentions.
Fire up the diesel. Furl the jib. Roll the throttle to 2500rpm. Aim the boat right at St. Anne. Forget any notions of ever being a real sailor.
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