We got up around 7 am. Renee’ has a bit of headache, and while there is some wind blowing it is not like it has been. Still not calm enough to deal with the spinnaker, but pretty mild compared to what we have had for the last couple of weeks. Today is a rest day waiting on the wind, tomorrow at first light we plan to get underway, as we have about 50 miles to go.
We got up a little before our alarm went off at 6:30, as the coffee maker was brewing. Neither of slept that well, Renee’ was worse than me. We got underway by 7:30 and had 30 knots of wind on the nose going up the channel out of Bahia Concepcion. This is a narrow shallow channel and the shallowest we saw was about 8 feet. When you look at Google Earth for this bay, it looks like the channel is pretty wide and the bay is pretty big. Well the bay is big, but the “deep” part of the channel is not very wide at all. After we were through the narrow/shallow part of the channel, we had breakfast and did our bible reading for the day. I have a screenshot of GoogleEarth that shows the channel to be over 2 miles wide. It also shows Santispac and Santo Domingo
Anyway, we got around the point, and got our sails set, the motor off and the generator going and the water maker running by about 9 am. We had a good day sailing, rather intense, as the wind was usually around 30 knots, at least until it was time to take in the sails when it was closer to 30-35 knots. We sailed most of the day at 6 – 8 knots part of the day wing on wing using the Main sail and the Staysail.
Renee’ fished, using both poles, the one with the rattler was used to attract fish, lost the lure (this is a “tin” fish with a couple of hooks on it. The other pole with a feather caught a Mahi Mahi probably about 10 – 15 lbs, but we did not get it on board, and lost the fish. We looked it up in the fish book and saw that the eating of this was defined as “nothing better”. Oh well, Renee’ put a new lure (a cedar) on the pole that lost the rattler, and put both lines out. About an hour later she had a fish on the cedar, and I had instructions to bring in the other line, so that we did not have two fish at the same time. Unfortunately this is when we found out the feather was missing. So, loss of two lures today, and a Bonito with at least 3 lbs of meat off it, not quite as good as the Mahi Mahi, but still good eating. Of course both fish were caught just as we needed to to change course on our route south. Also the second one after we got it aboard, and I got the head off of it, she had to clean as I had to keep watching and sailing as the wind was picking up etc.
Later in the day, we had to take in the sails in preparation for anchoring for the night. Of course by then we had 35 knots of wind behind us. So, I thought about how to do this and did the following:
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- Renee’ put the fish in the fridge.
- Stopped the Watermaker.
- Turned off the generator.
- Removed the preventer from the Staysail.
- Started the engine.
- Renee’ got ready to pull in the main sheet.
- Turned into the wind as Renee’ brought in the main sheet.
- Once the boat was turned we brought in the staysail sheet.
- Furled the staysail.
- Renee’ took over driving and kept us into the wind.
- I worked on furling the mainsail, which meant letting the out-haul in a bit then as the sail flapped brought in the furling line, then repeated until the sail was furled.
- Tightened all the lines and I took over driving again.
- Got back on course, as we finished putting away lines.
This took about 20 minutes and was incredibly intense.
We finally pulled in to San Juanico and found three other boats already here, which means the best anchorages are already taken. So, it will be a bit rolly tonight, Again Oh well. (Should not be as bad as the other night).
