Well, so much for departing for Bermuda on Monday.
Chris Parker, our weather router, has been tracking a particularly recalcitrant high pressure zone, (no wind) between us and Bermuda and it just won’t go away. As a result of this the question is just how much do we want to motor for the next 850 miles.
The answer is “no more than I have to and not more than I have fuel for” but that’s a relative term as the high is really large and isn’t going away any time soon. This means that we either wait a week more before departing our there will be plenty of motoring. However, we are time constrained so the plan is to take the best of the worse options.
As I have crew coming in next week and we have to be in Bermuda to begin the run to Horta, I will have to pick the “lesser evil” and leave when we at least have a hope of sailing perhaps more than half of the way.
Unfortunately, even the best option isn’t all that great but the “best of the worst” seems to be a Wednesday evening departure, three days later than hoped.
The big issue for me is that when I motor, I really only go about 5kts verses 7.5-9kts when sailing. That means that for every hour I motor, vs sailing, I am only making about half the mileage. Put another way, to leave a day later and sail means that I am only actually going to get there about 12 hours later. Sure, that’s a crude comparison but with a limited amount of fuel and the fact that I have a SAILBOAT, I prefer to sail.
So, here we sit, waiting for good news, or at least somewhat good news from Chris on when to depart.
Sadly, if we were to wait a whole week we could probably sail the entire distance but that isn’t realistic for us given a schedule that we ultimately need to keep. Delayed or not, at least there is a few days delay built into the schedule but I have crew flying out and others flying in, so I really have to be in Bermuda by next Wednesday.
The latest runs on Predict Wind suggest that if we leave on Wednesday evening we will arrive in Bermuda sometime late on Monday or in the wee hours of Tuesday. Let’s hope that’s right.
So, here we sit, cooling our jets, in Anguilla. It’s an island adjacent to St Martin, the French side, and is not quite as bustling as St Maarten. Besides, we wanted to get out of the marina and I didn’t mind avoiding the $100 daily dockage fee.
There’s not a lot to look at here but we are surrounded by about a half dozen Dawg boats, also waiting for the wind. A number of their crew went diving today. Our dink is on deck so we have opted to just hang out aboard till we depart. Perhaps a happy hour aboard Pandora with others? We will see.
The view to shore isn’t much with a few beach bars and not a lot else.
Benign as the weather is this time of year, it is hard to imagine the immense power of a major hurricane if and when it hits the island. There is a wrecked fishing boat on the beach nearby as a testament to the power of waves.
Even more impressive is that this is just the stern, with the bow on the beach hundreds of yards away.
The bay where we are anchored is wide open to the ocean and the ruggedness of the commercial docks suggests that it does indeed get “sporty” from time to time.
And some of the homes built on the beach are equally robust like this “bunker” home.
Those who follow my blog know that I am always curious about particularly nice looking or unusual boats. I was struck by this yacht nearby. Pretty neat looking. Her name is Prometej, 157′ long built in 1957. She looks lovely and clearly is well maintained .
She is a true ocean voyager, capable of traveling 6,000 miles at 12kts. Interesting, she carries over 20,000 gallons to go that distance, what appears to be an hourly consumption rate of 1,000 gallons every 24 hours. How much does it cost to run a yacht like that “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it”…
Anyway, she’s a looker.
It seems that she was once an icebreaker converted to a yacht. This sales video suggests that she was recently purchased based on the slightly different paint job. What a beautiful yacht.
Can’t swing 1,000 gallons of fuel a day and your own mega yacht? Not to worry, for those of us that are more “fiscally constrained” there are always the smaller cruise ships like the lovely Vela anchored nearby.
Want to see more? Check out this short clip.
Still too expensive for your budget? There’s always this local boat, “Damit Janet V”. I wonder what happened to the first four? See, there’s something for everyone, even in this harbor.
So, here we are in the classic “hurry up and wait” but after the crazy few weeks I have had between dental and engine issues, I guess I needed a bit of time to decompress before the big run to Bermuda.
At this point, I am hoping for an easy run and that I get there in time to change crew in a non-stressful way.
And, that long six week separation from Brenda that I have groused about, well it’s down to less than a month. Let’s hope that her arrival in Horta on the 15th isn’t too long in advance of my arrival.
I miss her terribly…
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