The WWW will be against us. Thats Wind, Weather and Waves not some silly opinionated social media fury. We are heading north the winds and waves are coming just north of east, thus we well be covering the boat with salt on this north bound adventure. The winds in Chatham bay are always swirly and pretty much its like chasing your tail to raise the anchor from all the twists and turns the boat goes through over night.
Trying something new, we planned on an over night, skipping the normal day stops, this allows the waves and winds not to be directly on the nose but more of a 45 degree angle, which is more pleasant. No internet in Chatham bay as we didn’t visit the fancy bar, and the old code wasn’t working, so we are going with the same Christmas winds and starting out double reefed. This means we are good for up to 35 knots of apparent wind.
Clear the bay raise the main and set the jib with no issues, and the boat takes off. We had plenty of electricity and topped with water, turn the engines off and sailing along at mainly 9knots. Wasn’t feeling the fish in the AM, as I hadn’t even put the rod holders out. Couple hours later after some breakfast and nothing else to do slowly, rigged up for fishing – first the holders then pulling the rods/reels out of storage.
Located a shiny orange lure for the starboard side, and re-skirted AHI for the portside. No real rhyme or reason, just the pretty colors looked tasty.
Dropped the starboard in, on the smaller reel. Then dropped the port one in, let it go back about 100M from the boat and went to get the teasers, which run about 30M back from the boat. Was dropping the first one in, and Christine yelled fish on.. I’m like “yeah right” so continued to futz / untangle the teaser. Finally I looked up and saw that the starboard orange lure was indeed bending the pole, so dropped the teaser in the water and went starboard, as I got there to kick up the drag the pole went limp. Wow, that was strange. Heading back to attend the the port teaser, the bigger reel starts to sing. Reach it and lock in the drag, but its full drag is no match for whats on the other end, and of course the boat speed. So leave the pole in the holder and pull in the teaser, have Christine pull in the orange starboard side lure, and the game is on!
The poles themselves are tied to the boat for good reason, not even out of boxers yet. Not that there was any need to be dressed for this offshore adventure at this point. Grabbed the fishing belt and mounted the pole and pulled hard.. Okay this thing is going to need granny gear, switch reel in to low, and get 1 turn on the handle. Uh-Oh. I’m bracing with my feet but still feel like I’m getting pulled off the boat, a few more turns of the handle and this is going to take forever with as much line as has been run out. Slow the boat, that is the next task, so Christine heads up till the jib is just flopping, okay now I can get 3 turns. Remembering TIP UP, reel, TIP UP reel. Arms getting tired and still no sign of fish, start to wonder if we just hooked some seaweed or something. 45 mins later.. What the heck? Finally see a fin above water way behind where the line goes in to the water and no sign of leader yet. Then it gets close enough to see the pointy thing. Oh GREAT, NOW what?
Pull it close to the stern steps and think, I’ll just grab the pointy end. I get close and damned if that thing didn’t start freaking out like the fencing champion it is. I haven’t taken fencing since that PE class and there I had play swords and protective gear, gonna need a different approach here. Hmm, a gaff would be nice but the only one we have on board is for seriously big fish.. The hook measures 12 inches and the stainless is 3/4 inch thick, a big hook. Well I guess it’ll have to do, Tied a line to the hook and the line to the boat and hoped that would do the trick. Still couldn’t get the guy on board, The pointy end just kept getting all tangled up in the swim ladder or he wouldn’t stay on the side of the boat to use the halyard to raise him. Eventually where there is a will there is a way, halyard and whatever strength I had left, I pulled it up the stern. No way to clean on the stern he would just fall back into the water had to use the side deck and the processing table. Course had to try and get a good picture in there somewhere. 2 hrs of cleaning and during that time the wind had died, we had reached the lee of the next big island up the chain. Made some pizzas and we carried on.
Making good time it looked like we would arrive our destination Portsmouth Dominica, or the Le Saints in the morning around 8am, course thats widely variable based on boat speed and the waves.
We discuss the watch schedule Christine doesn’t want the transition from light to dark, wants to come up when the moon has light the horizon. Talked about dinner, but wasn’t terribly hungry so just snaked on things. Just as its getting dark, the rain comes off St Lucia, we can see the pitons in the distance and the wifi can see the Jade Mountain resort but 30+ miles is just too far to get wifi for free. The windspeed hits 34 with the rain storm, and its getting dark so drop the main to the 3rd reef position for the night and shorten the jib some, have the motors running at 1200 rpm as the backup plan with that port engine with the sketchy battery, just don’t want to deal with it not starting in the middle of the night when you we need it to.
Rain storm and darkness its getting cold and bouncy, Christine is laying down, I break out my Christmas gift – a nice DRY suit. My foul gear was soaked through and wasn’t doing its job, so dry off and get into dry clothes and put on the dry suit. What a world of difference, only thing is that the booties are slick on the deck .. will need some boots to match next time I put that thing on. Christine wakes up and sees what I’m wearing and dons hers as well, well the moon has come by now, it didn’t show up till 1am. Make it past the 2am, everything happens at 2am, still bouncy and windy, wavy. 3am I look at AIS, and a cruise ship is on the inverse of our course, aka a collision course. Look closer he is going to pass us with less than a 1/4 mile between us at 3:30am or in 20 mins. I fall off 10degrees, that increase the wind as we are pinching – staying close to the wind to head into the wind, falling off increases boat speed and apparent wind. Okay that changed it to 1/2 a mile, out here in this big ocean really? Okay 10more degrees. Oh my, now we have 38knots of wind and we are laughing off the waves and making general racket, but at least it puts us 1mile away from the cruise ship in the dark. As soon as we pass, take those 20degrees back and can start to see the Dominica in the haze. Happy to be at 3 reefs at that point.
Sun rising over Dominica we contemplate Le Saints, but decide on Portsmouth for one night. Could have sworn this was where we stopped in Dominica last time we stopped here, but after searching for the hotel and good place to anchor in 26 knots of wind we took a ball from “Providence”, a PAYS boatboy the turned out to be excellent. Providence gave me a ride to customs, I cleared in and out, no issues, super easy and clearance is for 14 days. Since our time was limited we were going to organize a tour or something with Providence, but also wanted to walk on solid land for a bit, so we found a beach bar and wifi.. and we’re glued to the screens for an hour with cold beverages also counts as being on land.
Great town, super friendly, lots of small groceries, colorful houses, rivers, black sand beaches. Made some pasta on the boat, that was supposed to be the dinner while sailing and passed out from exhaustion and of course the cold beverages. Slept like a log.
