With The Trades, Grenada to St Thomas USVI

On a Mooring Honeymoon Beach, Water Island St Thomas USVI

 What a thrill to have single handed Christa with the trade winds, without interruption for a smooth 450nm. I arrived late yesterday afternoon (Sat) after nearly 4 days at sea. Total distance on this leg was 450.1 nm.  It took me 81 hours with an average speed of 5.5 knots.

Day 1 I hauled up the anchor from my spot outside St Georges Harbor and motor sailed for about a half hour to get outside the huge wind shadow that these Caribbean Islands cast. Pretty soon I had that wonderful thrill of shutting down the motor as the wind filled the sails. The wind stayed about 10-15 knots out of the ENE for the remainder of the day. But, as was the theme for the entire trip, the wind plused up and down repeatedly. This becomes a pain quickly as it knocks the balance of the boat out of whack, which in turn knocks the Monitor Wind Vane out of whack. Essentially the boat become over or underpowered causing the vane to meander all over the place. This is fine on a day sail, but over a period of days, could tack on many more miles than necessary. So I was up and down up and down trimming the sails or more often than not, reefing.

Sunset is always a big deal to me. I spend the last few moments of the waning light to check on the rig and gear stowage. You'd be surprised at how many screws or shackles and thing like that rattle loose. I pay particular attention to lifelines. As a general practice I do not wear a harness when skulking around the deck. In heavy weather, you bet, but during normal conditions I don't. I don't make a habit out of leaning on, or evening grabbing ahold of the lifelines, I try to stay inboard and use installed handholds to grapple around. But, in the event I do loose balance and lean into the lifelines, it is paramount that all the pins, mousings, gates and whatnot are secured. My lifelines are oversized and have no plastic coating over them for the specific purpose of being easily inspected for corrosion. The downside of that is you'll loose some hair on your legs. With the inspection complete and satisfactory, the navigation lights energized, I'll usually enjoy a cup of coffee and watch the sun sink. The beauty sometimes is so shocking and the sun always sets quickly and before you know it, it is pitch black and your left with little night vision. I had the benefit of a full moon the whole time. The moon took its sweet time to rise, usually two hours after the sunset, so I enjoyed the in your face stars before the moon removed the planetarium. Not to be disappointed as the moon puts on its own show.

Day 2 dawned with the obvious sign of squalls all over the place. The airmass had become a little more saturated. This was not a surprise as I was expecting squally weather pretty much the whole trip. Thursday was a tough day. You see as a single hander you get little sleep. So by day two I was feeling the fatigue starting to set in, but really no time to sleep because about every two hours Christa would become engulfed in monster squalls. Some with substantial wind, but most without, but all with great deluges of water. It is a reefing flail Ex when you see a squall approaching and sometimes your reefing when the wind is already upon the boat. Reefing a full jib, or winding the whole thing in and then heading up on deck to reef the main become very tiring as it take alot of brute strength, compounded by doing it alone. To add to this, my hands had become soft during my leisure filled summer and were not ready for the abuse of trimming sail under strain and generally sail work. Consequently I formed instant blisters. No problem, let me go get my gloves. Wuups, I don't have any!  After each squall there would be no wind at all, and we'd bounce and flap around for about 15 minutes and I'd start to get paranoid. "Man I'm going to be becalmed for days"! I'd think about the movie Dead Calm, but then, a breath, and then a breeze and then a big ole whaahoo and we be back at it. I always felt jazzed after we'd come through a squall. But by night fall Thursday evening, the squalls had let up and I was really feeling tired. The boat and wind were steady and I slept for 4 hours or more before awaking at 3 am with a start.

Friday was day 3 underway and it was beautiful, no squalls and clear blue skies, a easy sea and all systems were G.  The wind went very light for a few hours in the afternoon, which gave me a chance to fly the Cruising Spinnaker. The thing is a big monster of a sail, and again can be a challenge as a single hander. I'm pretty good at setting it now and the operation went off without a hitch. I do have to go up on the bowsprit which I don't like doing alone on the boat, but that is the deal. The trick is you really have to watch the wind, if it pipes up things can get out of control very rapidly. Things never did get out of hand, but the wind did fill in quickly and before I knew it, Christa was smoking at almost 7.5 knots, well beyond her designed hull speed. You can just tell when the boat is over powered and she was. To strike, I head almost down wind, and let the main sail block most of the wind in the spinnaker to relieve the pressure in the sail and move forward to douse the sail before the boat starts to round up.

The next day, Saturday was also lovely and just as the sun was rising I could make out St Croix. I worked the boat as usual and had the anchor down at Honey Moon Beach by about 4 pm. To be met by Kristopher and Rebecca from Wandering Dolphin and get this, a full on modeling photo shoot happening on the rocks and beach that surround the anchorage. Topless models everywhere, it was difficult to focus on the great Tacos that Becky made! I was lockin up!

 

On a side note. Many of the blog followers may recall I love Sirius Sat Radio. It enhances life aboard greatly. Last February I was distraught when I lost the signal between the BVI's and St Maarten. So the last thing I did ashore in Grenada was to re-activate my subscription with the hopes of picking up programming around St Croix. Well just before I sailed Weds morning while firing up my navigation gear I just happened to toggle on the Sirius receiver to make sure it was ready to go and poof! I had crystal clear Sat Radio all the way down in Grenada. Man was I jacked! This was just the good omen I was looking for. I believe when Sirius merged with XM that things got giggered in such a way that the signal goes much farther than advertised. Bam!

It was a great trip, if not tiring. I wanted to do a special thank you and shout out to Wandering Dolphin who provided me with daily weather via text on my Sat phone. Even though it is late in the hurricane season it still is the season. And wouldn't you know it Hurricane Ida spooled up while I was underway. Having the information is a great comfort.

I have video footage that I will edit and put together and load to Youtube and the blog. Keep a sharp eye for that and I've loaded all the latest pics from this trips to my photo album. Just click the link to the right.

Capt Chris

PS: Thanks for all the well wishes I get. I really appreciate that folks take the time to read the blog, comment and correspond. Thank you!