Christophe has arrived, and we’re off tomorrow at first light. The forecast is for 15 to 20 knots northeasterlies going east, great strength and direction for the three to four day sail down to Aruba. The leg from Aruba to Panama is known to be a hairy sail, and we’ll be watching the forecast closely to ensure that we don’t enter winds of 40+ knots and seas of 6-7 m, which is commonly encountered in that area. At the moment it looks like it is lightening right off, a bit of an anti-climax after all the hype. Back in Raglan in December, Christophe was reading up a bit on passages to Panama, and after reading that it is classed in the top ten worst sails in the world because of the windy conditions and rough seas, he nervously enquired whether we really think he is the right crew, given his complete lack of sailing experience… We convinced him that we wouldn’t do anything unsafe, but he still seems relieved that the forecast is mild.
In the couple of days we’ve had here in St. Martin we’ve prepared – laundry, provisioning and port hull poo tank installation. All important stuff, and the crowning glory is the installation of 200 watt additional solar panels, making us positively overflowing with energy with our total of 620 watt.
We are now in the positive on the battery charger for three hours around midday even when running the watermaker, making us definitely self-sufficient with energy even with two adult crew. Good feeling given that we’ll soon be far from land and fresh water.
We’ve also finalised our offshore grab bag, the bag that one grabs when stepping up into the life-raft. Ideally it contains all the things we will need when drifting around for weeks in the hope of meeting a rescue vessel. It contains flares, signalling mirror, whistle, sunglasses, sunscreen, mozzie lotion (in case we land on a deserted island), reflective blankets, multi-tool, rope, tins, muesli bars, medical kit, paper and pen, zip lock bags, vitamin pills, fishing gear, a pack of cards, strobes and plastic container. Predictably, the bag wouldn’t close after I’d stuffed all that in, so I started grab bag no. II, just to make the vessel evacuation more straightforward…
This afternoon we took Christophe out for a bit of a try sail, and practiced our main overboard procedures, so that just in case David falls in we’ve got a chance of recovering him. Confident that with a bit of team work we can recover our skipper, we are back on anchor, ready to have a relaxing evening before our last good night’s sleep before the night watches begin…
We haven’t seen Big Fish this afternoon, but hopefully both he and the ten turtles hanging around the boat will not miss us too much.
SV Bob The Cat 