Well CRAP…. we are checked out of the Bahamas and now there is no wind at all…
Route planning is a huge part of being a Captain and if you have been following the YouTube channel you know I have no faith in the weather guessers… But I still have to make decisions based upon the available information.
Today things do not look good for our departure… the trade winds died..! We are becalmed in brutal muggy crazy hot weather in dead calm waters.
With 180 Nautical Miles to get to Luperon… against the prevailing winds… which are not prevailing right now… we have a tiny bit of wind in a better direction to either push us slowly running under spinnaker or beam reach us slowly in gentle calm seas to make miles East… before the Trade Winds come back.
It looks like we are about to do a 3 day and 2 night Ocean passage now… but at least it looks like it will be very calm out here. The thing is… when the winds are calm they get very squirrely… swing around from all kinds of directions.
If any of you out there are also sailors reading this… look at all the wind information available to me right now and tell me if you think we should jump out now?
Remembering that WildChild is not a motorboat and for the lazy old men sailors out there don’t reply to me that we should just motor for 2 days until the wind picks up… not the WildChild way. We are real actual sailors on this yacht.
The heart of the problem is that we need to go East Thru the windward passage… so aptly named because it is usually always windy FROM the EAST. To get East against the typical east winds we will need to tack back and forth in the windward passage. BUT… that means constantly approaching the coastline of Haiti. Haiti is dirt poor and generally well understood to be Pirate waters too dangerous to sail near. Even the local officials here ventured the opinion that staying 10 miles off the coast of Haiti is the wise thing to do.
So we need to get ourselves 5 miles south to get below Great Inagua Island and out into the windward channel where we will have sea room to maneuver. From there our goal for 2 days is just to make as many miles EAST as we can get. We would like to get 100 Nautical Miles East before the trade winds come back on Sunday.
This should give us a good wind angle on that last day to turn south east and maybe get a nice 50 degree wind angle to shoot into Luperon.
If things go well we will stay safe from Pirates… we have little concern for much Ocean danger out here in these calm forecasts. The actual sail part will be fine… I figure just long boring and hot.
I think maybe Elena will get to help throw spinnaker for the first time…. I think it’ll be fun and she might enjoy it. Her first time flying the kite… very excited for a new sailor to have their sailing firsts.
I do worry about going to Luperon. I had read in a book a few years ago that Luperon has been un-officially re-named Pooperon by the cruising community. All those boats in the harbor all year round and no pump out facility and few rules about dumping their sewage directly into the bay. Combined with poor ocean flush of the bay’s waters has apparently turned the place into a fabulous breeding ground for Cholera.
But we will find out for ourselves shortly huh. Lets not get sick.
I also have much fear and trepidation about the corruption of the local officials. Often very nice people smile at you while extorting a bribe. Well… the thing is… I am Canadian… I am never going to pay a bribe. I am poor… with $0.00 dollars of monthly income we watch our bank accounts dwindle. These people are professionals at extorting bribes… they literally do it for a living.
My tolerance for evil and for stupid is very low.
…. BUT… we are going to face all this anyway…
_________________________________________________
I was chatting with our sailor friend Owen via Whatsapp the last few days… he is solo sailing…. young attractive intelligent man who became so enamored with this sailing lifestyle while on land he jumped in with both feet (Much like I did).
but now… after doing it for a while… the romance of it fades and the cold hard reality of this lifestyle is… that it is boring… uncomfortable… and after thousands of hours at the helm.. you begin to wonder… why am I doing this to myself..? The quality of my life has actually gone down. This is not so fun at all… mostly boring misery and stress all the time.
YET… here we all are… still doing it.
Originally when I jumped into this sailing thing…. of course I went bigger better more power… “… hey.. let’s go sailing around the world…” the good news is… I have figured out early enough that my tolerance for that much suffering misery and painful boredom is not high enough to try to do this. Given the political instability of the world… sailing around the world is not actually a good idea anymore. Not romantic. Not even fun…
Really the question is… “why would anyone WANT to go sailing around the world..?” what would be the point..? Pro’s measured against con’s… that is a lot of misery and hardship for very little actual gain.
We are sailing the good stuff in the west indies for another year…. but then I’m thinking maybe that will be enough… time for other adventures.
RV’s maybe… camping in the grand canyon…?
I dream of the day when I am not a sailor anymore… I actually miss the snow… and can’t wait to not ever suffer thru this tropical heat again… way less fun than being cold (which is not so bad).
Last post for a while
Cheers…
Captain Lexi…
…. about to jump into the unknown again.