It sounds like a dramatic title for a blog, but that last sail was extra awful and super scary. I think last I told you we sailed our way slowly down to the safe protection of Deshaies in Guadalope. That sail was pretty terrible. I learned a valuable life lesson about ocean swell opposing wind generated waves. There are good 2 meter waves and bad 2 meter waves.
So by the time we finally dropped anchor 30 hours later in Dashaies we were two very tired and beat up girls. Although the sail was uncomfortable, sailing with a 20 degree heel over and 50 degrees into the wind, while just smashing and pounding into each and every wave, we could not get comfortable and could not sleep, it did not feel dangerous.
This last sail was very dangerous. So dangerous that another boat out with us got scuttled, lost, destroyed, abandon ship.
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We enjoyed visiting the last town of Deshaies, it has a very European feel to it, very quaint little french village feel, life seemed very relaxed and easy going.
We went to shore and easily found the check in at a small store and the simple, now familiar, process only took about 5 minutes and 4 euros to complete.
We walked around the town a little bit to explore. I like the place, it is pretty cool. I was talking a little bit in the last blog about the feeling of different cultures.
The French culture feels very relaxed and easy going. We watched some local taking these supper cool little all wooden sailboats out for a fun afternoon sail. I love the design of these little things, super cool.
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The Planning Mistake
As you know WildChild is still sailing, right now anyway, to a schedule, which.. yes is a terrible thing to do. But paperwork is paperwork and American bullshit is very important to them and we need to get that VISA for Elena. So we NEED to be in Barbados by Dec 16th (this Monday). So we were waiting out in the protection of Deshaies looking for a weather window to make the next jump, another 110 nautical miles south to Martinique.
To be honest, it was a mistake to leave when we did. I let Elena push me into this last decision. I knew that there was 30 knots of sporty winds out here from Monday to Wednesday (yesterday for me now). I knew full well that there was some sporty 10 foot waves out there that were going to push into the gaps between the islands. I knew that the right thing to do was to wait, in the safety of Deshaies until at least Wednesday night, if not Thursday morning.
I knew that we should just jump to Martinique Thursday and Friday, rest Friday night, and just sail on to Barbados on Saturday morning (when the weather window for it would be open). Yes sailing 2 passages like that back to back is un-fun. Yes it would be hard on us… but it would be sailing inside the available weather windows (easier and safer).
Elena was just so emotionally distraught with worry about missing her VISA appointment and having to reschedule. She was positive that leaving the jumps to the last minute like this would “for sure” be a mistake and she would miss the appointment. She was in tears with worry. Every sail never goes to plan she says. With no extra time for margin of error, when things went slower than planned, as she felt positive would happen, we would miss the appointment. She was just so upset about it… I let that influence my Captain decision making.
To please Elena… I decided…. okay then… fuck it… you wanna go now… we will go now…! I knew it would be sporty but to be honest I have sailed thru worse, I knew we could do it, and I knew it would not be fun.
So we left Tuesday morning, knowingly sailing thru the strongest of these unsettled winds, planning to arrive here in Martinique on Wednesday, hopefully before sunset.
We did exactly that.
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The Actual Sail
It is always deceiving when you are in an anchorage making sailing plans because you look around at sunny blue skies and calm conditions and think to yourself… well hey this looks fine. Of course what you see around yourself has nothing to with what the actual conditions out there will be when you get there.
This sail started out easy enough.
Knowing the wind forecasts I made the (very smart) decision to just start out with a reef in the main, no matter what we saw further out. So despite those lovely blue skies you see in that picture and those calm waves and easy winds, we raised a reefed main. From there I pulled out 90% Genny and we sailed beautifully along the west coast of Guadalope enjoying the wave and wind protection afforded by those mountains in the background.
An hour into the sail Elena said to me, “see… what did I tell you… we are in light winds and only moving at 3 knots..!”. It was true, we were moving slowly, and at this rate the 110 Nautical mile sail would take longer than planned.
I knew not to be deceived by the current calm conditions though. I knew what we were experiencing was not the same as what was on the other (East) side of those mountains. So I just controlled our distance from shore looking for the sweet spot where we will start to feel some of those trade winds, further away from the mountain, yet still close enough to the island to enjoy the wave protection it afforded.
We sailed along easily for the day about 5-7 miles offshore in great sailing conditions. We were usually around 10 over 3 and twice ran out of wind and had to use the iron genny to keep enough speed to steer for a short while. Things were looking good and it seemed, to Elena anyway, like the forecasts were just wrong again.
I knew though… that in those gaps… between the islands… thing could be very different. We planned our shifts so that she would take the helm during the easier sailing in the protection of the islands and I would take the helm in the gaps between the islands, where things would get sportier.
I will admit this sail started out lovely enough. The sail down to the first gap was just fine, with some weird calms and way less wind than expected. Slow and easy sailing is just fine with me. I don’t care if it takes an extra 10 hours to get there. Elena was reading a book at the helm and I was down below watching TV most of the afternoon.
We reached the first gap before sunset and as we came out of the wave shadow Guadalope I was surprised that the waves were not that bad. We were seeing maybe 1.5 to 2 meter waves (4-6 feet for my American Friends) and they were rolly enough not to be too concerning. The winds were easy enough at around 10-15 knots and our speed varied from 3-6 knots. At the time it seemed like maybe Elena was right… maybe the forecast was wrong again but in our favour.
The passage thru the first gap was rolly, and some of the waves did even get sporty for an hour at around 2.5 meters (7-8 footers) and we did see an increase in the winds. By the middle of the first gap we were sailing along in 15-20 knots of winds watching the storm clouds form over the island off our port side and our bow. Yes we did get gusted sometimes wwith sudden bursts of wind up 26 knots but they never lasted too long.
The sun was setting as we slowly began to enter the wave shadow of Dominica. As darkness descended upon our little sailboat we knew that there were storms a brewing all around us.
Elena took over at the helm again as it was my turn to go off shift and relax. We deliberately sailed WildChild closer to the mountains of Dominica for wind and wave protection, about 4 miles offshore, so that Elena would have an easier time at the helm. I needed to rest. I told her to wake me up before we hit the next gap.
I had WildChild carefully configured to handle the wind gusts. I was running first reef in the main, only about 50% genny and running cutter rigged I had the storm sail deployed. The storm sail is really small on WildChild on purpose. She is setup low to the deck and close in to the mast. With the genny furled up half way its foot was probably almost 3 meters off the deck. The storm sail used this wind energy and kept the slot on the lower half of the main full.
With this reduced sail configuration it means we were only sailing along at about 1/3rd of wind speed. So in 10 knots of wind WildChild can usually do about 6 knots of boat speed, but we were only moving at about 3 knots when the wind fell.
It is Sooooooo tempting to want to open up more sail area when the wind drops to maintain speed, … but it is unwise… ! and… Captain Lexi is a berry berry mart girl. I told Elena not to let out more genny… just sail her slowly as she is.
Super smart decision… it saved us many times that night.
The sail past Dominica was fine… sometimes slow and sometimes kinda gusty, but with the sail configuration WildChild hardly took notice of the gusts. Nothing worried Elena when we got hit each time by a sudden unexpected gust. She kept vigil for other marine traffic and used the Radar to look both for other boats and storms in the darkness.
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The Second Gap and the Scary
It was around midnight when Elena hollered down to me that we were approaching the second gap. I could already feel it in the movement of the boat, more rough, more up and down, starting to get slammy.
I dawned my life jacket and sailing gloves and came up on deck. I checked the chart plotter and the NMEA bus for data about the conditions and praised Elena for doing a good job. Everything was good and we were where we were supposed to be. Still 3 miles offshore from the island of Dominica in the dark and approaching the gap at a good angle.
I sent Elena down below to try and sleep.
I could feel this gap was far more sporty than the last gap, conditions had been building while I was off watch. We were sailing in a sustained 20 knots of wind and Elena told me we got hit by a few 28 knot gusts. Of course WildChild is such a good girl she just took them with pride and easily sailed thru them.
I was listening to PodCasts on my Cell phone while at the helm in the dark as usual. It was about 1am when I noticed a fair sized storm approaching on the radar. We always sail tethered into the boat and especially at night. I was secure and standing at the helm looking around when I felt the wind suddenly slack off.
I held steady but stayed standing at the wheel… waiting.. listening for it. I felt the air go colder. I knew it was about to come… the invisible demon approaches.
Suddenly… BAM… the wind picks up and the rain starts falling in buckets. Like a waterfall. Like rain so heavy you cannot see the mast…. and the wind… oh my. Standing at the helm I watch the instruments on the NMEA bus report in… 20 knots of wind… 22… 25… 28… 31… WildChild starts to heel over under the force of the wind. The boat starts rattling and shaking, the sound of the wind like a freight train… BUT… the wind keeps climbing… 33 knots… 35… 37.. 38 knots. OH shit super shit that’s a lot wind… the force and strain on the boat is enormous… Holy crap this is fuckin awful… eject eject eject…!
WildChild is Starboard rail in the water… and lurches up to 8 knots of boat speed in a hurry. Rain so heavy I cannot see anything out the dodger window. I can see ocean waves now rushing into the lip of the cockpit coaming.
Our strategy when sailing into the wind… and you get gusted… is to turn into it..! I know you old timers are yelling that conventional wisdom to turn away from it and run with it, but relax… I am a smart girl and I know what I’m doing.
When your sails are trimmed for an upwind sail… and you turn downwind… you have a moment with sails sideways to the powerful wind… and so the wind can exert maximum pressure on your canvas. It heels your boat dangerously over on its side and you can lose steering control. Even when you get facing downwind you are still sheets full of wind and moving like a bat outta hell.
When you turn maybe 20 degrees into it… your sails become inefficient.. lose lift… the boat slows down… and the force just bleeds off. Like turning a sheet of plywood edge to the wind. So we were configured for sailing at a wind angle of 60 degrees. When we got gusted I turned her to 40 degrees to the wind. The sails start flapping and the whole boat starts shaking. It was such a violent experience… but WildChild held just fine against the storm.
This storm was so bad… so strong… that we were still sailing in sustained 34 knots of wind for ten minutes. I yelled down below to Elena… “Elena life jacket ON NOW..!” She was already trying to climb outta bed. There was chance something might suddenly break snap or fail and there was a very real danger we might be about to lose the boat at any bad second.
I was holding myself glued to the helm intensely studying the conditions. I had Elena come up and get ready to dump the sails if needed, she was at the ready, but WildChild took the beating and kept sailing towards Martinique. She was shaking and rattling and we had sails flapping and hard white caps pounding her sides but WildChild is such a tough girl… with a good captain… she bled off the extra energy as planned and sailed on.
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Side Stories
Interesting side stories… We had been watching on the AIS system another similar sailboat about 2 miles off our port side sailing parallel to us the last few hours. I watched on the chart plotter as he got all turned around. I knew he was sailing with too much sail out when we got hit, and I knew that now he was out of control. His boat went every which direction as I’m sure they were scrambling to save the boat. Poor guy. He tried the run down wind thing but still he got pummeled. He sailed 360 degrees around the compass for the ten minutes of the beating.
After the worst of the storm passed about ten horrifying minutes later the emergency alarm went off on the VHF radio. Somebody within 50 miles of us was in serious trouble if they set their distress alarm off.
For those of you who do not know… our radio is connected to our NMEA bus… so the radio knows our GPS location… if you are ever in “holy shit we’re sinking” kind of trouble you just lift the plastic cover and press the red button underneath. This sends out an automated distress signal with your location to the coast guard… but…. it also triggers every other VHF radio within range to alarm (Really loud) so other boats also know you have triggered your “please save me alarm”. You key your transmit button 3 times to shut it off which then pings your location to any listening coast guard station who can order you (if you are the nearest vessel) to go rescue them.
So our VHF started screaming in response to this other vessel somewhere nearby that was in serious “come rescue us” type trouble.
I tried hailing the boat beside us to see if it was them… no answer. Then I heard the french coast guard start talking to the vessel in distress. The conversation was in french but the woman on the other end was clearly scared. I got 2 persons on board… and they gave their GPS coordinates twice to the coast guard.
They must have had catastrophic failure… they abandoned the boat and coast guard picked them up that night. Bad things really do happen to small sailboats out here in the big ocean.
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Long Night
I had Garmin InReach sat phone contact with my Texan friend Bryan who was doing overwatch for us that night and he reported the storms popping up around us looked like popcorn on the doppler radars. He said Lexi you gotta get out of there as fast as you can, there are many many storms coming for you.
We were fully exposed in the gap to the open Atlantic ocean and all the wave energy that had been building from the storms all the way from Africa. It was pitch black out in the night and the waves had plenty of energy in them. WildChild was now getting beaten up by 3 meter waves lifting us high into the air and slamming us down. These storms kept hitting us every 30 minutes or so all night long and into the next day.
Both girls were on alert in the cockpit each time.
I started to get hypothermic in my Captains uniform being soaking wet and with the cold air in front of each storm. I was shivering out of control. Elena passed me my foulie gear to put on between storms.
We were both so tired and with high adrenaline and lots of fear for company we sailed on all night like that. Long night for sure.
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The Hidden Damage
Wednesday we pulled into Fort Du France bay in Martinique exhausted. I had thought we had gotten away unscathed.
Almost…
So we are always careful to sail with the dodger window closed AND the companion way hatch closed to protect, and make sure, no water gets down below into the boat. Whether from waves splashing into the dodger or rain water.
We keep out electronics on the nav desk while sailing. It has never gotten wet down there before. I write these blogs on my Surface Pro 4 tablet which uses a detachable keyboard.
Somehow… there was so much water slamming into the dodger… from both big waves slamming in and rain so heavy it was like a fire hose of water…. somehow… water got around the dodger and around the hatch and into the ceiling. With the heel of the boat, starboard side down, and way down in the gusts… the water that penetrated the ceiling was sometimes dripping down onto the nav desk. Grrr and super GRRRRR…..
When we dropped anchor my tablet and its detachable keyboard were wet. The keyboard stopped working. I need that keyboard to write blogs for you guys. I need it to make YouTube videos. I need that keyboard to keep writing books.
How ever am I going to replace such a rare item as this way out here?
I was rather depressed at losing my keyboard. It is why this Blog is a day late in coming, I had no way to write it.
But good news dear friends… you can prepare to rejoice…
I saved it…!
As soon as I discovered the water damage I used paper towel to wipe it dry. I sealed the damaged item in a bag with rice in it over night, turned keys facing down. Then put it under a fan all morning…
and…
Hallejua praise the lord a genuine miracle has been had. I saved this here wee little keyboard and raised her from the dead..!
Insert singing and clapping villagers here as they rejoice
Yay Lexi performed a miracle. Do you know how rare it is to save electronics from Neptune…?
Score one for the good girls huh… 🙂
Now one more even nastier jump to go. Tomorrow (Friday Dec 13th) WildChild is going to make the last jump to Barbados. It is out in the open and those big waves are still dissipating. It will be 120 miles of no protection, just straight take the beating from the waves. We plan to arrive in Barbados by Sunday Dec 15th. We will see how bad the waves are. We expect to be tired when we get there.
Cheers sailor fans
. Captain Lexi
. … the tired and shaken up…