At Rum Cay we finally got a break in the weather - a large weather window of calm winds which looked long enough to get us all the way to Puerto Rico! We left after filling up all of our jerry cans with diesel as well as the main tank. Our first day out was a bit rough as the waves were still pretty high from the previously windy days. Thankfully they did calm down later on as forecasted. We saw quite a few flying fish. In the larger waves, two of them ended up on the boat, one on the side deck and one right in the cockpit! As we had most of our cockpit enclosure up, we realized that the fish must have come all the way from the front of the boat and over the cabin deck, probably as we bashed into a wave.
We arrived at Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands on the third morning, having taken 47 hours to motorsail there. Hurricane Ike had done considerable damage to the island this past fall, including wiping out fuel docks. The fuel was now being delivered to one of the large commercial docks by truck. As the weather was still great, we didn't plan to stay in The Turks and Caisos this time around, and we just wanted to quickly refuel and head out again. However, the fuel truck would not give us fuel until we checked into the country, so we waited for the customs people to arrive by car (their dockside office had also been taken out by the hurricane). As we were sorting out the fuel truck, we heard Zanadu Sea on the radio. They had left a day before us but spent a night at anchor along the way. They met up with us and also got fuel. We ended up spending a total of two hours at Grand turk, which included checking in an out of the country at the same time and refueling. We left just after lunch with Zanadu Sea following close behind. We think we will stop at Grand Turk in the T&Cs on our return trip back north as it looks like a nice place to visit. The water was the clearest we had seen anywhere. As we were anchoring, Geoff saw a ray glide past underneath our boat in about 40 feet of water!
Our trip southeast from the Turks and Caicos started out with some nice slow swell which slowly turned into an oily calm. We realized that, in these conditions, we could make the BVIs with the fuel we had, so we parted with Zanadu Sea, who were still heading for Puert Rico. Ruth was on watch at midnight (Eastern Standard Time) on the 31st, and we were at 21° 03'.880 N, 070° 04'.118 W when we passed into the New Year. Ruth quietly sang 'Auld Lang Syne' to herself as we motored alone on a dark calm ocean with the stars twinkling overhead.
On New Year's Day we had a slightly frightful experience. Both of us had been below for 15 minuutes or so - we were motoring over open ocean in calm weather. Ruth popped into the cokpit for a quick horizon check for any boats and there was a large buoy off our starboard (right) bow, just a few boat lengths away! The buoy was completely unexpected - our charts didn't show any on or near our path. The first thought was that our Autopilot had shut itself off (which it does occasionally), and we had gone way off course - but the Autopilot was fine. Then Ruth looked at the chart plotter to check our current position. This caused another gasp of shock, as the display showed a large-scale map centered on the middle of the Atlantic! It turns out that Geoff had earlier bumped the controls. We recognized the buoy as a cardinal buoy, which are used to mark shallow spots in the water. It was important to figure out where around the buoy the shallows would be. After some frantic fiddling, Ruth got the chartplotter back to where we were - there were no charted buoys for miles around. In fact, we were in 13,000 feet of water! We believe that this was a buoy that broke free from its mooring and was randomly floating around the sea. On closer inpection, the buoy showed some damage. It seemed to be missing its top portion, including its light. If it would have been dark, we would not have seen it at all. As it was, we could have easily run into it in broad daylight on a calm day - it just goes to show that you need to keep a good watch out there at all times!
As we passed north of the eastern tip of Puerto Rico, the winds started picking up and the accompanying waves followed shortly thereafter. They were, of course, right on our nose. We quickly decided that we didn't want to beat into the wind and waves as it was getting uncomfortable and we were tired, and so we changed our course back to Puerto Rico. We arrived at Mayaguez (on the eastern shore, in the Mona Passage) just after midnight, the trip from the Turks and Caicos having taken 41 hours. Making a landfall at night is difficult, and, counter to what one might think, it is made more difficult by a brightly lit shoreline. The city lights drown out the usually much smaller and dimmer navigational nights on the dark water in the foreground. There is no way we would have found the anchorage without our chart plotter. As it was, we didn't see the red and green channel markers leading us into the port until we were right between them! We anchored as best we could next to a few other cruising boats (including Zanadu Sea) to get some rest before checking in in the morning.
The trip overall was long and tiring. It took a day to get at least partially adjusted to the watch/sleep schedule. We then had a few nights of poor sleep as we were beating into the waves. Once in Puerto Rico, it took us a few days to get fully back on our feet from the lack of sleep. It was interesting that we saw mainly cruise ships out at sea on this trip (and mainly on Ruth's watch during the first part of the night), as opposed to freighters or other sail boats. We were very happy we found the weather window we did - we were able to get past a bunch of "thorns" by skipping the Dominican Republic on the way south. The DR will be easier to visit on the return (if we choose to).
For those of you that like photos: we finally have some good wi-fi and have uploaded a bunch. Click over to Flickr for our photos.
Oily calm at sea
Errant buoy
We aren't alone at sea
Flying fish
Cruise ships at Grand Turk
