Mikes passage notes.
As Meggie swings quietly to her anchor in the beautiful Island of Guanaja, Honduras, Kylie and I are not only overjoyed about what a picturesque and remote place that we have sailed into but also about the fact that we have just sailed clear across the Caribbean sea via two stops along the north coast of Jamaica. The first stop at Port Antonio and then a rough as hell 96 Nautical mile overnight run west ward to Montego Bay.
Curacao to Honduras via Jamaica was a total distance of 1145Nm, or 1315 road miles, or 2175km. This was in less than a month. The passage from Jamaica to Honduras wasn’t quite as easy going as Curacao to Jamaica was. We certainly saw the seas many different faces during our 4 nights and 4 days at sea. We left Montego Bay in the evening only to find a rough and confused sea due to the wind blowing against a counter current, nice start eh!, but once off shore and away from the coast the sea settled into its own rhythm. The next night brought something unexpected as we had to motor sail in less than 10 knots of wind for 12 hours. The third morning we watched uneasily as a giant dark and nasty cloud bank gained on us, constantly increasing in size and gaining strength until we were surrounded. Inevitably the system caught up to little Meggie and unleashed its fury. It was noon and we were 300Nm off shore. We quickly dropped the pole and secured the Yankee (outer head sail) to the bow sprit, as we were running down wind at the time. We then altered coarse, broad reaching to the north west, this tactic helped us not to loose any miles but would also keep us on the outer fringe of the storm system. This was an exhilarating hour or so as we had 25 - 30 knots of wind and a favourable current. With sails reefed right down Meggie carried 7 - 8 knots and once hit 10 knots of boat speed. Soon the seas grew too large and we were forced to bare off, running before the wind heading west, southwest once again.
It was not long until we were running under double reefed main sail alone trying not to sail too fast and keeping things in control. The system lasted all night and by 2:00 am the seas had grown to a height of one full story, that’s 10 feet or so from trough to crest pushed by 25 - 35 knots of wind. Oddly enough, we felt like someone was watching out for us because there was often a clear patch of sky right above Meggie. All things considered, Kylie and I were rather comfortable, often saying the odd ”holy S*%!” look at the size of that one eh! . You cant expect to get perfect weather while passing through the middle of the Caribbean sea. But this was no problem, it was nothing more than a rough night at sea, and above all a great chance to test ourselves and our little boat in the big tank. Meggie s hull design is very impressive, her (reserve buoyancy) and raked transom allowed her to lift her bum to each passing wave as it roared and hissed white and phosphorescent sea water towards her. She then cut and flared the waves away with her mid ships and bow section as the waves over took us. She never let a single wave enter the cockpit only a little spray. Timmy, our wind vane also did a great job of steering, only occasionally needing a little help to bring her back on coarse in the gusts and on certain waves. (this may have been my own fault as I didn’t switch to the heavy weather vane) It is extremely difficult and tiring to steer in those conditions. The rest of the passage was fairly moderate with 20 knots and comfortable sailing allowing us to catch up on some sleep. We made land fall on Tuesday afternoon in beautiful Guanaja. Very happy to be in Kylie made a nice curry dinner and we finished off the last of our Jamaican red stripes. The only tragedy was no fish were caught.
Mike.
Hi everybody. This is Kylie now. So there is no need for me to go into any detail about our sail to Guanaja. I was really glad to get here. Not only does this mean no more longer passages until we leave Mexico for Florida and that’s only 250 miles, but we are now in Central America which is ours to discover.
Our last day on the sea, we were pushing Meggie as we needed to get into Guanaja before dark as you have to enter between reefs and it‘s not somewhere you want to mess around in the dark…if we hadn‘t of made it, it would have been another night at sea going nowhere!!!! We sailed her hard and entered through the cut in the reef around 4pm and we were both in awe at how beautiful this island is. We had no expectations upon arriving in Guanaja, we thought we would stop briefly and then carry onto Roatan. What a pleasant surprise Guanaja is and we are in no rush to leave. We anchored at the town, which I have to tell you about.
This town must have started with a few buildings on a small island and as it grew the houses and stores were built upon stilts over the ocean floor. So as you wander the street you cross over canals and little bridges. Now I don’t want to mistakenly paint a picture of Venice, because it isn’t anything like Venice, not nearly as pretty, but as equally unique. Once we had finished checking out the town we carried onto a well protected anchorage, El Bight in time to hunker down for the approaching cold front.
We haven’t had to deal with cold fronts since we were in the Bahamas over 2 years ago, so this was interesting. We were confined to Meggie for 2 days as the cold front passed, but it was a chance to catch up on some sleep and some cleaning up. In the time we were anchored at El Bight we were attracted to (the only) bar there. A bunch of excellent people were at the bar consisting of Germans, Americans, Hondurans and some Canadians and we were immediately drawn to these people and to this island. They invited us to a low key pot luck Christmas dinner/party, so we decided to stay! We’ll probably stay through New Years too, we love it so much.
We met an American, named Gar from Alaska who has been here for 10 years and maintains some hiking trails, so he took us on a 5 hour hike to the highest peak in Guanaja, Michael’s peak standing at about 1400 feet. The views were unbelievable and because Guanaja is covered in pine trees, it really felt like we were hiking at home, except it was MUCH hotter and one other difference is of course there is NO SNOW!!! Heehee. Most of the pines were destroyed in the devastating Hurricane Mitch, 10 years ago. The cat 5 hurricane slammed Guanaja for 2 whole days! However the landscape has come back amazingly with new pines thriving well.
From El Bight, we sailed up to Grahams Cay, a whopping 2 miles east and as we dropped the anchor all alone in 7 feet of gin clear water, the sun displayed the numerous shades of blues and greens that surrounded us. Grahams Cay is protected by a barrier reef that is host to beautiful live coral and numerous fish, turtles and our new pets that hang around our boat…squids.
The Cay also has an awesome little resort on it, very low key but very beautiful. An open aired bar that sits on the beach surrounded by palm trees and beautiful blue water as a little Spanish music plays in the background….awesome. The bartender is happy to give us free water, free ice, free laundry wash and free internet…what more could a cruiser ask for?So now we are just hanging out, enjoying our surroundings and getting ready for our big pot luck on Christmas day.
At least we’ll be together this year and if we can’t be with family, we’ll be surrounded by new friends.We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and we hope the new year brings you nothing but good fortune, good health and above all absolute happiness!
Feliz Navidad,
Kylie, Mike and Meggie
PS...some animal buddies...
