Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

This has been an eventful 24 hours. Shortly before the morning net I took the garbage in and tried to collect water. The water at the dock was not on so I had to return after the net. At the same time I washed the inside and cloth of the dinghy. Back on the boat we raised the dinghy and prepared to leave.

Our first stop was the dinghy dock. When Helen raised the anchor we realized we had a bit of a problem. The loop of chain dangling down from the bridle had caught on some ancient anchor shaped like a large safety pin. I had to lower the dinghy again and get round to the front and get a line under it. Gerald and Dianne came along to help as they were out in their dinghy and saw we were in trouble. We managed to free ourselves but in doing so got ourselves and the nice clean dinghy covered in muck.

Refueling went ok and soon we were off. Outside the bocagrande entrance we anchored in shallow seas to scrape the barnacles and clean the boat. There was a bit of a swell and this induced nausea in both of us before we had our jobs finished and were off.

The winds were quite light initially. For a while we motor sailed with main and jib. Later we hoisted the Code Zero. Shortly before dusk we discovered a largish fish on the port line. I think it was a barracuda but I can’t be sure as we lost it after having reeled it half way in.

We made good time going into the evening and I decided to leave the Code Zero up for the night as we had done previously. We encountered Western Trident, the seismic survey ship, again and this time decided to head a little north and pass it’s bow. Disengaging the regen for extra speed we were running along between 8 and 9 knots often going above 10.

The winds were stronger than we’d ever had the Code Zero up before but the seas were settling and the sailing seemed fine. This was to end. During Helen’s 11 to 2 shift the Code Zero blew out in a gust and turned into tatters. Helen woke me and we began to tie the tattered sail to the life line as we lowered the remaining pieces. Fortunately we had no knock on issues and we were able to bag the shreds of sail without further mishap. We let out the jib to continue the downwind sail. As we’d made such good time on the Code Zero we put a reef into the jib to be on the extra safe side. Our ETA was still pretty respectable – all rubbing in the mistake of leaving up the Code Zero in too stronger winds. I had been lulled by the seemingly easy sailing and the 2kW of regen we were accomplishing. The only good news out of this is learning this lesson before we head out into the Pacific. We’ll need to replace the sail – I doubt it can be fixed. We’ll certainly be more cautious with the next one.

This morning light shows us seas more reminiscent of the North Sea rather than the Caribbean. Grey, grim, mixes seas. The sky is overcast. We’re both tired. We both got soaked from pooping waves overnight. We’re both looking forward to landfall sometime tomorrow morning.

Day 3 was much like day 2 only less remarkable.

We managed to jibe the Code Zero at dusk much more successfully than the previous attempt. We caught no fish. Unlike days 1 & 2 where we saw some commercial traffic, day 3 we saw only the occasional blip on the radar.

Our correct distance for day 2 was 133nm and day 3 we covered 147nm. Our current ETA for Cartagena is between 7 & 8pm. We reviewed our notes on entering the bay and are confident it can be done at night so we’re going for it. There are two entrances. The northerly entrance is mostly a sea wall with a red/green pair of buoys marking the entrance for small craft. It is not clear if these work. Nearly 5nm further to the south is the main shipping entrance. We’ll approach the northerly entrance and assess. If it is clearly marked we’ll enter there, otherwise we’ll take the longer route.

This morning we jibed again putting the wind off our port side. So far we’ve spent all but a scant few hours with the apparent wind within 10 degrees of our stern. Until now, jibing has been more precautionary prior to dusk to ensure possible wind shifts don’t push us in the wrong direction. This mornings jib was coincident with our turn more to the south. We’re on our final leg down to Cartagena.

Waking up this morning it feels a lot more muggier and close. The weather has been fantastic so far. The only rain we’ve seen were a few squalls on day 1 4nm-5nm to our north. Hopefully it will remain that way.

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At 11/16/2009 12:59 (utc) our position was 11°16.79’N 075°16.45’W