Crossing the Caribbean Sea

We decided to take the direct route from the BVI's to the San Blas Islands in Panama. The distance worked out at about 1060 NM. The first couple of days were spent sailing approx 30 - 50 miles off the south coast of Puerto Rico before heading South West. The winds averaged 15 - 22 knots for the first couple of days but as we started heading towards Columbia increased along with the swell. Day 4 & 5 were quite rough with up to 5 mtr seas and up to 30 knots of wind. We decided to track further west (50NM) out of the low pressure area off the Columbian coast which turned out to be a good move. Our friends on a 43 ft mono hull went right through it and recorded 40 knots sustaining a damaged jib and even rougher conditions. The crossing gave us a lot of confidence in Brahminy as she tracked well down the big waves and handled well overall. We recorded a top speed of 19 knots down a wave!! (not something we want to do again!) We were reefed right down on the main with no jib out at all and still made 195NM on the windiest 24 period. The rest of the voyage we averaged 7 knots and travelled 150NM per day, not too shabby! The slamming of the bridge deck could be quite scary at times with the whole boat shuddering as the wave hit but she was a solid little boat. We took 3 hour watches with 6 hours off which worked well. Sara took all her watches and she quickly overcame her fears of being alone at night on the helm in big seas and winds, she was amazing and brave and also somehow found time to bake bread with the boat rolling and pitching, what a woman!!! Scott was great with the sails and seamanship constantly trimming the sails to be safe and not stress the rigging yet cover good distance.  We were super fortunate to have him on board! So we arrived at Porvenir in the San Blas slightly bedraggled and needing a full nights sleep after 6.5 days of open sea.

The sea state as we left

Sara sleeping it off in our cabin

A beautiful sunset on the first night out

Our first fish, yummo, tuna steaks for dinner

Nice catch Scotty!

Our first ship off in the distance...thankfully not too close.

Spinner Dolphins joined us on day 3 for a few hours, they were amazing, what a blast!

We caught a yellow fin tuna coming into the San Blas, amazing Sashimi, look at the colour!