(Caribbean Sea)
To say I woke up this morning at 3am totally jacked to set sail would be a beautiful lie. To say I went to bed mildly terrified and woke up solemnly committed to our geographical goals would be more on point.
There were a combination of moments that were adding up to my present dread. I could still picture Sailor Philip pointing way too far up in the air as he described the height of the waves that frequent offshore Colombia. A word banner of “5th Worst Seas in The World” ran continuously through my head since Greg stupidly mentioned the fact. (A fact I have yet to verify and doubt I ever will, as then I’ll certainly see the whole list and just add to my psychosis.) And then there’s the weather forecasts. Our planned weather window to arrive in Colombia on Monday was still holding, but we were undoubtedly going to hit high winds, open water waves, and there was now a rain cloud we were hoping to dodge.
As we got underway and the sun rose and the last chunk of land receded behind us; I found myself utterly calm and completely okay with where we were headed. I could compare it to standing on the edge of a cliff jump. If you continue to stand there, over-think it, and talk yourself into worrying about it, you might not find the nerve to jump. Best to just walk up there and send it. We had spent a lot of time planning and getting ready to jump – not that I’d take it back, we were well prepared – but it was definitely time to jump and we both felt a lot better because of it.
(note: the whole cliff jumping analogy obviously doesn’t pertain to Gregory, he starts running five steps back and sees the edge only has he sights it mid-gainer flying through the air)
The weather images below are taken from passageweather.com. So far this has been our go-to for sailing weather. I’ve captioned them for what little weather insight I could offer. In anticipation for high winds we set out with a double reef in the main and the jib. The Canadian in us quickly dubbed this the Double Double. Before lunch though we shook out a reef in the main and had the jib flying full. I guess Oceanna was happy to finally be going in a straight line!
Our last mound of land for the next 2-3 days. Next land we’ll see is Colombia!
The wind we were setting out into. As soon as we got below that southern point of the Dominican Republic we were expecting speedy winds.
I was looking forward to our first night out, as the winds looked to calm.
Conditions forecasted for around the time we planned to make landfall in Colombia.
Wave direction shifting from NE to SE as we travelled South.
A little (or big, depending how you look at it) green dot we were hoping to avoid.
