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Limerence Update #46Passage to the Caymans via Colon PanamaNovember 2002Lat.9d20N-79d54W Temperature 88d
One of the things we underestimated about cruising is the amount of planning required to make passages at the "correct" time of the year. Weather patterns are predictable, and the conditions one encounters are dramatically different every few months.
We want to get Limerence to Florida, so decided to make a five-day passage from Cartagena to the Cayman Islands. The Caymans are somewhat off the typical cruising circuit, but lie just south of Cuba and make a convenient rest stop on the way to Florida. We tentatively circled the third week of November and began making our plans. We emptied the diesel fuel tanks and put in all new fuel, changed the filters, and checked the engine to make sure we wouldn't have any problems. All systems were go. . .radios, GPS, batteries, water maker, anchor/windlass, charts and cruising guides. Limerence was sparkling clean, and in top condition. The boat was stuffed with supplies and gifts for our families. We were excited and ready to go.
The last week was filled with dinners, parties, and farewell meetings. We took pictures of our friends from Club de Pesca and Club Nautico, and ate one last time at our favorite restaurants. We had several days of parties with Cindy and Gregg on ANGEL, and their guests John and Sue. We cried as we waved goodbye to ANGEL when they sailed north to Jamaica. Other friends left Cartagena and headed west to the Bay Islands of Honduras, or to the San Blas Islands off Panama. Meanwhile, new cruising boats came in everyday to Cartagena from Aruba and the Eastern Caribbean. November is a time of transition.
After checking out of Colombia, we sailed twenty miles southwest to the Rosario Islands. We wanted to shake off the cobwebs from sitting in a Marina for hurricane season, and test all our systems. We dropped anchor in the pristine islands, but discovered on the way that our radar wasn't functioning. DRAT! Radar is mostly essential for entering harbors and monitoring ship traffic, so we decided we would continue on to the Cayman Islands without it and repair it there. We received an email from our son Jason and wife Deb. They had made plans to surprise us for Thanksgiving by meeting us in the Caymans! We were thrilled! Doug downloads weather forecasts from Miami every day through the Winlink ham radio, and provides reports to the cruising community on the morning Panama Connection Net. After lying at anchor for four days, we decided the weather conditions looked good for our 630-mile passage to the Caymans. Before leaving, we took at quick walk around a small island where the Great Frigate birds were nesting. November is mating season and the huge black males sported red gular pouches the size of soccer balls to attract females. Later, as the frigates soared overhead, we weighed anchor in brilliant sunshine, and sailed into the sparkling blue Caribbean.
It felt wonderful to be underway again. We munched on ham sandwiches and watched the islands disappear behind us. Within a few hours the winds began building and we noticed a strong sideways current pushing us west. The sea and wind conditions along the Colombian coast are among the toughest in the Caribbean and we expected heavy seas. Everything was secured below on Limerence. Food was prepared and easy to access. The salon bunk was made up, we rigged our jack lines on deck, and our lifejackets and tethers were in the cockpit. Around four o'clock in the afternoon the wind began gusting higher and Doug clipped on his tether and went forward on deck and set a double-reef in the mainsail. Limerence was bashing along in waves about eight feet high coming at us at 40 degrees off the bow. I had taken 40mgs of Stugeron was not feeling seasick. It was getting difficult to move below and but we were comfortable in the cockpit. The full moon rose at 6pm as the winds built to twenty knots and Limerence's bow continued to crash into the seas. We fell off our course slightly west to ease the pressure. Our Semrad autopilot kept us on course as we huddled under the dodger to avoid the constant spray. Friends on ANGEL endured these kinds of conditions for two days as they worked their way north to Jamaica. We had been warned! As the evening wore on the winds increased to a steady 25 knots, and the waves grew larger occasionally breaking over the dodger. Fortunately, Limerence is very dry below and we had no leaking ports or hatches. It became difficult to move about, and we held on like monkeys when one of us retreated to our bunk to try to sleep. The creaking noises and shrieking of the wind sounded frightening. The sideways current kept pushing us hard off course to the west, and we had to continue to fall off to ease the speed of the boat. At one time Limerence was crashing forward at over nine knots and we decided that the speed was too high, and fell off more. We needed to keep a scrap of jib out to maintain steering control of the boat, but couldn't slow the boat speed without falling more and more to a westerly course. The winds began gusting to 35 knots and the confused seas were breaking all around us. We didn't want to go on deck at night to put in a third reef. Limerence was struggling with seas, winds and currents, coming from different directions. By midnight conditions were so strong we felt like a speeding freight train. We decided to relieve the pressure and head downwind with a flattened mainsail. We finally slowed to six knots with an eight-foot following sea. Yikes. We were headed west to Honduras not north to the Caymans! We continued on this course but would reassess our situation in the morning. At dawn we pulled up the weather report on the computer. The cold front we were watching across the Gulf of Mexico had accelerated, and was forecasted to be on our course line within 48 hours. This was a new development in the weather. We talked about putting a third reef in the mainsail, turning back on course to the Caymans - beating into the seas that had followed us all night. We discussed how much we missed our radar, and the fact we were in a part of the Caribbean with lots of ship traffic headed to the Panama Canal. We were concerned about the storm conditions approaching the Caymans. Taking all into consideration, we decided to sail on to Panama, make our radar repairs, and lick our wounds. We would miss our family reunion in the Caymans, and we longed not to make the decision to abort our mission. The next day and night we were more comfortable with the wind behind us. The seas remained large and confused as we bashed and careened our way to Panama. We were keeping a sharp lookout for ships and eight passed us about four miles to the north. We talked to several ships as we were paralleling the shipping lanes. They said they could see us clearly on their radar. We knew they were around even before we saw them. We were using our CARD system that is a radar detection system and a back up to our radar. CARD stands for Collision Avoidance Radar Detector. It did the job to give us a measure of security and we relied on it to help us spot the ships. We spent an easier night at sea and expected to enter the Canal Zone in the early afternoon on Thursday, despite the 1-1.5 knot counter current now coming at us along the coast of Panama. Our boat speed was over six knots, and the speed over the ground was less than five. Within twenty miles of the Cristobal Port serving the Panama Canal, we hit a wall of surging breaking waves coming from all directions like a washing machine. There were heavy clouds in the distance and lightening strikes within several miles. Hopefully we would get into the Canal anchorage before dark and before the storms. No such luck as we were tacking and motor sailing in strong counter currents. At one time our boat speed as measured by our GPS started decreasing to a point where it measured -.1 over the ground. WHAT? Doug thought the GPS had failed because our boat speed in the water was 5.5 knots. It was like walking on a treadmill - going nowhere. Changing direction of the boat to a new heading, the speed resumed, so we now had proof that we were in a very strong current. We later learned that the ocean bottom contours in this area caused upsurges and strange currents. What a lesson! We clawed our way slowly through the currents and finally approached the harbor at 7:30 pm and tried to distinguish the entrance of the Panama Canal. The lights of the Canal, ships, tugs, and buildings, looked like a Christmas tree! We were tracking our position on our computerized navigational system, and it showed Limerence poised at the entrance to the Canal in the correct position. I went to the bow with a hand held radio and directed Doug at the helm as we inched our way into the opening. We followed a huge cargo ship and the clearly marked buoys down to the anchorage known as the FLATS. Gratefully we had been here last January and remembered the harbor. We dropped anchor after 9pm and heaved a sigh of relief. After many tense hours of concentration, we were exhausted. Our nightmare, however, was not going to end. The winds kept building and within several hours our GPS anchor alarm system went off. Limerence was dragging! We dashed on deck, and Doug started the engine. I pulled up the anchor with the windlass and we moved forward several hundred yards and dropped anchor again with more scope, as it started to rain heavily. We watched our position for a while from the cockpit, confirmed we were not dragging, and retreated back to bed. At 3am our GPS alarm went off again, just as Carl and Sarah of "My Dream" began blasting their horn and shining a high-powered light in our windows. We were dragging again and coming down their boat. It was raining very hard now and the wind was steady at 25 knots producing 3-4 foot waves in the protected anchorage! The FLATS are notoriously poor holding and we were slowly dragging anchor through the sticky mud. Two other boats were motoring around us in the process of re-anchoring also. We circled and found a new position behind the fleet and re-anchored, letting out 200 feet of chain in 25 feet of water. Our depth finder alarm kept going off as we orbited and found ourselves in less than ten feet of water. We decided to re-anchor one more time and pulled ahead several hundred yards. Down it went. As Limerence strained and pulled on the anchor in the strong wind, Doug decided to stay at the helm with the engine on and monitor our position. We were precariously close to shoaling water. We just couldn't trust the anchor and the conditions were such that we couldn't re-anchor reliably. Doug was at the helm, in the rain, for almost three hours. By dawn, the wind subsided slightly and we re-anchored once more, letting out 275 feet of chain. That did the trick.
During the day on Friday we watched most of the fourteen anchored boats around us drag and reposition themselves. It was an awful day with high winds and seas in the FLATS, and lots of people on deck struggling to anchor safely. In the afternoon we did anchor one more time to distance ourselves a bit more from the fleet. We were exhausted. The conditions remained heavy through the night on Friday and we slept fitfully. Saturday the winds eased to fifteen knots and our nightmare was over. We cleaned up the boat. After a grilled steak dinner with red wine, we fell into bed and slept soundly. We emailed our kids the sad story of our adventure, and they assured us they would go on to the Caymans without us. Hopefully they had a wonderful second honeymoon. We are now at the dock at the Panama Canal Yacht Club. Our radar is repaired and other minor jobs completed. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a traditional turkey dinner in the restaurant of the Club. It was delightful sharing stories with old friends we never thought we'd see again soon. . . Deb and Rob on CAVU, and Kris and Erwin on DUTCHESS.
We hoped to continue our trip to Florida within two weeks, but the dreaded northers continue to come down into the Caribbean. The experts at the National Weather Service show little relief in the weather patterns for a 1200-mile passage to Florida. Winter started early this year! Most boats here in the area waited as we did, for brief weather windows. All long distance cruisers finally gave up and postponed their passages north. We have decided to use our time now to return to the States for a two-month visit. We will move Limerence north in the spring. There is no doubt. The sea is THE BOSS. It is easy to say in port, "We'll just leave now and tough it out". Sometimes, the sea decides to give you a lesson in humility.
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