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Seventh day, Thursday May 27, Sail to Petit St. Vincent:

The sail from Mayreau to Petit St. Vincent

This day brought, by far, the most technical, interesting, and enjoyable sailing of the whole trip even though it was only 11 nautical miles from Mayreau to Petit St. Vincent (PSV). At breakfast we fought over the rest of the banana bread and supplemented with fruit, cereal and coffee. At 9am we pulled up the anchor and were exiting that bay at 9:05 with Woody at the helm. The wind was fair at 15-20 knots but kept edging from east towards the south east, and then to south-south-east. Once again, it appears that we had done something to cheese-off the wind-Gods, because in no time it was right on the nose.

Breaking into South Mayreau Channel between Union and Mayreau the current immediate got its claws into our hull again and began setting us hard to the west. Not wanting to commit (or believe) that we were going to have the wind SSE all day I called a short tack east back to the Point at Mayreau as close as we dared, and then another tack back SSW to cross the channel. The crew was forging into a sailing team. Woody was at the helm while Barb and Lisa tended the huge jib.

Our eastward progress was miserable, and during the close hauled run across the channel I played with the main traveler and Woody the helm until we found the right combination to maximize speed and windward progress. It immediately became clear that I’d have to crank the traveler to the windward side of the boat on every tack. Running with the main traveler in the center and letting the main tend itself was costing us 20 degrees tack-to-tack! Not wanting to get too close to Union Island and have the wind change back east I called a tack back into the channel, and then another tack SSW once we had the angle to make it between Clifton and Palm Island. On every tack the sequence was the same: Call “prepare to come about!” (aye, aye, aye from the crew), then "helms alee!", Woody would turn us through the eye of the wind, and Barb and Lisa would wait for the jib to back for two seconds and then let-fly the windward sheet in a smooth controlled manner. Barb or Lisa would then haul the big jib in on the leeward side as fast as they could, and just about the time they ran out of steam on the winch I’d have the main traveler over to windward and then jump to the jib winch and crank it down tight the rest of the way. Woody quickly learned how hard to throw the helm over. Turning too hard stops Wind Dancer almost dead, and turning too easy takes too long and you also lose boat speed. We were becoming a well oiled machine. All the tacking with the big sails was really getting us a good upper body workout!

So we ran close-hauled to Palm Island and Clifton, heading directly towards the shoal that splits the channel. The views of Clifton and Union Island are spectacular from this side. There are great craggy peaks behind the town. I wanted to shoot through the windward side of the pass east of the shoal to not give up our hard-won easting, but during the chart briefing we were advised to pass to the west, so at the last minute we eased the sheets and ducked west on a close reach. This netted us 6-7 knots of boat speed, which was exhilarating but it was burning our cherished windward progress and we hardened up against the wind again as soon as we could after passing the shoal and entering Martinique Channel.

Still on a port tack we headed SSW across the channel towards the rugged north coast of Carriacou, but we continued to give up eastward progress. Hedging my bets against a wind-shift I called a tack back to the ESE towards Mopian to get ourselves east in case the wind decided to shift east again. This wind shift, however, was not to be. On the way toward Mopian we passed a couple of sailboats with their sails furled in defeat and motoring through the gap between Mopian and Punaise into the Sound west of PSV and PM. I decided then and there that this indignity was not for us, and that if we had to beat directly into the wind through the gap then we’d give it our best shot. This was, after all, a sailboat…

So on we sailed directly towards Mopian until the gap between Mopian and Punaise was abaft the beam, and we tacked back south west again in hopes to sail through. I must have misjudged the angle or current because it quickly became obvious that we’d not make it so we tacked back south east again. Now we were just about to enter the extremely close quarters between Mopian and Punaise. Having never done this passage before I had no idea just how far we could push it into the shoals on either side of the gap between these islands. I knew I had to be conservative enough to leave adequate safety margin, but not so conservative that I left no room to maneuver and therefore had to reach the conclusion that the passage was impossible with the wind on the nose.

I’ll digress just a minute.

Navigation is a numbers game, and in close quarters the game is best played in your head in real-time. There is no time to go below for charts and pencils, and your visual range estimation ability has to be good. Is that distance 100 yards or 200 yards? Mess up the game and something goes crunch. To prepare for this sort of thing it does little good to sit down with a chart, pencil, parallel rules, and dividers and spend 15 minutes figuring it all out exactly. Quick approximate solutions trump lengthy precise solutions because with wind, current, and estimation inaccuracies things rarely go the way you think they will, and you have to react quickly and recalculate the numbers anyway. It does help to practice. Sometimes I’ll drag out the Annapolis Book of Seamanship and do the chart problems in the back of each chapter in my head. It usually amounts to: how far on what bearing for how long at what speed? How much bearing allowance do you need to account for leeway? Current? Compass variation? You soon develop rules of thumb that let you get to the answer quickly, and without resorting to paper and pencil. One knot is 100 feet per minute. One knot of cross current with four knots of boat speed equals 15 degrees of set. Leeway of a cruising boat close hauled is about 15 degrees. Out on the water, the width of your index finger on an outstretched hand is approximately 2 degrees, and the distance between the tip of your thumb and pinky finger of your spread-out hand is about 15 degrees. People with small hands have short arms and these rules work for just about everybody. One degree of cross-range angle equals 100 feet at one nautical mile. Knowing these rules of thumb it’s easy to translate what you see on the chart to what you see with your eyes. You can visually verify safety bearings without huddling over a compass or fighting with a chart and pencil in 20 knots of breeze. If the chart says you need to have a headland 30 degrees off the port bow at a range of two miles you don’t need a compass, just two outstretched hands at arms length.

So back to the gap. Here’s the quick analysis… It’s 400 yards across the gap from shoal to shoal. There are coral heads marked on the chart on the Mopian side but of course I would not trust the GPS to micro-navigate around them. Chart plotters provide excellent context but not absolutes. I figure if we leave 100 yards of margin on either side for chart and navigation uncertainties, that leaves only 200 yards of safe water, or 600 feet. One knot is 100 feet per minute, so at five knots we could travel completely across the ‘safe water’ area in 70-ish seconds. Coming through close hauled at an angle of 45-degrees we’d have a little more time… perhaps 100 seconds (approximately the square-root of 2 times 70). That is not much time. Heck, it was taking us about 20 seconds to tack! Knocking off 20 seconds to tack on both ends leaves 60 seconds of sailing time in the gap. Just barely enough. So after figuring the numbers, the gap looked small but doable. The channel would support a full tack in the middle if necessary.

So we pushed as close as I dared to Mopian, and when about 100 yards from the danger line (visually estimated and by the GPS) we tacked south west, hoping to clear the channel. However, it soon became clear we’d never make it past the south side of the Punaise reef. So now directly between the islands we pushed as close to Punaise as I dared. Waiting to call the tack I judged the distance to Punaise and the reef that I knew was 100 yards closer. In the back of my mind I was thinking that this was not the time to blow a tack and get pushed down on the reef with a headsail backed because of a winch jam. We had to do this one right. We had not bungled a tack all day so I was not overly worried. Three hundred yards out from Punais I called ‘prepare to come about!’ The one hundred yard from Island to reef and 100 yards of buffer from the reef left 100 yards to go, which at four knots is about 45 seconds. I’m standing between the main sheet winches looking ahead to Punais and then back at Woody at the helm and Lisa and Barb at the jib sheets. They all confirm “ready about.” Ten seconds from my turn spot in the water Woody looks at me and says “Don’t you think we should tack!?” I grin and think “So much for the math!” His intuition was good, and I called “helms a lee!” The fleeting concerns about bungling a tack were unfounded and we made a quick and efficient tack back to the south west and shot through the gap into “Crazy Corrigan’s Crooked Passage,” which is name of the north-east end of the broad calm sound between PSV to the east, PM to the south, and Carricou to the west. This was exhilarating sailing, but it was over all too soon.

Gliding through the calm waters we kept the sails up as long as we could - until we passed behind PSV. Only then did we reluctantly start the Diesel, drop the sails, and head towards our anchorage between PSV and PM. During the short motor to anchor I daydreamed and relived the sail from Mayreau, past Clifton, the jagged and exotic island scenery, and tacking quickly and efficiently through the gap between Mopian and Punaise. In retrospect the cursed south wind was really a gift; and our experience would have been diminished if we’d had an easy broad-reach most of the way down. We had become a competent cohesive crew on this sail, and it gave me a warm feeling of pride in the crew by replaying every tack in my mind. Pure satisfaction.

Petit St. Vincent

About 2pm we anchored in 10 feet of water off Petit St. Vincent about 100 yards north-west of the round reef that is due west of Cross Point. At the time, I’d have liked to have anchored farther west, but the anchorage was filled; and this seemed the only reasonable spot left. In retrospect I would try to anchor closer to the beach in 15-20 feet of water, though the spot we chose ultimately turned out fine. This issue with this spot was that it was right in the tidal current blasting through the cut to the south-east, and I had some concern that if the tide flipped around and started running out we’d also flip around, break the anchor out, and then we’d be hoping that it reset before we hit the reef. This warranted close attention! The current was running perhaps 1 knot, and when Woody jumped overboard after lunch to cool off he was carried about 20 feet away before he could start swimming and it took quite a few powerful strokes for him to get back to the swim ladder. More on this current later.

We piled our snorkel gear, cooler with adult beverages, and towels in the dingy, and as recommended (to avoid bothering the resort patrons) we headed west towards the beautiful white sandy beach on the south-west side of PSV. This shoreline is guarded by a coral reef that tops out only inches below the surface of the water in places. After a bit of looking we found a small gap through the reef at 12-32.1696N, 61-23.2014W and cautious picked our way in. This gap is only a couple of feet wide in places and 2-5 feet deep. It would probably be best to paddle through, though we gingerly motored through while probing the depths with oars. Once through the reef the bottom turns to sand and it’s easy to beach the dingy. We pulled it up high and tied it off to a sea-grape tree. The beach was completely deserted the entire time we were there. From here I could keep an eye on the yachts in the anchorage, knowing that as long as the boats all continued to generally point south-east I could be sure that Wind Dancer was not in any significant danger of dragging anchor.

We all donned snorkel gear and were soon swimming back out the cut to the outside of the reef. There was little current here, and the snorkeling was good. There were many fish, and I took some short videos of squid with the underwater camera. They are amazing creatures that change shape and color at will. From time to time I’d peek over at the anchorage finding that all was well. After an hour in the water we were ready for some beach time. Lisa and Woody walked west to explore the beach. Barb and I were content to float in the shallows inside the reef, and sit in the sand in the still cool water. Soon they returned, and Lisa flopped down on a towel in the shade with a book. We popped the top off of some cold beverages and I explored the area immediately behind the beach in the shade. A dirt road runs parallel to the beach which to the west disappears around a gradual corner, and to the east it passes by some open beach huts with a BBQ where someone had started a fire, presumably for an evening meal. This got me thinking about food, and it wasn’t long before the beverages were all gone and we were packing the dingy for the trip back to Wind Dancer.


The puzzle of the current

Woody grilled pork-chops for dinner on the back rail and we spend a wonderful evening under a full moon, relaxing and playing “this or that” while sipping painkillers and Hairouns. I was also keeping a watchful eye on the current, figuring that if it flipped to the west it was going to happen about 8-9pm. “This or that” is a game where you two things and then everyone else has to pick their favorite. At the end you have to name your favorite. It can be easy “blue or red” or fraught with pitfalls like “68 or 72.” This latter question was mine, and I won’t name names, but somebody asked if it had something to do with ‘positions,’ and I had to laugh and ask where their mind was! The lack of A/C had actually made me think about where I’d like to have the thermostat set if we’d had A/C - 68 or 72? You can learn a lot about people playing this game, and its lots of fun!

I mentioned my concerns about the current, and Lisa asked what we’d do if it look like there could be a problem. I said that we’d take two-hour shifts all night doing anchor watch if necessary, but I hoped this was not the case, of course. About 9pm our heading started to shift and all of the boats gradually flipped completely around 180 degrees. Hmmmmmm. Woody and I wandered forward to check things out. Interestingly, the current had gently flipped to the east-south-east, but only just so, and the wind was almost calm, and in the light of the full moon we could see the anchor chain hanging all the way down to the bottom where it made a large wide loop, ending at the anchor which was directly below us, about 8 feet aft of the bow. There was so little current and wind that just the weight of the chain on the bottom was enough to hold the boat precariously in place. I’ve never seen anything like it in all these years of cruising. This called for another round of Hairouns and further study, and then another round as we watched the boat hang there in the balance. Woody and I stood there on deck philosophizing for a good two hours, speculating on which way the boat would go, but for two straight hours she hung right there within three feet of the same spot.

About 11pm it became clear that the current would not shift hard to the east-south-east and that an anchor watch for the rest of the night was not necessary. Here’s what we came up with. All of the water coming into the sound is driven by wind or by the flood tide, and it comes in through the cut between PSV and PM – right where we were anchored. The ebb tide has to fight the wind-driven current, and essentially they cancel each other out (at least, this night they did). Therefore, there are only two apparent tides a day, about 12 hours apart, and they are both incoming tides. Very odd. We’d know for sure in about four hours… at 3am.

At about 11:15pm I was 90% certain that the tide would not turn against us so we retired to bed for the evening, me with the hand-held GPS and flashlight. I set an alarm on the GPS so that it would go off if we moved outside of an 80-foot circle. I naturally woke up every couple of hours to check the GPS and look out of the port hole to see which way were headed. Sure enough, about 2-3am the current started running in from the east-south-east and flipped us back around so that our bow was heading east again. After that I slept soundly until morning.


Mayreau to Petit St. Vincent



The town of Clifton on Union Island.


Tacking between Mopion and Punaise



Mopion



Barb and Lisa on the beach at PSV



Squid at PSV Reef