Interior of boat after getting things cleaned up in Isla
The head. 'Nuff said.
After the "good" omen of seeing Space Shuttle Endeavour blaze a fiery path across the night sky, I settled back into my usual spot at the helm and watched the gps track our progress for the last 50 miles to Isla. It was a bit strange because according to the gps we were only progressing about 1 kt/hr and the wind had actually picked up and the seas were going by quite swiftly so I was expecting us to be travelling at least 5 - 6 kts/hr. Something wasn't right. I decided to hold course and thought it was something flukey that would eventually be gone. Stan came up for his shift a couple hours later. We still had the same problem but just decided to keep holding course to get through it as I headed down.
It was always nice going down to sleep for 4 hours. And by sleep I mean short naps you would try to squeeze in between getting violently shaken by large waves waking you up just to hope something from the opposite wall of the boat didn't fall straight down on you. The Baba 30 is an extremely sturdy boat and is designed to make it through almost anything...as long as you can stay aboard.
I digress, usually after "sleeping" for 4 hours, it was nice to come up and see the progress we head made. Hopefully 20 miles. When I came up the sun was rising and I looked at Stan hoping to see a face of encouragement but instead he looked at me with the same face of bewilderment I had when he took the shift from me. He also added a bit of desperation for emphasis. We both sat there staring at our spot on the gps that hadn't moved in over 6 hours. After digging through a few maps and charts we realized we had hit the northward flowing Yucatan current at full force. This was a stretch of water mother nature put together that could only be overcome by sleek racing yachts or cuban smugglers in cigar boats. We were neither. With a current travelling at least at 4 kts/hr and a wind to help it out, a boat with max hull speed around 6 kts/hr under best sailing conditions, which we were far from, and using the motor, around 5 kts/hr....well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what we were up against, so I'll let you do the math.
We decided to drop sails and just try to motor through thinking the sails were causing a bit of unwanted pressure in the wrong direction. Again we were scoffed upon by Misses Nature. At the time it seemed like she was taking all her pent up frustrations from the way humans have treated her in the past out on us. A 30 ft boat with 2 guys who were doing a crossing for the first time in their lives. She would make us remember this one. We scratched our heads trying to think of a way to get across these last 50 miles. I kept picturing us getting pushed out into the endless expanse of the Gulf with no choice but to head north and me ending up back in Houston. 1.5 months of travelling. 800 miles by sea. 600 miles by Greyhound Bus to end up back where I started. Priceless.
The most reasonable option I saw was to choose a more westerly route that allowed us to at least inch across the current and then head directly south once across it. Stan concurred. We turned our bearing from 190 to 240 and held for a while. After a couple of hours we could see progress. 2 - 3 kts/hr but it was progress. On top of our directional shortcoming these were also the roughest seas we encountered. Without sails up for good forward pressure, the waves seemed to use us for batting practice and were calling their friends in from all directions to take swings. Auto pilot was useless in these conditions so Stan and I had to take 30 minute shifts fighting the helm constantly to keep any sort of bearing. Finally after about 4 hours of tag teaming this never tiring opponent, we felt we had made sufficient progress to try a due south heading to the northern tip of the Yucatan. Wind was in a good direction so we put up the sails, turned off the motor and were able to head south at about 4 kts/hr with the wind vane in use but still rough seas. Now with that 12 hour delay behind us, we could be in Isla just after nightfall finally enjoying a cold Mexican beer.
Or so we thought.....
PS - Since this was a rough part of the journey, taking pictures was not at the forefront of my mind so I included pics of the boats interior to give you an idea of where we were living for the past 4 days. Actually, being mostly on starboard tack, meaning the boat was heeled over about 20 degrees to the right most of the trip, we took turns "sleeping" crunched up on the right lasserette (couch). In the picture above, we have re-stacked our gear there back at the dock. During the trip it was all over the floor and other places. Somehow a jar of jam made it's way from the refrigerator compartment to my zippered clothes bag and a pair of underwear ended up in the oven. It was like the boat was possessed by Houdini.
