The weather started getting rough...

The tiny ship was tossed!

Dec 7th- What a great day! We made the passage from Fajardo, Puerto Rico to Vieques leaving at 1030 and arriving around 3pm. We took a less direct route but with fewer hazards – or so we thought.

We checked the weather report (scattered thundershowers and 12-17 knots wind). The northern skies looked “ugly” but it has rained nearly every day here and what’s a little rain? So, the inexperienced goofball sailors reefed the jib and off we went. It was really windy (more like 20-25 knots) and even with just a reefed jib, we were going about 6 to 7 knots. We kept looking at the wind and the sky and trying to convince ourselves that the rain was going to miss us when it got quickly gray and sheets of rain fell. All of a sudden we were in MUCH higher winds and 10-12’ seas. We quickly doused the sail and started motoring. Lara was at the helm and doing a great job of holding the course but water was coming over the front of the ship and once again the strains of Gilligan’s theme played in our heads… Well, our first instinct was to make a run for it to the little chain of islands (behind us) and see if we could “hide” there. The 180 degree turn was even more exciting as a wave hit us broad side but the frightening thing was Lara’s laugh, “Bwhaahaaaa! Whoopie, Yippee! This is so much fun!” I am convinced she is just a little nuts. I was less than thrilled with the rollercoaster ride. We made a run for it but realized that the speed of the squall line meant that it would be faster just to head into the wind and waves so another 180 degree turn followed by more crazy lady laughter from Lara! Fortunately the storm part of the weather was not terribly long lasting (Lara thought it was 5 minutes, Jim thought it was AT LEAST 45 minutes). However, the wind kept the waves crashing up over the bow, once again confirming that our boat is not water tight at the hatches. The forward berth got pretty wet. We kept the jib reefed to a “hanky” and made it to the western tip of Vieques. We went through a passage known as Roosevelt Roads – a memory of the historically large naval presence in these islands.

As we neared the anchorage, Lara yelled, “hard left, there is rock dead ahead”. The rock swam away – we had “snuck up” on a sea turtle.

We snorkeled in the afternoon coming upon three sea turtles well underwater – they let us look at them before gliding away. We also saw a couple of stingrays and a bunch of other fish.

We thought we were in a pretty good anchorage on the west end of the island with just a breeze and almost no waves. As the night went on, the swells started coming in from the north and the winds picked up from the east – providing an interesting motion to the boat at anchor. Then one of the dreaded squall lines moved through and we both leapt out of bed and ran over each other trying to get to the companionway to see if we were either going to blow all the way back to Puerto Rico or sink. At least this gave us a chance to practice the Abandon Ship drill (the Captain’s job is to get the life raft. The First Mate’s job is to get the satellite phone, the food, the water, extra sunscreen, the fishing rods and lures, the GPS, the boat papers, our passports and any remaining Nutter Butter Bars). Fortunately, it was a quick squall (Jim thought it was 5 minutes, Lara thought it was AT LEAST 45 minutes). This was, however, the first time that Lara has needed the motion sickness medications at night….

In the morning we got up and snooped around the end of the island a bit but there was not much to see and we’ve been warned about the thieves in this area so we didn’t want to get too far from the boat. These are supposedly a land locked version of the Pirates of the Caribbean who travel on horseback since the roads are pretty much non-existent. We kept a sharp eye out but did not spy any suspicious characters…

After breakfast, we decided to head to the south end of the island for more exploring. On the way, we tried to fish the drop off south of the island (900’ deep) but the 10-14’ seas with wind gusts above 40 knots was a bit more than we could handle. There were a few instances of girlish screams (but Lara kept telling Jim to shut up and sail!). We ended up slogging into the wind for 2 hours to a semi-protected bay with mooring balls, eating lunch and taking a nap.