After all the lighting storms and motoring through light conditions off the coast of Haiti, we arrived at the Windward Passage. New coastal fronts had been building from the early morning on. The first one had ones of those scary looking clouds like a pillar to the sky. We had no choice but to go through so we switched our VHF and AIS off, removed the antenna connectors, battened down the hatches and motored through the heavy rain, lightning and only 20 knots of wind.
The second system was not developed as far and we only had light rain.Thirty minutes later we hear thunder behind us and the system was black down to the water. The 3rd and 4th systems were in stages of forming and never bothered us. Next issue was that wee found ourselves motoring into a NE wind that was increasing, as was the waves. This greatly slowed us down so you either have to go full out with the diesel or start sailing. We decided the latter and started tacking (!!) up to the Windward Passage. Looking at the GPS tracking page, it's only updated once per hour, but you can see the tacking in there.
When we could clear the east point of Cuba and almost the TSS (traffic separation system) right in front of it with many freighters rounding the point, we went for it. The wind angle did improve some but the equatorial current absorbs any advantage you think you have and we found ourselves fighting for easting once again. Halfway up to Great Inagua, the current was just west setting instead of south-west (into the passage) we got more speed which helped. When the wind angle improved more, we used it to easy the sails a bit for speed and comfort instead of more easting because one just can't point into those waves and expect to come out undamaged. The weather forecasted 5 feet waves but they were 8 feet with many 10 footers and just for fun some 12+ foot waves thrown in. Those wreaked havoc aboard and we will need to re-organize most cabinets because everything was thrown about like in a tumble dryer.
Arrival in Great Inagua was smooth. We had reports about improvements done in the government basin and found them to be great so we're tied to a dock right now for $10/day including wifi access. Good deal :-)
This is a Far East as we go this year so from her on it's all downhill easy sailing!
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