Sailing Dominica to St Vincent
I’m no good at goodbyes to begin with. In fact I’m terrible at them. So when we sailed away from Portsmouth, Dominica, departing was more bittersweet than I ever imagined it could be…and in some ways more bittersweet than when we sailed away from North America. Of course, we were there for 125 days, and got to know the island better than any place we’ve been so far, made real friends in the community, and in general felt like it became our second home during the time when the world went crazy. So after saying our goodbyes, lifting the anchor, and turning our bow out of the bay, I had to take a deep breath and get snap out of a reverie to get focused on the 150nm between us and St. Vincent, where a negative covid test would exempt us from any quarantine requirement and open up another beautiful country for us to get to know. Depending on the wind, we expected a 22-28hr trip, so planned for a mid-morning departure from Dominica to arrive in St. Vincent during the daylight.
Well that moment of calm and reflection was very short lived as not 1/4 mile off the anchor, we headed up into the wind, began to unfurl the mainsail, and, bam!, noticed a jam where the sail slides out of the mast. No problem, we’ve had this happen a couple times before, so we tried to correct it by furling in, changing the boom angle, changing the outhaul tension, furling out again, back-and-forth, repeat a couple times, then a couple more times, and dammit it became clear this mainsail wasn’t coming out without some more direct intervention. Argh, apparently 125 days at anchor has some downsides including things getting ‘sticky’ from lack of use and our skills getting a little rusty as well. So being the salty crew we are, we put Liam on the helm to head back out to sea under power while Megan and I had a quick discussion about how to get this still unjammed (150 nautical miles is just too far to tackle without a fully operational mainsail unless there’s truly no other option).
After thinking about it for a couple minutes, we decided the next step was to send Megan up the mast to work out the jam from up close. We were pretty confident it was being caused by one of the horizontal folding battens getting a little out of shape after sitting unused for so long and getting stuck in the slot where the sail comes out. So we were hopeful with a few well-timed wiggles she’d be able to get it moving again. The only trick was the wind was blowing about 20kts and swirling through the anchorage as it came down off the nearby mountains. It’s a good thing Megan is a tough cookie has no problems going aloft when it needs doing.
Mainsail jam underway? No problem when we’ve got our superstar crew on the job!
So with Liam still on the helm keeping us clear of traffic and other anchored vessels in the harbour, I got out the bosun’s chair and Megan and I headed up on deck to set up to lift her up to the trouble spot (about 30 feet off the deck). The hoist went smoothly as Liam headed Matriarch up into the wind and I cranked Megan up to where the jam was located. Once she was in position, I locked off the primary and safety lines then went back to the cockpit to work the furler (it’s hydraulic and very powerful) and outhaul as Megan yelled down instructions based on what she was seeing. I’m still surprised at how smoothly this all went. Liam handled the helm like a pro, keeping Matriarch into the constantly changing wind direction while keeping the speed just high enough to maintain steerage (the wind was generally offshore, so as we’re heading into the wind we’re getting closer and closer to land and the multitude of vessels anchored nearby). Megan was confident and in control while swinging around up there in the bosun’s chair working out the jam. And all three of us stayed cool and collected and constantly communicated what was happening and what to do next. Before long the jam was out, the main was flying, Megan was back down on the deck, and we were ready to go again.
One of the best parts of passage is the snacks! Megan claims her well deserved reward once we’re really underway (mmmm chips).
In Dominica Liam learned how to open coconuts like a pro. So once the chips were gone we moved onto something a little healthier!
So after that small sidebar, we again pointed the bow out to sea unfurled the genoa to go with the main, shut down the engine, and enjoyed the sweet sound and feeling of the boat under sail. The navigation for this trip was very straightforward - almost due south to pass in the lee of Dominica, then Martinique, then St Lucia, then finally St Vincent and on to our destination of Young’s Cut where we were scheduled to clear customs and our covid test. This time around, Liam was scheduled to take a daytime and evening watch while Megan and I would trade shifts overnight and during the day when Liam was off. Megan had pre-prepped food and we made sure to be extra diligent when tidying up and stowing any and all loose items that could rattle around with the wave motion. We also decided to use a quarter scopolamine patch for the kids and half for the adults just as a preventative measure - even though the sail wasn’t very long, being seasick makes an hour feel like a week. We headed almost southwest out of Portsmouth to begin with in order to put a few miles between us and the high mountains of Dominica which cause the wind to swirl and gust and die and generally be a pain in the butt to deal with. Once we were out of the island’s wind shadow, the trades kicked in and we saw a steady 15-20kts (sometimes gusting a little higher) on the beam as we turned south and really settled in. Liam took watch, we put out a fishing line, and Matriarch took off doing a steady 7-7.5kts down the leeward side of Dominica. Woo hoo, life is good!
Liam in his happy place. This kid is so comfortable underway he can never resist nap-time.
The wind built into the low 20s as we got south of Dominica and the seas with it, but the angle was perfect and Matriarch was cruising along at 7.5-8.5kts with some wave surfing pushing us up over 9kts. As the sun went down we were gaining back time on our friends from S/V Bliss that left just ahead of us, but ended up with a big head start given the extra fun with our mainsail. Megan and I both got some sleep with Liam on his evening watch, and then with all the kids asleep we settled into a 3hr watch schedule for the rest of the night. Overnight we passed Bliss and when the sun came up we had St Vincent in view.
As we approached the leeward side of St Vincent, the wind started dying and getting shifty as we got into it’s wind shadow, but we had other things on our mind as we spotted a couple flocks of birds, which usually mean fish, which in this case also meant dolphins! We weren’t in any rush since we made such great time averaging about 7.5kts so far, so we headed offshore to see if we could cross paths with the dolphin pod. We were rewarded with some very playful dolphins leaping out of the water right beside Matriarch and diving back and forth under our bow. One of my favourite things is seeing dolphins and I don’t think it will ever get old. The whole family was glued to our rail to watch them as they chased along behind us, beside us, then ultimately went back to chasing their breakfast…
Good morning beautiful! At 6am the girls were up on deck picking up the flying fish that decided to hitch a ride overnight. Unfortunately not enough for breakfast…
Soon after, the wind died completely and despite us loving to sail, Matriarch just doesn’t do well in less than 5kts of wind! So we relented and kicked on the motor to make our way around the south end of St Vincent. We got a little more sailing in as we rounded the south end of the island and the trade winds kicked back in, but this time we needed to tack directly into them instead of having them push us along. After dodging a ferry and a super yacht while tacking eastward we decided it was time to motor in, grab a mooring ball, and call it day.
Maybe it was the fast and comfortable sailing, maybe it was our more thorough preparation (at least compared to our first passage back last November), maybe it was the promise of some new adventures and the end of this passage, or maybe it was just because we are a lot more salty now, but both Megan and I got good sleep, felt well rested, and overall agreed it was probably the best sail we’ve had so far.
Welcome to St. Vincent!
Greg
