Toilet fixed, but bucket on stand by.
I knew you were sitting on the edge of your seats on that one.
The day yesterday started with light winds and settled seas. Settled enough that the humans decided they wanted their indoor toilet back. Simple enough to fix. But nothing is exactly easy at sea.
We have been traveling through the shallow, but protected, waters along the north east coast of Honduras and Nicaragua. The humans admit that they were a little nervous taking a route so close to shore, but so far all we have seen is huge shrimping trawlers heading out to sea. And lots of bottle nose dolphins! The humans have given up fishing as this stretch of 20m deep sandy waters seem to have little in the way of game fish.
At dusk last night the winds started to build. Although the forecast was for settled weather, the humans felt that a squall might be coming. They double reefed the main (made it smaller, put away the Genoa and hoisted the smaller stay sail. Sure enough the winds built and a squall hit hard in the night. The winds shifted all over the place. From north east to east to south east and back again. The simple small sail plan worked well.
The sun is out now this morning. The winds have settled from the north east and building. They are forecast to get very strong tonight through tomorrow. For now we are in the protected waters of the Miskito Channel between the Nicaraguan east coast and the Miskitos Cays. Once we exit the channel we will turn south east to cross the Caribbean Sea to the San Blas Islands of Panama.
The humans have enjoyed keeping in touch with fellow cruisers through the multitude of cruisers nets in the Western Caribbean. All run by caring active sailors, they have done there best to check up on our progress each morning. On the Single Side Band Radio:
7:15am (13:15 UTC) 6209MHz South West Caribbean Net
8:00am (14:00 UTC) 6209MHz North West Caribbean Net
7:30am (8:30am Panama time) (13:30 UTC) 8107MHz San Blas Net 8:30am (14:30 UTC) 8173MHz Magellan Net
I like my peeing platforms steady, but it looks like things will be changing as soon as we leave the protection of the channel. There may be less chance of Pirates, but much bigger waves coming at our beam. I hate yucky beam seas. They are forecast to be 8 feet high. Not fun. The winds are meant to turn against us after this front blows through, so we just have to do our best to ‘ride the front on down’ to Panama.
We heard that Tony and Elizabeth on ‘Tactical Directions’ made it safe and sound into the anchorage at the Vivarrio Cays. He has the cruisers on ‘C-Level’, ‘Sea Rose’ and ‘Out of the Bag’ to help him with repairs to his electrical systems. We heard ‘Bellatrix’ on the SSB radio this morning and they are continuing south like us, but on the outside of the cays and reefs that line the coast here. We heard they are doing well. No news is hopefully good news for ‘Inca Rose’. We last heard from Bob and Debbie as they were sailing back to Guanaja with engine problems. We hope they got back into the anchorage safe and sound.
385 nautical miles to go!
