Traveling the Interstate to Tortola - November 5-15.
Dave Anderson
Cotinga’s diesel engine coughed twice and then died. It was around 01:30 on our first night out of Portsmouth. We’d been motoring SE towards the Gulf Stream, standing 4 hour watches with two on deck through the night. Mike had the fuel line switched to the second tank before I got out of the sack, but when the diesel cut out on the second line I think each of silently wondered how big and ugly this challenge might be. After Mike replaced a filter and pumped/primed the fuel lines the engine started right back up with that re-assuring motherly rumble only a diesel can provide. Clogged filter? Air in the lines? Diesel gremlins? I went back to sleep.
The route from Portsmouth to the Virgin Islands is knick-named Interstate-65 because the most popular strategy is to work the boat eastward across the Gulf Stream, into the Sargasso Sea and the calm horse-latitudes, sailing on fronts and weather systems, or motoring eastward, until you reach 65 West Longitude. Turning South along 65W (I-65!) positions you to take advantage of the trade winds when you encounter them farther South. Conversely sailing the rhumb-line from Norfolk often puts the trade-winds right on your nose when you get far enough south to get into them, resulting in a miserable beat to windward. Our attempt to sail I-65 met with mixed success. We got Eastward with minimal fuss, sometimes blasting along at 8 knots and sometimes motor sailing. We spent a few slow days in the gyre motoring and sailing and one day blended into the next. It all became a blur. About seven days out, nearing the islands and now heading south, most of the ARC fleet, including Cotinga, encountered unusual Southerly winds, forcing everyone to decide how much sailing they wanted to do in big long indirect tacks upwind, and how much motoring they wanted to do in order to get to Tortola sooner. Like most boats, we motored the last day, crossing the finish line around 20:30 after ten and a half days out. In the dark we picked up a mooring in Trellis Bay, and finished the trek up the Sir Francis Drake Channel Thursday morning as one last squall rinsed the boat for us. The ARC staff were there to catch our lines on the dock at Nanny Cay, Mike threaded the needle to bring Cotinga backwards upwind into an inside slip. Peta handed each of us a rum punch with ice, and island life took hold. We postponed Cotinga’s clean-up until Friday.
Every sailor at least wonders about sailing out of sight of land, to make landfall somewhere else, which I had never done, so for me this trip accomplished a life goal. It was more fun-afterwards rather than fun-while-doing-it, but to make this trip with such a great group of guys, on a stout comfortable boat, with great food and easy weather, was really special. Food obvious takes a central focus, and with Brian’s wife Virginia's incredible brownies, Mikes foodie-inspired cooking, and Rod’s willingness to cook in the hot and stuffy galley while healed over and getting slammed, we ate well. I hadn’t navigated a boat in the GPS era, and the GPS and electronic charts made the course plotting and reckoning easy, although uncomfortably reliant on tiny LCD screens and continuous power from the engine via Cotinga’s massive batteries. The only aspect of navigating that wasn’t easy was trying to figure out which way to go today in order to take advantage of tomorrow’s forecasted winds. We sailed on a full-moon, watched it wane over two weeks, caught fish, saw dolphins, seabirds, and Sargasso weed, swapped stories, got soaked in squalls, cursed the calm that accompanied them, drank coffee, and (most of the time) fell asleep completely exhausted.
Great post from Dave!
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