Passage to Great Inagua
Friday 14th - Saturday 15th March 2025
We departed Ocean World Marina in the DR at 7am on Friday and sailed north-west to Great Inagua, Bahamas, arriving at 4pm on Saturday. Rather than write our typical blog-style we thought we would try and capture a few thoughts about how we planned and executed this 195 nautical mile / 33 hour passage …
Departure planning: At this stage in our journey we have reached the area where we can expect weather systems to be moving off the coast of Florida with regularity, and we need to be planning two steps ahead. We selected Great Inagua as our destination because it is the southern most location in the Bahamas where we can check-in with customs and immigration … and it has flamingos. We intended to leave on Thursday morning and expected the journey to take about 36 hours, which would allow us to check-in on Saturday, hopefully take a quick tour of the island, before moving on to a location with anchorages that are better protected against the NW winds that are expected early next week. Then we found out that Great Inagua customs and immigration isn’t open on the weekends, and unless we travelled fast (which probably meant motoring the whole way) we weren’t likely to be there in time on Friday afternoon. Navy regulations in the DR stopped us from leaving earlier (Wednesday night) and so we postponed departure until Friday morning, hoping for a leisurely sail, arrival on Saturday, rest Sunday and check-in Monday. In planning our routes and departures we use Predict Wind. It uses a vast array of weather information along with your boat “polars’ (expected speeds under different conditions) to generate a specific route and expected winds and sea states. We also tell the program we will motor at 5.5 knots if our speed falls below 4.5 knots. Four different models gave us slightly different predictions of how long the journey would take and what proportion would be sailing versus motoring, but all seemed quite promising. As it turned out, winds were on average lower than we expected.
Sailing style: We were somewhere between dead down-wind or on a broad reach for the entire trip. Wind speeds ranged from 5-12 knots and the seas were around 3 feet. We tried really really hard to sail as much as we could. At times we used our mainsail and Genoa “wing-on-wing” with the Genoa poled out, either downwind or “sailing by the lee”. We also tried switching the pole over to the same side as the main when the winds went a little further forward, and then dropped the pole when the apparent wind came close to 90 degrees. When necessary we switched on the motor and ran that at low rpm just to supplement the sails. I am not a patient human being, but I tried very hard just to sit back, relax and let the wind do its job. Cotinga is a great sailing boat and even sails well in light air, particularly on flat water. The problem is that when you have a swell the boat rolls around and it’s hard to keep the sails filled and avoid them slapping around. When all was said and done we still ended up motor-sailing 2/3 of the time, which was a bit disappointing. We would have done better with our spinnaker, but it’s hard to deploy from our basement in Sudbury!
Passing the time: It’s hot and soporific in the cockpit during the day. We chat a bit, but not too much. We briefly worked on a crossword, and in the evening, when one of us was resting, the other would listen to an audio book or music. Mostly we just zone out and watch the waves go by. On some trips we see quite a lot of wildlife, but on this trip we saw relatively little - just one masked booby, one bridled tern and a beautiful white tailed tropic bird. There were quite a lot of flying fish and, of course, we tried fishing. Nothing more to say about that!
Comfort: As I mentioned, it’s hot in the cockpit and we did put up an extra shade during the day on Friday. We also wear long shirts just to help protect against the sun. At night it gets surprisingly cool and we add layers - fleece top, long pants, foul weather jacket. We did a 2-hour on / 2-hour off watch schedule during the night, and on this passage we just ‘slept’ out in the cockpit. Overall, you don’t get enough sleep and it’s a really tiring experience. This was a pretty smooth passage, but even so, there are periods when the swells kick-up and you get rolled around a bit. Working down below, cooking or cleaning up, can be a bit of a challenge because the motion feels worse down there and it’s really hot and airless. Consequently, we try and prepare food in advance and we made a ground beef, cabbage and caraway stew before leaving (which was delicious). We also ate sandwiches for lunch and croissants for breakfast. Hot coffee is a gift from God!
Traffic and Radio Issues: A lot of marine traffic comes out of Florida and heads down the northeast coast of Cuba and on past Hispanola. The area between the DR and Bahamas is a busy waterway and we saw countless large vessels. The AIS (Automatic Identification System) is invaluable. For example, we picked up one heavy cargo vessel about ten miles out from us, heading directly towards us. His AIS symbol appeared on our chart plotter as soon as he came within VHF radio range. Ten miles is a long way out, but he was traveling at 14 knots and we were sailing at 6 knots and so we would meet head-on in 30 minutes. If you ‘click’ on the AIS symbol you get all sorts of useful information such as name, course, speed over the ground and calculated closest point of approach. In this case, we chose to make a 20 degree turn to the left, which he would have been able to see on his chart plotter, and he responded by making a corresponding turn away from us and passed quite safely like the proverbial ships in the night that we were. Had we needed to, we could have called him by name on the VHF radio to discuss our plans. We currently have some unresolved issues with our main VHF radio due to interference when the engine is running (it’s fine when we are sailing). Therefore, we keep a second hand-held VHF radio in the cockpit. For the last couple of days we have also been experiencing some really loud, frequent and unpleasant noise on channel 16, the hailing and emergency channel that everyone monitors, regardless of whether we are sailing or motoring. We thought it might be our radio but another sailing vessel called us to ask us about the problem, which was also bothering them. They later told us that some research on the inter-webs had revealed that this is a persistent problem off the coast of the DR that is likely due to a faulty relay station (coast guard) that has been going on for years! Happily, we had no other technical issues during this passage.
Photography: I feel like I have already taken every shot aboard Cotinga that I will ever want to take … but it was such beautiful evening with a full moon and relatively gentle seas, that I was inspired to get out my camera and tripod. The tripod is essential as exposure times are long (30 seconds in the case of the shots below). I also used a flashlight to add extra foreground light in a couple of the photos. My life jacket is clipped in to a tether when I’m out on deck taking photos, as it is most of the time in the cockpit when we are sailing offshore.
Arrival: The last few miles seemed to go on forever. We had an anchorage planned out, but as we rounded the western side of Great Inagua the winds turned north, which was totally unpredicted by any of the weather forecasts, and so we had to go a little further to find a sheltered spot on the north side of Man of War Bay (see lat/long below). The water is crystal clear and you can easily see the bottom in 20 foot depths. We were careful to choose a sandy spot and to avoid the occasional rocks that we could see scattered around. It’s not a concern that we would bang into them as they are too deep, but we were worried that we might get the anchor chain wrapped around them. We were happy that it was still bright daylight. After squaring away the boat, we had a cold drink, took a quick swim and showered, then ate a fine meal (super spicy ramen noodles with brocolli, peppers and Korean barbecue beef) with a couple of beers, before crashing into a long deep sleep.
What’s next: We will rest today (Sunday) and then sail back to Mathew Town (~ 8 miles) and check-in with Customs and Immigration on Monday. We do not have enough time to move on from Great Inagua before a front comes through Monday night, bringing strong north or north-westerly winds. We plan to go round the south west corner of Great Inagua to take shelter behind Molasses Reef … “a vast anchorage offering protection from cold fronts for those willing to pick their way around coral heads”. Not a ringing endorsement, but at this point our choices are limited …
Mike and Gloria
21 05.030 N, 73 38.836 W
After reading your itinerary which Rod had shared I am thrilled that you completed your very long passage! Rest and enjoy flamingos in the Bahamas. Fran
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the Bahamas. Glad you made it. Sometimes they will let you stay at the dock in Matthew town if no ship is coming in
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