Tuesday, March 09, 1999 – Underway to British Virgin Islands
G’day
Things have gone from bad to worse. The weather wasn’t all that happening over the last few days and now has just become plain ugly. So much so, that late last night we have had to change plans completely.
Seaconditions this morning heading SW (at least you can see the
whitecaps)
Fairly big swell from the aft (and photos make it always look
like a piece of cake...)
Initially, the plan was to head south east from the Caicos towards the Silverbanks which lie north of the Dominican Republic. While still in the lee (protection from wind/waves) of the Caicos banks things were ok. Then, around 10pm last night, we were closing in on the edge of the banks and the waves starting giving us all they had onto the starboard bow quarter of STARSHIP. The wind had picked up to NE 25-30kn (in gusts to 38kn). In other words, not a very smooth ride. The condition became progressively worse and so, Michael, in pow-wow with our guests and our weatherman Walt Hack (on New Jersey), had to make the hard decision to turn southwest in order to run with the waves and take the long way home so to speak. This blasted weather has therefore forced us to go all the way around Haiti and the Dominican Republic so that we can get to the Virgin Islands by early Friday and ultimately to St Martin for Sunday where Christian, Helmut and I depart from this ship.
Ugly and yet beautiful
Although I am rather disappointed, I would certainly rather do this than go through over 30 hours of big seas. For our dear guests it means that they will have spent most of their precious free time on the boat, moving. I feel very sorry for them. We will have to solidly steam for almost another three days. What a thing. Morale is still good though. We will just have to make do with wit, good food and good company. It could be worse….
Wavy regards
Rich
Michaels Comment: Weather reports indicate that
our decision was not bad after all. Conditions got progressely worse through the
night and did not easy until late yesterday for the northcoast of Hispaniola. Combined
swell and wind waves of up to 15 ft were reported. Apparently the front from the US
did not dissipate as planned NW of the Turks & Caicos but kept going. And
two more fronts are forecasted....
So far our ride around has been much smoother in the following seas. We have now
turned east on the southern coast of Haiti. Wind is down to about 10kn and we have
easterly swell that rocks as nice as the nights progesses... Michael