On Passage to Turks & Caicos - June 12-15

The Gods were definitely smiling on Quantum Leap Thursday morning when they decided to hold their breath, making getting off the dock, the subject of much anxiety, a non-event.  Then they started to exhale again as we rounded to corner and started our 440 miles sail To Providenciales, Turks. & Caicos, and we took off sailing fast!

All I can say is conditions have been just about ideal.  Settled weather, full moon nights, and with the wind astern blowing 15-20+ knots, we set the whisker pole up for wing-and-wing sailing and  haven't hardly touched the sails for two days!  There hasn't even been hardly any ship traffic to stress over!

This morning, one day out of Providenciales, there was no way to work the math that would make it come out any way except our arriving tonight in the dark.  So, much as it pained us to do so, we took in all sails except for a handkerchief of staysail, the only way to slow the boat down enough (4.5 knots!) to allow us to arrive after dawn.  This has made for a very relaxing day.  I've been writing, Bette has been practicing her classical guitar, and Don and Tom have replaced a water pump.  

Thank you Mother Nature!

2am, Sunday a.m, June 16

Didn't I thank Mother Nature above?  Didn't I say nice things?  Well!  When Don got up for his midnight watch, I woke to such slamming as to truly shiver one's timbers.  The wind had increased to nearly 30kts and the seas rolling up behind the boat were at least eight feet.  Lying in my bed, I could hear   great wads of incompressible water squeezing its way in between the two hulls, building up to punch the bottom of the bridge deck with a sledge hammer like crash, making my berth thump and leap and rattling everything in the galley overhead!

I got up and sat up with Don through his watch until 2am and he staying up with me through my watch until four.  on the Chartplotter we could see the boat on inching its way northward along the blue blob that is the Turks and Caicos Bank , and we kept hoping that once it was abeam there might be a little Lee effect.

By the time we went below and Tom came up at four, the winds had dropped bit and the seas likewise, so that the slapping thumps were only occasional and not every sixty condos.  We we're both able to fall asleep.

When we came up after sunrise Quantum Leap was already over the bank.  The water surrounding us having gone from deep blue to emerald green.Tom said that the moment the boat crossed the wall from out-of-sounding range depths (thousands of feet) to the very shallow (10-12') was one of the more mind-boggling moments in cruising!  As the sun rose the water over the sand turned the aquamarineof travel posters.

There was evidence on deck of our rough night...flying fish caught in mid-leap and now petrified.

We still had some 12 miles to travel to raise the low island of Providenciales, the water getting shallower and shallower.  We finally dropped the hook in about six feet of water well outside the South Side Marina....even with a catamaran that only draws 4.5, if is hard to adjust to anchoring with only a foot or two under the keel.  We are not getting much protection here from the wind, and the boat is jostling a bit.

After last night, however, it feels deliciously smooth.  Nap time before officials this afternoon.