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American Spirit II - Day 13; We Made It to Isla Porvenir; January 17, 2014



For the first day in many, the wind had some north in it, making our final run for the finish line easier to handle. That being said, we finally hit a current that was completely opposite of what we've been dealing with. Instead of being on our nose, or from east to west, at an average of 2 knots for the last week; the current turned and went from west from east at 3 knots. How it does that is amazing, as the trade winds are driving the wind and waves from east to west at 20 to 25 knots. To put that in perspective, at 100 miles from our destination and at a speed over the ground of 7 knots, if we didn't account for this 3 knot current pushing us east, we would end up approximately 42 miles east of our destination. You have to use math to deal with currents, or program the auto pilot to steer right of our target to account for the left set.

With the wind now from the northeast instead of east at 20 knots, and the quartering seas running at 12 feet off our port aft quarter, we were doing some surfing. With quartering seas the boat can round up a lot, as the auto pilot is working quite a bit. That said, Mr. Auto Pilot did a great job.

At 2:17 PM Joel Heyne yelled "Land Ho!" Small mountains were seen off the starboard bow at 7.6 miles. At 4:20 PM, after looping around the anchorage for a half hour looking for a good spot to anchor, we found one in 64 feet of water. A deep anchorage. There were a dozen boats around us, most of whom are in the Rally with us. We put down 210 feet of chain, or 200 pounds worth, with a Fortress High Tensile Anchor. The Fortress and Danforth type anchors are especially suited for anchoring in sand; and a sandy bottom we had.

Dinner consisted of New York Strip Steaks, corn and bread. The steaks were cooked on our propane grill located on the aft rail by grill chef Joel.

For the first time in eight days since leaving Key West, there were no 3 hour watches at night; no rolling around on deck or in bed; no looking around for ships heading to or from the Panama Canal; and no noise except the trade winds humming thru the rigging and the open hatches of the boat.

Our KISS Wind Turbine, which Joel 'hot wired,' worked; giving us half or more of the amps needed to run the boat systems, refrigerator and freezer during the night. One of the 'boat systems' we set at night is an anchor alarm. We program the navigation system to sound an alarm if the boat changes position by a certain number of feet, say 500. If the boat moves past that 500 foot diameter, an alarm sounds because the anchor is dragging. And dragging in tropical waters usually means towards danger - a reef.

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