Jadamama - Leg 2 blog

Jadamama; Santa Marta to San Blas
12.00 the start at Santa Marta, wind totally contrary to the forecast saw us get a great start, but then beating, yes beating in a cat, along the coast hoping that the wind would back and we would get out into some breeze. As it turned out, later starters headed out to sea and were in a fine breeze. We eventually reached it and we’re off in a rising wind from the NE.

Rising is right, by 16.00 we had 30 kts, and by 19.00 it was 34 kts. However with 2 reefs and a full Solent jib, we were cracking along catching up on those who had got the wind first. Great sailing through the night. Nice dinner of spag bol, then into our watch system of 3 on 5 off - don’t ask!

I can proudly say that it was on Michael and my watch that Jadamama reached a new high 25.5 kts down the back of a huge wave at 02.47!

Day dawned on day 2 with much the same conditions, which was when we realised that if we kept this speed up we would arrive in the archipelago in the middle of the night and have to hang around until dawn to find an anchorage, so we put the brakes on after lunch and slowed her down.

Moss took the opportunity to do some running repairs on the lazy bag, I did my laundry and all was good.

Nice stew for dinner, then off to bed with me, as it looked like my watch would be the one to finish, as was indeed the case. We crossed the finish line of 78d 30.0’ W at 03:25:36, then headed for the western end of the Hollanders Cays.

When I awoke we were safely anchored in a beautiful cove with the sound of surf our only disturbance. Leg 2 complete. No idea how we performed in the slow bicycle race, but we will see.

Polly