Slipping Between the Nicaraguan Banks

Sea Venture’s crew had an exciting day yesterday when the US Coast Guard decided to pay them a visit. As a US Documented Vessel, Sea Venture is subject to the Coast Guard’s whims, which included their desire to come take a gander while SV was trying to make headway south of the Nicaraguan Banks. The process slowed them for almost three hours, but the Coasties were uniformly polite and professional. Michael thought they might be using the boarding as a training exercise for the newly minted young Coasties. The deciding factor was probably Michael’s admission that our last boarding by a US official had been back in 2003 (we’ve welcomed officials from many other countries in the meantime and often the Mexican Navy — everyone of them delightful folk).

The seas and winds continued from the northeast throughout the day yesterday but lightened perceptibly, which gave Mr. Lehman more exercise as they tried to keep the headsails and mizzen filled enough to be of help. Good, dear, Mr. Ford-Lehman. We do appreciate you and your faithful service to Sea Venture.

The attached pictures show Sea Venture this morning, slipping through a break in the Nicaraguan Banks — seen here as  Google satellite images and a Software on Board chart. The green arrow shows Sea Venture’s GPS location. The red dot on the chart is supposed to indicate her approximate position. It would help if the picture were taken from the onboard computer instead of mine — then you’d see her actual position based on the GPS antenna hook-up. At least this provides a sense of the depth changes.

The problem with areas of severe depth change as you see here on the banks is that waves tend to get quite excited when something gets in their way. The banks are prone to nasty breakers, so best avoided. As you can see from the SPOT satellite positioning report, SV’s captain and crew have done an admirable job of finding that lovely deep channel between banks, next destination, Grand Cayman.

Here’s the text of Michael’s radio email from yesterday:

Well, after the Coasties left and things settled down, we ran thru a couple of squalls, but they didn’t do much more than seriously upset our sail trim. The rainfall wasn’t enough to affect the salt accumulation on the decks either. The salt has since been replenished, as we have been regularly crashing (as opposed to bashing) our way into a northeasterly wind and sea. The ride has not been all that bad.  Actually, it was much less severe than we had expected and has tempered substantially this afternoon. I’m hoping that it will continue to subside into the evening.

We are currently motorsailing with both headsails & mizzen 45 degrees off the wind. The wind wanders about, very unsteady at about 15 kts. Hard to keep the flogging from happening. Our speed has fallen off, we are averaging less than 6 over ground…  We’ll get there someday. Our deviation to the west during the USCG visit has caused us to have to head up more than SV likes.

Crew is well rested and in good spirits, all have had at least one good nap — the Captain has had 2. Currently, the Captain is standing the watch, the First Mate is taking a shower, and the deckhand is sleeping. The Captain bashed his little toe on his right foot again, it is all black & blue, swollen & throbbing. This too shall pass.

Boobies keep landing on SV’s railing. It started as game to see if we could keep them scared off, but after an hour of it we gave up, and the boobies won.

We are past the majority of the obstructions and shoal waters before we get to the channel thru the bank. The Garmin says we should arrive there at 0730 in the morning. Glad that we don’t have to try to negotiate that in the dark.

I cooked my world famous canned ravioli with Parmesan cheese for Erwin & me, Erwin did the dishes. Bernie is making veggies & noodles.

Starting to sprinkle a bit, so I’ll quit for now.