Date: 14th January, 2024
Where am I?
Latitude: 17°00.9’N
Longitude: 061°46.8’W
Back at anchor in Falmouth Harbour.
How is the weather?
Winds are pretty benign right now but we are expecting heavier winds this coming week ahead of our planned departure for Santa Marta.
What am I feeling?
Anticipation is starting to build for our departure on or about 20th. We are pretty well set at this point bar waiting on our new dinghy cover which is supposed to be ready very shortly…
What has happened this week?
We spent a couple of days earlier in the week in Falmouth Harbour at anchor, having dropped off our friends Anne and Richard. This gave us the opportunity to rent a car again from D’s Car Rental by Catamaran Marina for a provisioning and laundry run and a visit to the West Indies fuel depot outside St John to refill one of our 2 6kg propane tanks (used for our galley cooker and our deck BBQ).
The weather looked good for a quick trip down to Guadeloupe, so we cleared out on Thursday afternoon and departed Antigua the following morning. The sail south, while fishless, was a lot of fun with winds gusting up to 28 knots, a little rain from squalls and speeds of mostly 8 to 9 knots. We made the trip to Deshaies Bay (the location for the TV show Death in Paradise) in 6 hours which is pretty good for Fujin. We had either one or two reefs in both main and genoa the whole way.
The sail back on Sunday was also a great ride and we arrived off Antigua just in time to see the 21-strong Oyster World Rally fleet being led out of their starting gate by the Oyster 885, Satori, in fine weather and great reaching conditions. God speed and fair winds to the fleet!
The week ahead sees our last prep ahead of departure – mainly provisioning, topping up our diesel and propane tanks, etc. Then we will be glued to PredictWind to determine the right day to leave given the 5 day weather forecast. Right now, the winds at Antigua look good for departure on 20th but we need to be more concerned about the winds predicted on arrival in Santa Marta as the winds in that part of the Caribbean can be strong given the topography of the Colombian coastline.
Fujin out!
Wishing you a fair breeze Milne family.
Many thanks, Rob!
Greetings from a snow covered Blairgowrie. Hope the wind forecast remains good for your departure and for the leg to Santa Marta.
So far, looking good for departure on Saturday, Barrie. We may stop in at Aruba on the way to break the trip to Santa Marta – depends on weather…. I hope your weather is not too brutal!