Explore Sailing Voyages in Spain 🇪🇸

Days 1 - 8: We left Santa Cruz on 12/12 and anchored 6 n mi SW at El Varadero. 25 kt NW winds overnight but good holding and moderate sea. Decided to leave the following evening but it was too early so we were caught in squalls and torrential rain during the early night. It would have been better to wait another day. The wind was weaker passing S of Roquetes and Salema but strengthen as we sailed further W to NNE 26 kt. Seas were confused at this point. By 15/12 conditions were good with NE - N 15-19 kt. For the next 6 days we had ~NE winds varying between 12 - 22 kts, sometimes gusty and with occasional squalls. The sea state depended mainly on the wind though we did have some periods with cross swells. Days 9-14: The wind gradually veered through E to SE during this period and we headed predominantly SW. we had squalls in the beginning with periods of 30 kts but mostly it was between 12-20 kt. We caught a 5 kg dorado after trailing a line and lure for a few hours. Tasted so good! We had the furling line fail on 26/12. The upper edge of the furling drum has a sharp edge which we think chaffs the line. We had taped the edge but the rope wore through that. Days 15-19: During this period we had weak E winds (5-12 kt). We experienced lots of failures of the autohelm on 28 & 29 but could not identify anything wrong. After many hours of hand steering it suddenly started working again and we had 5 days without a single failure. Days 20-24: Here we had E 15-20 kts and sailed with the asymmetric spinnaker alone. As we approached Martinique the winds weakened but we continued sailing. We were passed by a couple of tankers heading away from the Caribbean with no AIS - presumably part of the shadow fleet fleeing from Venezuelan waters! During the night of Jan 5 we could see the glow of the lights of Barbados and Martinique in the sky. We saw Martinique at daybreak and anchored at Sainte Anne a few hours later.

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