Saturday August 6, 2014
We had heavy rain all morning--a welcome rinse and top-up of our water tanks. We had enough internet (via Globe) to get a satellite picture and it showed clearing weather. The GRIB files also showed the winds easing a bit.
So the fleet that was holed up in Port Patuco (Mind the Gap, Heather May, Outstripp, Sloepmouche) all left Sarangani about 1pm. The current was variable and the wave action "confused" in the first 2 hours. At about 4pm we were contemplating turning back, as we were in "washing machine" conditions and the wind was up to about 15 knots dead on the nose. At one point we were only making about 3 knots. But we kept at it, and we finally got the favorable current we'd been expecting, and the wind eased and the wave action calmed down to normal.
We ended up having a pleasant motor sail under a nearly full moon, making much better time than we originally thought. We ended up right off the northern tip of Sangihe at about 8am. We were already planning a pre-lunchtime arrival in the anchorage, when we hit both wind and current on the nose as we rounded the NW point of Sangihe. The wind went from near zero to 15 kts in a boatlength! Fortunately the boat ahead of us had called back, so we were ready for the wind.
We all ended up short-tacking down the west coast of Sangihe, motorsailing against about 20 knots of wind and 1-2 knots of current. We didn't get into the harbor until nearly 3pm.
The Tourism Department of Sangihe had put out nearly 20 moorings for the visiting yachts to use. Unfortunately, we were about 12th into the bay--the fleet joining us that was part of the Malaysia Rally had arrived earlier than us and had taken all the best moorings. So it took some wandering around to find a mooring that looked good. But we finally grabbed one. We have since moved twice, trying to get on a good mooring with appropriate swinging room, out of the swell.
More on Festival Sangihe 2014 in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment