68. Greater Antilles

I keep meeting cruisers who are taking the more usual route – along the coast of Columbia to Panama. I met Mick and Isabel on S/Y Ondular – a very cool couple from Australia and Ecuador, sailing a really nice Beneteau 37 they bought in Tortola. Isabel’s a TV star in Ecuador. They gave me a dinghy ride into town, we went to Starbucks for some free Wi-Fi and checked the weather.

www.freeinthesea2014.wordpress.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJZUgw4xSz2qzMBds_Ah0Jg/feed

Sunset on Aruba

Passage Weather is showing big yellow blobs off Columbia, sometimes orange, instead of the usual pale blues. Windguru shows one big block of bright pink for the whole week; that's winds gusting to 35 knots. And big seas. We bumped into Keith from S/Y Cheers; they have decided to wait, go back to the US for a month and hope it’s better when they return. Ondular will chance it, try to hug the coast. I’m glad I’m headed north.

Even sailing north it’s going to be very windy for the first day and night at least, but we’ll be sailing away from it and into calmer seas. Quickly. We're leaving Monday lunchtime. In Jamaica, Windguru is showing nice pale blue and light green; 10 to 15 knots and calm seas. Hopefully we’ll arrive on Thursday.

67. Nikki Beach

View from my Port window (and my new furling line)

I said goodbye to Sally on Friday – so sad to see her fly away, we had a lot of fun. I moved from the marina, back to the airport anchorage just off Nikki Beach feeling a bit blue. Not helped by the fact my outboard needs repairing before I can use it again – the leak is now urgent. I will try in Jamaica; the Dutch guy I bought it off on S/V Jammin isn’t very sympathetic. I hope I haven’t just blown $500.

Back at the Airport Anchorage

I’m getting ready for the sail to Jamaica – paper charts and a new Garmin chip for the Southwest Caribbean will arrive soon, with new guests/crew - Paul and Ben. I will go back to the marina to pick them up. The three of us will leave once we’ve provisioned. It’s 500 miles, so hopefully three nights to get there.

Master salon

(coral cushion cover from M/V You and Me, blanket from KLM)