Roatan towards Key West End of Day 1

These Blog entries are edited versions of the messages we sent back as we completed the passage.  They were sent by radio using a laptop that controls a modem and the HF/SSB radio, using the SailMail system.  We sent the messages daily to my daughter Charlotte and she then forwarded them on to a list of family members.

2359hrs (CST, GMT -6) 6 May 2020


Dear All,

Suzie Too and Flyin’ Low of Poole leaving the West End mooring field first thing to move into a marina.  We’d be setting off further afield just a few hours later

So here we are off and running again.  The hurricane season is coming and whilst that isn’t an immediate threat, we need to get BV moving to be out of the hurricane belt in time.  The restrictions brought in by the Honduran Government as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic have kept us in lockdown on a mooring off West End, Roatan, in the Honduras Bay Islands for the past 51 days, albeit our remaining in Honduras was voluntary.  However, for most of that lockdown period, if we had decided to move, we wouldn’t have been allowed to arrive in any nearby countries.  To a degree that is still the case, so our plan is to transit north without stopping until we get to Key West in the USA.  Our original cruising plans pre Covid-19 had included cruising up the Belize coastline but that is just not viable at the moment; we’ll just have to come back to this part of the world to get the full experience.

Roatan slipping away behind us

For various reasons, particularly the uncertainty around the longer term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have decided to make a west to east transatlantic crossing back to Guernsey, so that we can spend some time at home before setting off cruising again.  The worst-case plan was to sail directly from Roatan to Guernsey as one passage, a distance of nearly 5000nm.  BV is all set up for that but the complication has been in finding a weather window for sailing up from Roatan, then turning east between Cuba and Florida before continuing north up the Gulf Stream, east of the Florida panhandle, to the top of the Bahamas.  Having the right conditions for that bit of the passage and then immediately continuing on across the Atlantic passing north of the Bahamas was proving to be a very rare occurrence, hence our intention now to stop at Key West.

Moody Mistress sailing out on our port quarter

Even getting going on this passage to Florida has not been easy to work.  Originally 4 yachts planned to set off together from Roatan but, after delaying a day to get more clarity of a potential Tropical Low in the Gulf of Mexico in a few days’ time, just 2 yachts have set off today: us and Robert and Carla on Moody Mistress.  We are both sailing north, hard on the wind, looking to get up to and past the Yucatan Strait before the effects of the low pressure area (now unlikely to become a Tropical Low) make themselves felt too much.  If this weather window works out for us, having repositioned in Florida, we will have a lot more options to find a suitable weather window to set off across the Atlantic for home.

As I write this, we have already lost sight of Moody Mistress but we have arranged a radio net so we’ll keep talking to and looking after each other.  The game now for both of us is to sail as fast as we can hard on the wind, getting as far east as we can, so that we are better positioned to transit the Yucatan Strait.  The wind is forecast t become a little more northerly for a while before we get there, hence the desire to make as much easting as possible, as we have no desire to slow our progress too much by tacking into wind more than absolutely necessary.  The slower we go, the more likely it is that we meet the strong winds preceding the low pressure system generating in the Gulf of Mexico.  Needless to say, we are going to be studying the weather forecasts very carefully over the next few days.

Trying to take a good picture of the moon on a
moving platform was never going to work well!
You’d normally need a tripod on terra firma
to get a detailed image – but it was a good full moon

On a lighter note, we have a full moon tonight and it’s a special one, a Super Moon – the biggest and brightest of the year.  And, the clouds that had started to cover the shy are now clearing a bit so we should get plenty of benefit the moonlight tonight, which will be nice.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky 

Passage statistics:

Position at 1030hrs 6 May: N16 18 W86 36

Position at midnight 6 May: N17 27 W86 17

1040hrs to midday distance: 7 nautical miles (average x.x knots)

Midnight to midnight distance: n/a nautical miles (average x.xknots)

Total miles covered:  86 nautical miles

Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Key West): 520 nautical miles

End of Day 1 Roatan, Honduras Bay Islands, towards Key West, USA