Roatan towards Key West End of Day 2

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) 7 May 2020

Dear All,

Ironically, very soon after pressing ‘send’ on yesterday’s missive, Blue Velvet entered an area of strong adverse current.  It was a swirl down off (I think) the Equatorial Current from where it splits with a part feeding northwest up into the Gulf Stream a bit south of Cozumel and a part (our adverse current) feeding down into the corner where Belize, Honduras and Guatemala all meet, before turning north along Yucatan Peninsula. Our adverse current was quite a lot stronger than we had anticipated and we spent most of the night juggling BV’s sailing angle to the wind with speed over the ground (SOG) but failed to make anything more than 5kts SOG, and mostly less, despite a good speed through the water.

We listened to the morning weather forecast with a certain amount of doom and gloom and the mood was not lightened.  It seemed increasingly likely that we would need to divert from our plan and this was pretty much hammered home when the wind turned northeasterly and we couldn’t even lay a course direct for the south tip of Cozumel, let alone Isla Mujeres at the top of the Yucatan Peninsula.  In the late afternoon, Chris Parker was back on the HF radio to give updates to subscribing traffic.  Robert on Moody Mistress called in.  He and Carla were still about 30nm due west of us, presumably in the Gulf Stream (unlike us), but having been hit by a number of strong squalls and not making great progress to windward.  Chris confirmed that the forecast showed few squalls and certainly none of the strength Robert described and then went on to give his view of the progress of the Gulf’s developing low.  Basically, he said that if we could get into Key West by Saturday night then we would be ahead of all the nastiness associated with the low.  The nastiness was described as numerous areas of severe squalls and thunderstorms associated with winds of up to 50kts.  Not nice at all!  On the positive side it is most likely that these will stay north of Key West and the Dry Tortugas but the forecasting models do not all agree and there is no guarantee that will be the case.

So, short of a pretty impressive miracle manifesting itself in the next forecast, it looks like we’ll be going to Isla Mujeres and seeing if we can stop there for 3 days whilst the weather goes through.  It may be that we cannot check in, so we’ll be confined to the boat, but we can cope with that.

Love to all,

Reg and Nicky

Passage statistics:
Position at midday 7 May: N18 32 W85 56
Position at midnight 7 May: N19 47 W86 19
Midday to midday distance: 162 nautical miles (average 6.8 knots)
Midnight to midnight distance: 167 nautical miles (average 6.9 knots)
Total miles covered:  255 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Key West): 386 nautical miles
Approximate distance to go (GPS route to Isla Mujeres): 82 nautical miles

End of Day 2 Roatan, Honduras Bay Islands, towards Key West, USA