Sailing to Hipaniola 7th, 8th and 9th April
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Tue 9 Apr 2013 17:06
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The very name Hispaniola evokes tales of
derring - do on the high seas, of pirates and lawless lairs. Was this the
Spanish Main? These days, Hispaniola is divided into The Dominican
Republic in the east and Haiti, in the west.
We are visiting the Domnican Republic and have
chosen the only tenable port on the north coast as our destination. This is
Puerto Plata and as we write, we are some 50 miles away...sailing in the
kind of conditions we dreamed that or trip would be made of;-
13 to 18 knots of ESE trade winds, clear blue
skies, and warm to hot!
Persephone has sailed like a dream...under the full
main and pale blue kite by day, changing down to a No 2 genoa at night.
The wind strength builds in the afternoon and early evening to a little over 20
knots and then slowly reduces overnight to restart at 12 knots in the early
morning..
Our towing generator as been fantastic. It keeps
the battery level stable while we are under autopilot...the whole way, in fact,
on this leg of the trip while the solar panels keep up with the fridge's hungry
electricity consumption by day. By night we slowly lose battery state and
we reckon we'll need to use the engine to charge every 3 days or
so...
We have just severed contact with a Tug called Puma
Grande, towing a huge barge to Florida...we have been sailing along within
a few miles of each other for more than 14 hours, with regular chat on the
VHF but Persephone has just gybed off to approach the island and make an
approach to our harbour, which we hope to reach beefore dusk.
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