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Made It!
Los Testigos
11 22.89 N 63 08.04W
December 30, 2005
We left the anchorage in Scotland Bay, Trinidad, at
1:30 pm on December 29 to sail the 100 miles to Los Testigos. We estimated
it would take us about 20 hours, sailing at 5 kts, to make our approach to these
small islands in daylight. We knew that there were strong northwest
currents around the island.
As we left Trinidad, we had several hours of sailing
into waves that were coming at cross currents to each other, but about 15 miles
out, the waves were steadier and more predictable. We had 20-24 knots of
wind and 10 ft waves. Just before sunset, which comes at about 6:30 pm,
our autopilot gave up. Fortunately, we had "Bob", the Monitor
wind vane, ready to go and he steered the rest of the trip.
Forty or fifty miles away from the islands, we started
to pick up a strong 2-3 knot current, bringing us into the islands at 7-8
knots. We had to reduced sail to try to slow down. It helped, but we
were still being pulled fast toward the islands, and at the rate we were going,
we would make landfall at about 3 or 4 am on a moonless night. We decided
to heave to, and that slowed our progression toward the islands to 2 knots, with
some forward progression to the north. At first light, we headed south and
sailed into a very nice anchorage on Testigo Grande, Venezuela, at Playa Real,
where we will spend New Year's Eve.
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