May 29, 2013-Sailing to Dominica

wingssail images-fredrick roswold
Hurrying Towards Shelter.

On this day Wings departed Antigua bound for Dominica. After a stay in Dominica we'll go to Bonaire, then Columbia and eventually Panama and into the Pacific once again. Southward and westward...ever westward.

It has been an eventful four months in Antigua and we almost began to feel at home there, but it was time to move on. The Pacific has been calling to us.

We set sail from Jolly on a course of due south, intending to overnight to Dominica. With two reefs in the main and the small jib we were looking for an easy sail but instead of easy we got fast. The wind was in the twenties and we flew souther’d hitting mid eights by the B&G but those instruments have been optimistic lately; probably only the high sevens, but fast enough.

At dusk Montserrat was abeam to leeward, just a jagged outline against the setting sun.

By nightfall the wind was higher, the mid twenties, and the waves were big giving us a rolly and wet sail. Time after time throughout the night the bow sliced the tops off of waves and the resulting buckets of salt water blew back onto the dodger at 30 knots, then cascaded down the side decks and filled the cockpit where the lines and sheets sluiced around for a minute or two until the drains finally did their jobs. It was not the easy sail we’d wished for.

After Guadeloupe Island we turned upwind and, if anything, the ride got worse: more heel, more water. Something to be endured not enjoyed. Yet still we hit the high eights and low nines so at least we were getting there.

Dawn found us running through squalls and rain for the shelter of Dominica’s lee and we anchored at 08:00.

In sunshine.

The calm harbor was welcoming.

Click here for a few more photos.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Dominica