The
passage from San Andres to Providencia was always going to be tricky.
Providencia is 55nm NNE from San Andres and the prevailing trade
wind is NE. We chose today because the winds were forecast to have
more east in them the normal and the seas were under 2m.
We
raised our anchor just as the first rays of dawn were lightening the
eastern skies and motored south down the channel to the open sea.
From here we turned east in to a headwind to clear the fringing reef
and had to motor sail close hauled to clear the top of the island. It
wasn't comfortable motor sailing and much kinder on boat and crew when
we could finally turn off the engine to bear away and sail.
At
the halfway point it was obvious we weren't going to make the
entrance without sailing past the island and tacking back 15 miles,
or putting on the motor to allow us to get closer to the wind. It
was one of those days where patience and resilience came to the fore
once more.
At
mid afternoon we came in through the clearly marked northern channel,
for once Navionics was accurate, and anchored in 3.5m at 13°22.76N
81°22.47W in sand and sea grass.
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