So after 2 nights in French Cay Harbour, we decided that it was time to move to somewhere a bit more upbeat and interesting. We were told that the West End of the island was where we wanted to be. So after getting caught up on internet and provisioning, we decided that we would head over to West End on Saturday morning, April 2nd. The winds were brisk all day Friday and we were hoping that things would stay that way through Saturday.
On Saturday morning, the weather was ok, not great, but ok. It was partly cloudy, with winds were coming from the Southwest at only about 15 knots. It looked like conditions would be fine for the 1 1/2 hour or so ride over to the West End. So about 10:30 AM, we headed out. Not before some blowhard German cruiser got all ridiculous on us for not raising our anchors fast enough for his taste. Apparently he wanted our anchoring spot, and was circling around like a hungry vulture waiting for us to leave. He voiced his sense of inconvenience to us, to which we responded accordingly, and then some.
Anyway, once we left French Cay, we let out both the main and genoa. The winds were still brisk, blowing about 13-15 knots. But by the time that we had both sails out, the winds kicked up to around 18 knots. It was fun sailing for about 30 minutes or so, and then Bam! The winds were now kicking over 20+ knots and getting quite gusty. I decided because of the heavy gusts, that we should bring in one of the sails. So we pulled the genoa in, using the winch to do the furling. It came in without a hitch. Then, about 20 minutes later, the winds eased up, so we let it back out.
This gave us some great sailing with only about 2-3 miles left to get to the West End. That was when all hell broke loose. A squall blew in over us literally out of nowhere and we started getting pelted with massive rain, and hit with winds over 35 knots. We got the genoa back in, albeit a little more difficult than the first time. Then I started the motor, and we tried to get the main in. The main was getting pounded by the gusting winds, and things were compounded by the fact that it was incredibly difficult for us to keep the boat pointing in the wind because of the heavy seas that were slamming us.
The main started flapping out of control within a minute, and that’s when things started really going bad. I noticed a tear on the main right by the clew, and that was all she wrote. Within 30 seconds the main was blowing into shreds. It was a mess. There were pieces of mainsail blowing off the boat in all directions. All the while I was trying to restore some kind of control. We finally were able to maintain some kind of steerage, so I got Lotte to take the wheel and keep Andiamo pointed into the wind. I then went out on deck, which was pretty hairy at least from my perspective, with all the pounding rain, and the main flapping like crazy. If the clew hardware were to hit me, it would be lights out.
I had Pauline help me follow the furling line back in, and I went out to the mast and started hauling in the furling line, trying to furl in what was left of the main. Pauline followed through and hauled in everything I pulled in so it would not fly back out. Within a minute, I had the main furled back in up to where it was shredded. Wow.
The winds had started blowing now more from the Northwest than the Southwest, this meant that going to the West End was out of the question, since that meant that we’d be totally exposed to the wind. So we changed course and headed into Coxen’s hole, which was a couple of miles further east on the island, but safer for us in this wind. We managed to get in there, watching our bimini get a little torn up during the ride.
By the time we got into Coxen’s Hole, the winds were blowing up pretty bad, but the water was fairly calm from the protection of the island. We managed to drop anchor in a fairly open spot just off the airport runway. This would come to haunt us later.
While we were anchoring though, we got hit by a gust of backwind from behind, and it blew the bimini off its two supporting straps on the stern. The bimini was now pointing up into the sky while I was trying to anchor. This has not been a good day.
After managing to anchor, I was able to secure the bimini with a couple of pieces of line. Things returned to some kind of normalcy after a very harrowing past couple of hours.
Pauline, Lotte and I were absolutely exhausted by this time, and we decided after getting the boat back into some kind of order, to just hang out in the salon and watch some dvd’s. Pauline and I were in the middle of getting through the “Lord of the Rings” series, and decided to watch “Return of the King” that afternoon. Lotte, not the LOTR fan, retreated to her cabin for some reading.
About 2 hours into the movie, we heard a knock on deck. I went out to see who it was and was greeted by two Honduran Navy guys. They told me that we had to move our boat away from the airport runway, because it was “too dangerous”. Apparently, they were afraid that a landing plane would hit our mast. While I contemplated the absurdity of this, I tried to also get them to let me stay in that position overnight, because the weather was still pretty crappy. They said no, and we had to move. There was another boat in the anchorage, Kelly and Jan aboard “Refuge”, whom I had met in Utila. They were also told to move, which was even more ridiculous because they were nowhere near the runway compared to us.
So Pauline, Lotte and I donned our foulies, and got out on deck to complete the operation. With LOTR on pause, we proceeded to complete the task of moving to a location more acceptable by the Honduran Navy. The wind was pounding, and the rain was pretty bad. Oh yeah, and it was ALMOST DARK!!!
After moving the boat around this little submerged island in the middle of the anchorage that inexplicably had a lone shack sitting on the top of it, the navy guys assured us that this was a good spot, so we dropped anchor. We were lucky to get a good hold on the first try, so at least that was good. We secured the anchor, and went back down to finish our LOTR viewing.
In the following days, Kelly and Jan would offer to let me use their old main, which though a little small for our rig, would at least give us some horsepower, so I accepted it graciously. Lotte then managed to figure out how to get the sewing machine I had onboard to work. So we took down the bimini, and got all the torn stuff repaired pronto. That was a huge relief. It took about 3 days for the weather to really clear up and stabilize. Once it did, we headed out to the West End, and actually made it there this time.
The adventure continues…