Most of the trip over from San Blas was flat with virtually no wind. This meant having to motor a lot more than I forecasted. While we were still in San Blas getting ready to take on our latest batch of passengers, we had made arrangements with Luis, one of the drivers we use regularly, to do a run for us and pick up some diesel and some more food provisions. I had done a mini-trip before this run, and we needed more supplies, and fuel.
Well, Luis fell through last minute. Which meant we had to scramble to get the rest of the stuff we’d need for this trip asap. Karen was hot on the phone making calls and doing the logistics (she’s really awesome at that). In the end, we got almost everything we needed. Except for diesel, didn’t get as much as I would have liked. But it would have to do.
I had intended on sailing down to Zapzurro, a tranquil bay on the Colombian coast, for an overnight stop. But the winds that normally would send a boat down to Zapzurro like a rocket were just not happening. To everyone’s chagrin. I had to scrap the plan and point the boat for Baru, well the northeast instead. If we were going to burn diesel (which I was a bit low on), it was going to be to get closer to Cartagena.
The wind finally started picking up to the point where Andiamo was able to sail on her own a few hours later. I flew the gennaker (which is a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker sail) to take advantage of the light but steady winds. We sailed briskly along for a couple of hours on it. It was starting to get late in the day, and I saw a bit of weather off our beam. The gennaker as only good for light winds, so it was time to take it down and fast. Thanks to some good hustle on behalf of a couple of the passengers, we got the gennaker down JUST IN TIME. Literally three minutes after I’d gotten her chuted and down, the winds kicked up to over 20 knots. That kind of wind would have shredded it to bits.
As the sun went down, I started to notice some electrical activity far off the horizon to the south. At first, it looked just like it was stratospheric lightnining activity. As time went by, however, it started looking like what it really was. A massive electrical storm. I changed my course to try to avert this rapidly looming storm. I decided to keep it off my starboard quarter. And for a good few hours, that seemed to work. Nevermind that I was now heading north, away from Cartagena.
This storm was one of the biggest scariest systems I’d ever seen. Lightning was flaring out in all directions. It was stunning and spectacular. Watching veins of white lightning blazing out in different directions, into the sky and into the sea. But in all this spectacular beauty was some seriously scary stuff. The bolts that were hitting the sea in such spectacular fashion were absolutely HUGE and terrifying. Other lightning seemed to shoot UP from the ocean and then branch out in multiple directions into the cloud cover, like a huge, blazing electrified oak tree. This phenomenon is what sailors of the old days called “St. Elmo’s Fire”. As amazing stunning and incredible it was to see, this was not something that I wanted touching Andiamo, at any cost.
While I was able to keep the storm at bay from us for a good while. As I kept it behind us, I noticed that it was now accelerating. I also noticed that it was getting harder and harder to find the edge of the storm and the clear skies that I was trying to aim Andiamo at to the north.
About 10 minutes later, the winds started kicking up, gusting over 30 knots. I adjusted the course yet again to keep the bulk of the winds behind the boat, about 120 degrees. I was going to run on a broad reach with this thing as much as I can. The winds accelerated even higher now to about 30 knots and Andiamo responded in kind. With the winds safely behind the beam, there was nothing left for Andiamo to do but just take off like a rocket.
For the next couple of hours, I kept Andiamo running with the wind off the starboard quarter. The storm was drawing closer and closer, and the lightning was getting scarier and scarier. Red, hot orange bolts as wide as a school bus struck the ocean with a ferocity that I could not believe. Really, the only thing that scares the crap out of me when I’m out on the water is lightning, and lots of it. Too many boats in these parts get zapped, and it’s never a pleasant experience, not to mention safe.
Needless to say it was preetty thrilling stuff. Massive winds, Andiamo surfing through the rising seas, lightning and a spectacular light show off the beam. Everybody was hunkered down below, except for Andrew, our Aussie passenger, who was just eating the whole thing up. He was hoping for some adventure during the sail over, and he got it. Karen came up briefly a bit nervous about what was going on. I assured her all was ok, and to stay dry below. I felt rather bad for the rest of the gang. They didn’t know what they were missing.
The storm continued to get frightening close to Andiamo. But because we were running with its winds heading north, we got farther away from it as it passed behind. Within a few minutes, the bulk of the storm went from being off my starboard quarter to being off my port quarter. I noticed that the wind changed direction too, so it was time to start pointing Andiamo back to the east towards Cartagena again, finally. The whole storm episode had blown Andiamo almost 30 miles off course to the north.
I’m only glad that we managed to around it, and not through it. I can only imagine how spectactularly bad (not to mention spectacular), that would have been.