True Blue

The few days up to St.Lucia was interesting as always. On a previous trip,
less than a year ago, Hurricane Ana was on our tail. Canged the winds and
currents, so much so that we had to divert to Jamaica, and two days after
leaving Jamaica Hurricane Ana just clipped the eastern tip of Jamaica. So
one never knows. The weather report then showed only good winds for us, and
a tropical revolving storm on the Gulf of Mexico and one close to Tortola
made some sense of the upturned weather. We are now out of the hurricane
season, so we hope the predominantly eaterlies prevails. The wind stayed
true pumping a stiff 25 - 30 knots mostly from the north-east, and we had
2nd reef in the main and sometimes less in the genoa. Making good speed we
started loosing the current a bit, which was all over the place at times.
It was one of the best last stretches to St.Lucia. On other occasions we
would watch our ETA stay at four days to go for a few days, and then two
days to go for a few days, and eventually we would arrive at this most
beautiful of Caribbean islands. This time though our ETA stayed accurate,
the exact time however remained unclear as our speed varied a lot. In the
small hours of Thursday morning I took over watch and watched the break of
day through the two pitons, a World Heritage site. Two huge cone-shaped
pinnacles, the one slightly smaller than the other, always brings back
memories of previous arrivals at St.Lucia. I could clearly see the
silhouettes of the two shapes against the early morning sky. Often they
are obscured by low clouds. By that time the wind was getting very excited
blowing 35 - 40kts which noped us to drop the main and sail with a bit of
genoa and motoring into a stiff headwind that has now turned north coming
around the headland. We made a quick stop at Marigot Bay and then headed
up north for Rodney Bay, where the new Moorings and Sunsail charters base
is situated. I haven't been there before and wanted to make sure the sun
is a little higher as I prefer when entering a new place. Just gives us a
better view of the shallows one sometimes find around the islands when
donning our polarized sunglasses.

Rodney Bay was a quite a bit bigger than I expected, really the hub of
yachting in St.Lucia I guess. Literally hundreds of yachts at anchor,old
and new, old classical sloops graciously gliding over the waters, and even
an authentic pirate ship. A narrow entry into the marina and with great
delight we saw the fleet of Moorings and Sunsail boats. Spacious docks to
come into and as we came in astern there were two Moorings staff ready to
assist us with our lines. Not really necessary but very welcome at the
some time. It has nearly been five weeks since we've set foot on land. Our
spare part we had to collect in Rodney Bay arrived at 4pm, and at 4:30pm
we were on our way again. After the previous few weeks of sailing on a
beam reach it would have been nice to sleep on a boat that is not moving
for a night, but even nicer sleeping on a boat that is sailing downwind :)
All these boats and people and activities so sudden after such a long time
at sea had us quickly seeking the peace and solitude of sailing away.
Thibault and myself enjoyed a pizza and some internet, and Stuart went
missioning into town a bit.

As we safely navigated out of Rodney Bay, the quarter moon was right above
us, the setting sun was right ahead of us, and a fair amount of wind right
from behind. The very best, the cream of sailing. Into the Caribbean Sea.
The heat of the island can sometimes cause bigger clouds to form, and for
the first night out I decided to fly our twin headsail set-up, just in
case we get a nasty squall. The wind did speed up above 20kts at times,
but in retrospect we would have been ok with the gennekar. Better safe
than sorry though. First thing Friday morning as the sun rose, the
gennekar went up and has been up ever since. Distance to Panama was 1200nm
and we hoped we could cover it in five or six days. The weather forecast
however predicted a more mid 10-15kts of wind, and getting that from
behind gives us some speed, but not nearly enough to make Panama in such
good time. The current also lost us for a while, sometimes running across
us and slowing us down some. To make sure we get to Panama by the latest
Friday we have also been motoring for the last two days.

A few visitations from dolphins also blessed us tremendously. After a few
encounters and getting a tiny bit of underwater footage on his Gopro,
Thibault was now inspired to go a bit closer to the water. Yesterday
Stuart alerted us to a pack of dolphins racing towards us and what a sight
to see huge numbers of dolphins diving through the air and coming to catch
a waveride on our bow. Soon Thibault was clipped in his safety harness, a
mooring line attached across our beam up front, and he was lowered into
the water, dragging between the two hulls just under the trampoline.
Excellent vantage point from where he could keep his camera and get some
underwater footage of the dolphins. The dolphins stayed only a few minutes
and off they were again on their merry way to who knows where. I haven't
seen the latest footage yet, but sure it will great.

Of course the motion of the boat is now much smoother sailing downwind,
and we could start doing poi again. And the little absence turned out to
be good. Subconsciously I must have gone over the moves as well, and when
I tried, I have progressed a few steps, gaining more and more control over
these moving objects. Nearly 40 years ago as kids we were always
mesmerized by the big screen movie stars. No tv in those days yet. You can
imagine when Zorro filled the big screen, on the small farms school where
I was at school at the time, how we would all be involved in sword fights
the next day, whipping an imaginary Z everywhere and on everything. Saving
the damsel in distress, saving the town, saving anything that came our
way. Heroes all of us, just for a day. My favourite star from those days
is Bruce Lee. I have always been hugely attracted by things from the east.
The writing, the watercolour paintings, the philosophies, everything. I
studied Jeet Kune Do, a martial arts form that was established by Bruce
Lee. I also played a lot with nu-chaka sticks, two +-30cm of stick tied
together by a +-10cm piece of chain or rope. It was an ancient Chinese
weapon that you would swing around your shoulders and hips etc. Always
some enemy to defeat. Those early roots now comes in handy with the poi,
there is certainly some connection, I am not altogether unfamiliar with
swinging things around. All these things though are not to defend myself I
realized long ago, simply some form of mastery over my bodily functions.
Same when I learned to play guitar. Went for classical lessons, progressed
from there through all different types of guitar playing. Electric,
rhythm, bass, 12 string, slide guitar, lead guitar, and I have come now to
a point again that after all the noise it is the nylon stringed classical
guitar I find myself playing most. In a way it is a bit like life I guess.

A person travels far and wide searching for the ultimate truth, only to
find that the truth was within all along. The journey is really an inner
journey. Travelling is the best educator, and travel we must, I don't know
if one will find that the truth was within all the time if you did not go
out and travelled first. I think so. It also makes me think of some boat
people in China, that is born on the boat, lives on the boat and dies 80
years later never having left the boat. Surely that person must also know
his or her truth. But then what is truth. Same answer as to how many shades
of for example blue there are. How many shades of blue can you name ? I
think there are an infinite number of shades of blue. It changes all the
time, and depending on the observer, the "same" colour can look vastly
different. We try and name different shades of blue, and the more we try
the more we realise how difficult, no , impossible it is. Light blue. What
does that mean ? And dark blue, same question. So I think there are as many
shades of blue as there are people looking at shades of blue multiplied by
the number of blues that each person tries and describe. Primary
colours,secondary colours. We think we are so clever. We think we've got it
all worked out. The person who thinks he or she knows most is the person
who misses out on most. I prefer to stay aware, to stay open, to learn
something new every day. On my next blog I will try and associate sailing
with life, and take you, hopefully, out on the big blue. Even if it is only
for a little while. Until then, take care.