Mike and I continue our 3 hours on, 3 hours off throughout the night. I am back on watch at 4am and have the pleasure of watching the sun rise as we approach Montserrat. In the half light, you can clearly still see the very different clouds that surround this island, as it is still heavy with volcanic ash.
Mike wakes just before 7am and makes a pot of tea. As we are enjoying it (along with the remnants of Cat’s birthday cake) there is a loud bang. Unfortunately we both recognise the noise. The block holding the reef at the back of the boom has snapped, and the main sail is flapping, and not doing any good. As it is also not doing any harm, we finish our tea before sorting it out.
We get our lifejackets and harnesses back on and take in the genoa. Mike then gets the main sail down, climbs up on the bimini (putting his harness completely around the boom and sail so he can’t fall off) ties the reefing point down with a line instead of a block, unties himself and climbs back down. Fixed. I go back to bed for another sleep.
The day passes with both of us napping in turns. During one of his awake periods, Mike spots a couple of dolphins but by the time he has the camera ready, they have already disappeared. The weather is beautiful. It is so hard to believe that vile stuff is hanging about less than a few hundred miles away.
Mike manages to get a weather report from an Antiguan radio station. Ana is now predicted to hit late tonight or early tomorrow morning and Bill is still predicted to be a hurricane when it hits Antigua on Wednesday. Later in the afternoon, he uses my mobile to phone Steve in the UK to have a look at the tropical storm/hurricane website to see how things are progressing. Not good news. Tropical Storm Ana is speeding up and heading right for Guadaloupe and Dominica. We ponder for a while. Should we head into port in Guadaloupe or keep going south? We are passing Guadaloupe, exactly where Ana is supposed to arrive in a few hours and Mike decides to call the Coast Guard on the VHF. He is answered by an incredibly helpful Frenchman from the MRCC, Fort de France (the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre), who tells us that given the speed and current location of Tropical Storm Ana, and our current position, our best course of action is to carry on south. So we do.
Just before nightfall we take all the sails down in preparation a stormy night. They sunset is beautiful.
Photos: Passing Guadaloupe – the calm before the storm?
During the day we have seen no other boats around. This is eerie. These are pretty busy waters and we are the only sailing vessel around. No one is on the VHF except the announcements every ten minutes from the French coast guard (presumably) saying “Securite, securite” then gabbling something unintelligible. Most services announce in the host language then follow it up with English, but not in these French Caribbean waters.
I take the first watch. The sky is clear and full of stars. The only noise is our engines and the gentle lap of the sea. There are virtually no waves to speak of. We motor averaging 7 knots. There is only 8 to 10 knots of wind coming over our port side even though Ana is reported to be coming from that direction very quickly. By 9pm there is lightning in the distance over Guadaloupe and Dominica but no thunder as it is so far away. Mike takes over at 10 and I get some sleep.
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