March 02-04, 2001 -- Underway to Luperon

March 2-4, 2001 -- Underway to Luperon On March 2, the weather charts showed a front that would be bringing strong SW winds that would then clock around to the NW in the next 72 hours. After reviewing our charts for a safe place, the only one we found was on Long Island, 60 miles to the south and west of us! We would have to back track. Out of curiosity, Mike plotted our course to Luperon and discovered that in approximately 48 hours, we could be safe in a good protected anchorage. We decided to head for Luperon, and at 1648 GMT March 2, we raised anchor. We listened to Herb on South Bound II (12359.0 USB at 2000 GMT) who gives forecasts for vessels that check in with him. While we did not check in, he was dealing with other boats in our general vicinity and we received a favorable forcast as long as we would be in by Monday. That was fine since we would be at anchor by Sunday! Just after we rounded the North East corner of the Turks and Caicos islands around 0000 GMT (7:00 PM EST) March 3, Mike went into the engine room to add oil to the engines and to check the vacuum level on our raycors. Unfortunately, he stayed down a little to long and became sea sick. To compound matters, as we moved along, the set screws on our staysail furling housing backed out and our staysail, which we had partially deployed unfurled completely. We had to go forward and drop our staysail! Mind you this occurred while Mike was Hurling, which he had to stop and help with, before he could go back to Hurling! The winds and seas were fairly comfortable until we rounded the South East corner of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The winds were blowing steadily between 20 and 30 knots apparent (so between 15 and 25 knots true) and the seas were beginning to build. We were sailing by some shallows and assumed that the shallow areas were a contributing factor to the size of the seas. Since the sea's build up as they get closer to land, or over shallows. We pressed on and turned to 168 degrees magnetic. We would travel on this course for the next 18 hours or so. The winds and seas continued to build until we were motor sailing 50 degrees off the wind into 12 to 15 foot seas in winds of 20 to 25 knots true. We slowed down to a virtual crawl at 3 to 5 knots, and received a much better ride as the boat handled very well! We passed two other boats during the night. One was the S/V Mission that was headed for the Turks and Caicos Islands from Luperon. He reported that he had had 25 to 30 knots of wind and very lumpy seas leaving, but that things had calmed down and he was having a great sail. The other vessel that we passed was the M/V Bravo Zulu who was also headed to the Turks and Caicos from Puerto Rico. Both vessels confirmed our thoughts that the winds and seas were not predicted by anyone! Herb, David Jones (Herb's equivalent in the Carribean), the Tropical Prediction center, and NMN (voice broadcast) all had predicted 10 knots of wind or less and seas no higher than 4 feet! We weathered the winds and seas, and around 1400 GMT (9:00 AM EST) March 4, the winds moderated and the seas diminished. We were now in winds under 15 knots and seas of 5 feet or less. At 1741 GMT March 4, we dropped anchor in Luperon, DR. We picked out a spot, dropped the hook and made every effort to stay awake for when customs and immigration arrived. We fell sound asleep, which wasn't too bad as customs never did visit us that day (Sunday). The vessel Journey hailed us to let us know that we were about a boat length away from a shoal area of about 4.5 feet. They also let us know about the time change from EST to AST (Atlantic Standard Time); that took us some time to figure out! Armed with this information, we moved to a new spot to anchor.