Pirates Passage

The convoy left Providencia on Wednesday morning, except Pierre and Laura, who left Tuesday afternoon and were taking a more direct route to Honduras.
Lady Hawke and Lorena leaving at 8am and the other two at 9am. They caught up to us fast and passed us early on. We had a WhatsApp chat group that I had set up and these were the terms we agreed too:
- We are leaving at 8am
- ⁠We will sail on the west side, close to Beacon Cay
- ⁠We will communicate via WhatsApp and channel 68 (with check-ins every 4 hours)
- ⁠We will stay in visual distance of one another (line of sight might be hard… so screen distance)
- ⁠We will keep on AIS but go dark (no lights).
- ⁠If any of us run into trouble the others will circle round.
- ⁠Brian to follow up with Chris and we will share the forecast.
- ⁠Brian will fill a float plan and send out Emergency number for Colombian Navy.

Fiona was the link that kept us together on Whatapp and channel 68, trying to communicate. We sailed initially, then motor sailed and then just motored for the day…. Still having trouble keeping up and running at 1400rpm’s verse 1100. That extra bit doubled our fuel consumption to 2gph. Unfortunately, LadyHawke was feeling the same but didn’t have as much fuel as we did…. So they decided to change course and sail. We continued to check in with them, and watched them in Marine Traffic. They did have an incident where they were approached by a fishing boat near Seranilla Banks, but headed into a squall to reduce visibility and the fish boat stopped the following. Turns out they had a fishing net around their property and that is what slowed them down.
By Wednesday evening we were in a tight pack and had the main out, triple reef and the staysail. We wanted to keep a 1nm distance as we had no lights, just AIS. Lots of cargo traffic through the night which was comforting!
In the morning, the current was helping and the flow seemed to be veering west. Pangolin and Carioca decided to take the cut by Thunder Knoll and maximize the current. We had to decide if we would follow as it was a more dangerous route (concerning piracy) or be left to sail solo. Since we would be doing the majority of it in the daylight, we decided to follow along. The shift helped us to sail better and by noon on Thursday we had overtaken the vessels and were moving along at 8knots. At around 4pm we noticed that Carioca was sailing slow Ina different direction (their mailsail furler wasn’t working). Sadly, they had to move through 35knot winds with full main and decided to go to the Lee side of the Caymans to take it down.
We had another 2 days of sailing…. But it was quiet with very little traffic. We arrived in Guanaja in the afternoon on Saturday.
We had made good time and even ran the whisker pole on the jib the whole night for a downwind run. It made a big difference in our speed (motor sailing at 6.5-7knots).
On Friday night I saw a light off in the distance and casually remarked. Brian tried to investigate and got worried quick. I had determined it was Venus, but he was sure it was an unmarked vessel. A quick check on Starlink (with lat/ long and bearing) suggested it was a planet and the anxiety faded.
However, the rudder noise we heard in Cartagena was back.
Our interaction with wildlife on the passage was neat. We had a barn swallow fist us again. This time perched on the wench and then inside the pilot house. It allowed me to pat it… and it was vocal although I didn’t understand what it wanted (I tried water and nuts), perhaps it just wanted rest. We then had a red foot boobie catch a ride with us in the bow. Sadly, Brian chased him away as he didn’t like that it was pooing on the bow seat. We also caught a Mahi.
Overall it was a safe trip with no issues. Once we got to Guanaja (two days earlier then Chris Parker the forecaster had predicted) we anchored beside Pierre and Laura who had arrived there through the night. A dangerous entry, through the reefs, I can’t believe they did it at night.Read more