can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

Next Step - St Lucia to Santa Marta



Hooray... we're off, the start of the World ARC... The fleet left St Lucia Saturday 11th January and headed for our first mark of the course to Santa Marta off Castries in St Lucia. As we jibbed past the marker buoy, we were hit by a massive squall and pouring rain which was a little unexpected. Anyway, once we had turned onto our course for Santa Marta in Columbia, we settled into the usual watch pattern of 2 hours on and 6 hours off. For this leg of the trip we have a new crew member James, a friend of Jeremy and Nicole's and a very experienced sailor. We kept two reefs in the mainsail and four furls in the genoa for most of the trip and because the seas were quite large and confused each of us hand steered the boat during our watch which was quite hard work. As we got closer to Santa Marta the wind eased and we were able to let out full sail for a while and let the autohelm take over the steering. As expected, when we passed the final headland into Santa Marta Bay, we were hit by strong gusts of up to 40knots which was exciting! 15th January, we are now in the marina and will be spending 5 days in Santa Marta before we head off on the next leg to the San Blas Islands.


Previous | Next