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Misto - Days 12-A Lively trip from Santa Marta to the San Blas Isands



We departed Santa Marta at 12h00 on January 18 and had an excellent start with one reef in the main and wind in the mid 20 knots. Shortly after the start the wind picked up and was gusting to 30 knots and so we added a second reef to the main. Reefing while sailing downwind is a technique that we are definitely still perfecting! I suspect that additional practice over the coming months will mean that we will have ample opportunity to work this through and find what works best on Misto. The next 24 hours were lively to say the least as the winds peaked around 30-35 knots with seas 10-12'. Fortunately we came though these challenging conditions unscathed apart from some chafe on a couple of lines. Other boats were not so fortunate: a steering chain failure that was repaired by fabricating a new link from a couple of washers, a mast with cracks and a failed autopilot were the major reported issues.

Around midday on January 19 we started to see moderation in the winds to the high teens gusting into the 20's - it felt positively balmy! The seas also started to settle. As we moved further south east the winds continued to drop and we shook out the main sail reefs. The currents in this areas tend to be counter-clockwise and although we managed to find an areas of favorable current, 30 miles from our destination we have 2 knots of current against us. In the now light 12 knot winds that are almost directly behind us, we are only making about 4 knots towards the finish line.

I promised Chuck and Sharon some challenging sailing around Columbia and we certainly got it. I can only say a huge "thank you" to them for being really great crew taking it all in their stride. We had been told that getting to the Panama Canal is often the roughest leg of the World ARC - let's hope that is true!

We arrived at the San Blas finish line at 07h28 31sec, right behind Sumore. Here's to a few days on idyllic islands!
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At 1/19/2017 10:44 PM (utc) our position was 10°27.52'N 077°47.90'W


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