Saturday, March 8 — We untied from the dock in Port Antonio at about 1130. As soon as we left the bay and got out into the open ocean, the swells were about 3-feet at 6-seconds, directly on our nose. The wind was about 10-knots, creating about 1-foot wind waves, also directly on the nose. We were hobby-horsing like crazy. Eric immediately got sick. Keith initially felt okay, but once he started looking at his screen, it didn’t take long before he was sick, too. 

Wind and sea conditions stayed the same all of Saturday, and Eric and Keith were sick all of Saturday. During the day, it was sunny with scattered clouds. At night, the 3/4 full moon shone so brightly it was like a spotlight, making the stars barely visible. However, after the moon set, the stars were vibrant.

Dawn on Sunday

Sea conditions worsened on Sunday morning to 3 – 4 feet at 4-seconds and 1 – 2 foot wind waves. Eric and Keith were both vomiting. Fortunately, it calmed back down in the afternoon, going back to the conditions reported for Saturday. Eric and Keith both felt better once the seas calmed down — still nauseated, but at least they weren’t vomiting any more. Here is a video taken on Sunday afternoon, after it had already calmed back down.

We hit an adverse current for most of the day, and were only doing about 4.8 knots at 1700 RPM. We were glad when we escaped that current and went back to averaging 5.5 knots at 1650 (which is typical in head seas). Here was the sunset on Sunday

In the late evening, we changed course slightly, so now the wind and waves were hitting us at 2:00 (forward right corner) instead of 12:00 (on the nose). That little shift made a tremendous amount of difference on how comfortable the ride was. Eric and Keith both felt better, though not great. The moon was again super bright, giving off so much light that most of the stars weren’t visible until it set.

The island of Great Inagua became visible to us around 0800, a low island that was kind of hard to see in the glaring morning sun. This is what it looked like from the distance.

Our destination was a small man-made harbor in Matthew Town. The entrance was narrow and hard to see.

The channel in was very short, and there was a sunken boat at the end of it, which did not give us warm fuzzy feelings about entering. The harbor turned out to be bigger than it appeared from the distance. There were a few wooden docks and a sea wall that was nearly empty except for a single dinghy. Eric decided to tie up to the sea wall, which was quite tall.

Fortunately, the cruisers with the dinghy happened to be there to help us tie up. We would have had serious difficulty tying up without their help. We also would have had serious difficulty getting off the boat if Kosmos didn’t have such a high freeboard.

By 0900, we were suitably situated on the wall. Knowing we wouldn’t be there long, Eric left the engine running. He gathered together all of our paperwork, and at 0920 went ashore to check us into the country. The government offices were a ten-minute walk down the main road. Here was the view of the harbor from the road.

This was the main road through town. In a lot of ways, it felt like small towns in the high deserts of Arizona and Nevada… dry climate, sparse but well maintained buildings, and surprisingly good infrastructure for such a small population.

Check in was fast and easy. Eric hitched a ride back to the harbor with two officials from another government department. It was about 0945 and they were drinking beers while driving to execute their official government work duties.

As soon as Eric got back onboard, we untied and exited the harbor. The Matthew Town habor didn’t offer a lot of protection, nor did the anchorages in the area. Inclement weather was coming, and we needed to get someplace more protected… to be continued…