We had a real spicy night last night! Winds topped 30 knots and the waves were absolute monsters. That's why this blog update is a bit late – I was determined to capture a photo of these giants, but taking a decent picture of a wave in those conditions proved impossible. Just imagine a massive wall of water chasing you down, finally catching up to the boat and starting to break at the crest, ready for its close-up... only to have the resulting picture show mainly a splash. Maybe I will see if Craig will go in the dinghy to take a pic!
Yesterday evening brought a shift in the wind direction. As it started pushing us uncomfortably close (and by "uncomfortably close" I mean less than 50 nautical miles) to the Venezuelan coastline, we initiated a gybe (a sailing maneuver to change direction). There are a few reasons we prefer to keep our distance from that particular shore:
Heavily armed Venezuelan fisherman with a penchant for piracy (need I say more?)
The aforementioned monster waves (they get even more impressive, and less friendly, in shallow water)
Narco activity and potential submarine hazards (enough said)
And, well, just about anything else lurking in there.
Staying offshore seems like the smarter option right now!
We'll be gybing later today, hopefully with no more windshifts. This will set us on a course well offshore down the Colombian coast, all the way to Panama. We anticipate the winds dying down for the last couple of days of our journey. This will allow us to motor in for a smooth arrival, giving us some time to tidy the boat up before stepping onto Panamanian soil.
This wave is well over 4 meters and looks like a splash!
