We left Puerto Cortez around 8.00 o’clock in the morning. A nice sky with some clouds and a nice little breeze…
Leaving Puerto Cortez cruising report
The first hours we had a perfect windward sailing. No sea, a little bit of wind to fill the Genoa and Main and a nice speed of 4.5 knots in the right direction. The only event was that we were blasted out of the channel by a big Panamanian container-boat. There really was no reason to do this, as there was space enough.
Closing in on Punta Sal
It was a moonless night. Everything went perfect, until the end of Vivians first nightwatch. A sudden gust of wind indicated a squall. It was very dark. So dark that you could not see the difference between a dark cloud and a piece of open sky, except for the stars you so now and then saw.
I took over the watch and after trying to get some stable winds for an hour, I decided to turn on the engine. We didn’t turn it of before we anchored in Utila.
First light of the morning, approaching Utilla we encountered a waterspout. (A tornado at sea). This thing was about a mile away from us and kept alive for 5 minutes. The water were the slurf touches the sea had a lot of turbulence, but we kept our distance as these things have nothing good.
Unfortunately, this waterspout is not very photogenic.
This is the cloud-structure where this spout was born. Also not very impressive. On the horizon you can see some Cays that are situated at the SW of Utila.
Clouds covering Roatan, the next of the Bay Islands.
