We left Ocho Rios at 3h30 for Ile a Vache, 210 Nm away with the new gearbox and a forecast of north wind.
The first day was light wind in the face with the predicted north wind (which we needed to sail) never seen.
The second day found us near the south-western corner of Haiti where we thought is an area of light wind and no big seas. We were in for a big surprise! We were hit with severe thunder storms with wind 20 to 24 knots,gust up to 36 knots and big seas, all in the face!
To top it all, we even encountered a strong current against us.
The afternoon, night and early morning was spend in tacking, tacking and more tacking…36 times we counted later. We dropped anchor in Ile a Vache dead tired after 60 hours of struggling against the wind and seas!
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| Mangoes at Les Cayes |
After our bad experience the last time with
the boat boys of Ile a Vache, we decided to chose one, Pipi and ignore all others. This worked fine and we
had an interesting time visiting Les Cayes and Madame Bernard. It was peak
mango season and we indulged , eating mangoes morning, noon and night.
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| Offloading mangoes at Les Cayes. |
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| more mangoes |
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| Jaco on a moto taxi in Les Cayes |
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| Jaco and Pipi on the way to Madam Bernhard |
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| "Sales lady" at Madam Bernhard |
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| mobile pharmacy |
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| mangoes ready to go to main land |
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| more mangoes! |
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| Jaco and Thomas on the bow. |
Tomas of S/V Zao helped a local to fix his
sails and Jaco joined them on a test sail on the small local sailboat. It was
an amazing experience to see how very basic equipment they use and still be able to sail very effectively!
The ballast (weight in bottom of boat to
keep boat upright) is a bag of rocks that must be move from one side to the
other with every tack. The anchor is another big rock that also doubles as
ballast!
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| Anything goes. |
We stayed 2 weeks waiting for a window of light winds to go on to
Dominican Republic.
We met Swedes Trig and Monica on S/V Frideborg and together we planned how to do the trip against wind and seas to the next stop. We saw some moderation in wind and seas and decided to tackle the next 120 Nm to Isla Beata , Dominican Republic.
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| Jaco bargaining with diver for a giant crab |
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| successful |
The second day found us near the south-western corner of 
We stayed 2 weeks waiting for a window of light winds to go on to 
