I didn’t get going until 10:30 in morning, but I thought that with the winds at 15 knots I’d make good time towards my initial interim goal of Nevis, but what I’d neglected to consider was the southerly component to the wind which made my proposed passage almost dead downwind. The winds settled a bit as well and this turned out to be a slow passage, for Caribbean standards, with speeds around 4-6 knots. I sailed towards Redonda at first with the wind about 20° off the stern but with the swell this made for some uncomfortable rolling and sail-banging so I switched to wing-on-wing for a couple of hours to make some way and to change the wind angle for the final stretch to the island. I rigged a preventer to the main but since I didn’t have a pole for the genoa sail I couldn’t to anything to ensure that the foresail would stay taut.
Once I approached the shoreline to Nevis things got difficult, as they always do there. The depth went from thousands of feet to less than 100 and suddenly I found myself in fish trap territory again and had to play dodge-em with some very cleverly disguised camouflage fish trap (dark green / dark blue) and the local fisherman had thought of a clever variation as well. Instead of the two floats connected with about 2 feet of line, they’d stretched that to a good 20 or more feet. Upon sighting a floating ball, it was now difficult to ascertain in which direction to swerve as the second ball was often not visible. But, in the end, I made it through the minefield and managed to pick up a mooring just as dusk turned to full dark; but as there was no wind this wasn’t particularly difficult.
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