Passage to Turks and Caicos

We have 177nm to travel to the Turtle Cove Marina in Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. We opt to leave early evening in order to make an early arrival on Sunday morning. We know we must have planned the weather right as every other boat leaves during the day.

We have to check out and again Roberto, the concierge arranges all this for us. We leave him our passports and he arranges for the immigration officer to stamp them and for the navy and drug agency officials to come by just before we leave.

We have been dreading the moment of departure for sometime as the wind is still very gusty and for some reason we have been put in a triangular shaped end berth opposite a powerboat too long for it’s berth. It is going to be very tight and it is, I give a push with the boat hook to get the bowsprit round the edge of the dock as we are tight against the far side of the channel to turn.

The swell crashes all the way along the channel out from the marina as the water shelves from 200m to 20m within half a mile and we just have to pound our way through it. We get the sails up and breath a sigh of relief when we finally put the wind and swell on the aft quarter, turn off the motor and start to sail. It is still a lumpy crossed sea, we are receiving the full fetch of the Atlantic until we get behind the reef of the Turks and Caicos so we settle in for a long night. There is quite a bit of big ship traffic, one which is on an almost reciprocal course to us, he is going SE and I am going NW, he doesn’t deviate his course at all but we are converging all the time. His lights are confusing because all though he is a 50m plus vessel his lights are close together and forward and with the lack of sleep I can’t work out where he is going. I call him on the radio eventually he replies without giving his ship name, yes he has seen us, doesn’t answer to if we are clear (their radars and tracking are far more advanced than ours) and just gives his course, not wanting to fight him I turn us round his stern.