Dave and I have been talking about going to Media Luna reef and Quita Sueno reef since we left Florida. Sitting there in the Hobbies, we plotted out an elaborate week-long trek, doing day-hops mostly and stopping first at Media Luna, then at Alagardo (where some fishermen had said they'd seen bronze cannon), and then to Quita Sueno, before moving on to Providencia.

However, once we got going early in the morning two days ago, the wind was more north of east than forecast, and a little lighter, so it seemed like a good time to make some serious east. (ie Get while the getting is good... make hay while the sun shines, etc).

We still didn't abandon thoughts of going to Quita Sueno first... because of the need to get around Media Luna reef, the course to Providencia and to Quita Sueno were the same for about half the way. We made a waypoint at the turn point and said we'd have to make a decision then. By the time we got to the turn point, we didn't want to keep going the direction we were going (hard on the wind) for another 12 hours. So we opted to fall off for Providencia.

What we used as a turn point was 15-16.09N 82-17.58W and we went direct from there to Low Cay at the north end of Providencia's reef system. We went right over the bank that shallows up to 45' deep, that is SE of Alagardo Reef. It was the middle of the night, so we couldn't see, but it didn't seem to be any rougher there than anywhere else. But we did see the current pick up while over the bank.

We almost got run over by a cruise ship in broad daylight, soon after leaving the Hobbies. Dave and I were puttering around doing navigational stuff and really weren't keeping a good watch out. We felt so remote out there in the Hobbies... And didn't really expect anything to be sneaking up behind us. The other boat that left with us, Elysian, called us on the VHF and said "We tried to get a picture of you and the Cruise Ship..." and Dave and I looked at each other... "Cruise Ship, what Cruise
Ship???" He was big and he was close. No danger of getting run over, but we felt really foolish not to have seen him coming.

Other than the cruise ship, the only other boat we saw in 36 hours was a fishing boat several miles away, and the glow of a well-lit vessel over the horizon (10-20 miles away).

No pirates, no drug-runners, and no run-ins with fishing boats (all had been reported by various cruisers on this same passage over the last 10 years).

LOW CAY APPROACH 13-30.848N 81-21.209W
EASY ANCHORAGE 13-30.149N 81-20.159W 30' Sand
BETTER ANCH APP 13-31.221N 81-20.389W
BETTER ANCHORAGE 13-31.374N 81-20.360W 10' Sand

The Low Cay light was working last night and we are anchored just south of it. The Raster chart we have seems to be fairly accurate.

Labels: OffshoreHondurastoPanama, On Passage