The wind can fill your sails in many ways. It can dance and play tricks with you. An expert dancer, the wind is in the lead and she always gives you some indication of how she will change step and time. But you must keep your wits about you or you will end up on the floor, tangled up and confused about where and how her movements came.
So we spent the last 2 days sailing. And we were privileged to have a wide range of wind speeds and wind directions in which to learn to trim our sails. We sailed to Finca Paraiso (Paradise Ranch) on Lake Isabal and spent the night on anchor 100 meters off shore, and then sailed back to Rio Dulce.
The first day was rather rainy and we were all quite cool in the wind and rain. We were able to sail all the way to Finca Paraiso, after motoring out of Rio Dulce and into the lake a bit. Steve was in instruction mode and we learned a lot about the basics of sailing.
Today we started the day with a short hike (about 1.5 miles) to a hot waterfall that cascades into a cool river. We spent about 3 hours soaking in the waters before returning to the boat for lunch and departure. When we started sailing the wind was very light, so we flew the main sail and the genniker sail- a beautiful large billowy sail that can catch a very light wind. With 5 knots true wind we were able to move the boat 4 knots/hour, which we thought was pretty good. After maybe 1.5 hours of light wind sailing we saw some storm clouds forming in front of us and some white caps a ways off. We changed head sails (put the genniker away and flew the jib). Soon the wind was 15 knots and we were moving at 6 knots crashing over the building swells! Quite a change in sailing conditions in just a few minutes.
With time the wind increased to 27 knots (apparent wind) and we had to reef the main sail once, and then twice, and we changed from the jib sail to the stay sail (a smaller sail). All of this adjusting was excellent practice for us novice sailors and we had a fun time working together and learning “the ropes.”
Jessica found that if she was at the helm (i.e. the steering wheel) she didn’t get seasick, despite the strong wind and heaving boat. However, as soon as she relinquished the helm (like 30 seconds later) she got very nauseous. After clearing her stomach contents she felt much better; only then did she try out a new electric wristband intended to prevent nausea, which seemed to help.
As the daylight hours were fading we opted to start the motor and head directly into the wind to get to the marina more quickly, since sailing directly into the wind is not an option. We arrived back at El Relleno marina in Rio Dulce at 7:15 pm (well after dark) and easily motored into our slip at the dock. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable and educational outing.
Now we will hope (and wait) for good weather in the ocean, so we can head out of the freshwater and into the salty! Maybe our weather window will be on Sunday or Monday.
