The Gulf of Honduras Bridge is NOT on the Charts!

[thelifenomadik]

We almost hit the bridge while sailing at night in the Gulf of Honduras. There was a moment of panic and we changed course to avoid it.

Turned out, Ivo is hallucinating after over 20 hours of sailing non-stop and hand-steering the boat with winds over 20 knots. No such bridge exists...

Here you can read the entire story of the bridge:
http://www.thelifenomadik.com/welcome-guatemala/

I'd love to get tips and advise how to deal with fatigue while at sea, or read other stories about tired-sailing-hallucinations.

Thank you all!

[Ocean Girl]

He he, yes, I read the title and thought, dang I didn't know about any bridge!

I saw a freight train cross my bow, thankfull it was so obviously a hallucination that I didn't change course. but it did zoom by a few times. I'd been up for easily 30 hours, my captain was sick, and crew was unable to stand watch.
I sang at the top of my lungs, drank lots of water, walked the decks, sang sang sang. I don't know who suffered more, me so tired and fatigued, or my captain who was sea sick with uh er diarrhea listening to my off key, tone deaf, voice, bellowing out to the sea all night.
But I stayed awake

PS
Love the blog. If you see the Kenworthys aboard a big beautiful Garden Ketch Dreamaway, tell em Erika from Kemah says hi.

[jeremiason]

We were sailing from Isla Providencia, Columbia to Roatan, Honduras when our Auto Pilot decided to give up the ghost with 250 miles left on our trip, 20 knot winds and quartering seas.

As a result, we had to hand steer the boat for 31 hours, one hour on and one hour off. The seas and winds keep the boat squirrelly and you just could steer longer than 60 minutes without being exhausted. 24 hours into this, needless to say Lori and I were incredibly tired.

At sunrise, we spotted a fishing boat off or stern about three miles back. By this time we were working fairly fair along the Honduran Coast and had heard horror stories about this part of the world.

Then the VHF goes off and someone starts asking for "the sailboat" in both Spanish and broken English. Then they call a mayday. It is obvious it is coming form the boat behind us, because there is nothing else on the 48 mile radar. My wife is telling me not to answer since they might be pirates... By this time I am so tired, I am thinking anything would be a break and answered them.

It turned out they were a Honduran fishing boat, which during the night had lost their GPS and were lost. They had been following us for most of the night, figuring eventually we would lead them to land. When the sun came up they figure they would call us and ask for a position report. Once we gave it to them, they turned off for Isla Guanaja and headed on their merry way.

Needless to say we were both relieved, but realized that most of our paranoia came from 28 hours without sleep!

[thelifenomadik]

Ocean Girl, a freight train really! That must be terrific.

Singing, i will remember this.

And will say hi to the Dreamaways if we see them around!

[thelifenomadik]

Tom, this is a horror story with a happy ending... We also heard about pirates in Honduras, we met friends who got boarded...

Oh, by the way, we started our journey a few months ago with a broken auto-pilot and we constantly hand steer the boat. From Key West to Cuba, to Mexico, to Guatemala... It sucks, but we got used to it...And when the wind is strong and the boat goes fast, and the waves are big, you do get exhausted and start hallucinating... Hopefully we will fix that auto-pilot soon...

cheers!

[belizesailor]

Had a friend who saw condos in mid GOM...she was not having a good trip...I think it was wishful hullucinating.

[Ocean Girl]

Ah, the mid GOM freak out... I've seen one too. He was the captain so not a funny story. He didn't see anything, at least he wouldn't say if he did, but he definitely heard voices.