Day Three of the Shakedown Cruise 4-26-08

April 26, 2008 – Day 3 of the Shakedown Cruise

Leaving De Loose Mongoose last night, I put my sandals on and got a sharp jab in my right foot. I felt for the source of the pain but found nothing so I just took the sandals off going back to the boat and left them on one of the seats. In the morning in broad daylight, I looked and low and behold, Rusty and I have switched sandals! He’s wearing mine and I now have his. And I got the better of the deal! Switch number one….

Before sailing to Cooper Island, Sheri, Kelly, and I went ashore for a cup of coffee and supplies. Sitting at the coffee shop, we all ordered separate drinks in a to-go cup. I had the boring black coffee, Kelly a tai chi coffee, and Sheri a tea. I opened my coffee and noticed the foam but thought nothing of it until I took my first sip and knew its wasn’t the black coffee I was used to. Switch number two….

So, I need to connect to the internet and a nice gentleman said to take the dinghy and my laptop to The Last Resort” restaurant for free internet! It must have looked stupid with this old man bouncing around in a dinghy trying to connect to an internet that didn’t exist. But on the way back to Dad’s Dream I noticed a larger sailboat tangle up in a mooring ball, apparently trying to free themselves. Not speaking English, the crew of four men tried to tell me the mooring line had snapped underwater and in order to keep the boat from smashing into the reef, they dropped the anchor and now the line was wrapped around their chain, prohibiting them from pulling up their anchor. So, I went over and untangle them but in the process sliced open my middle finger on my left hand from the barnacles! There were sharks circling the boat waiting for me to fall overboard! (Just kidding.)

By 10:30 we were finally underway and with about 12kts of wind we raised both sails, with much difficulty, and practiced tacking and various points of sail. Abeam Cooper Island we headed south and pulled in around noon. By 1:00 pm there were no mooring balls left. We cleaned up a bit, had a wonderful brunch and plan to eat on board tonight as we have so much food left over and need to consume as much as we can before returning to port on the 30^th.

Dad’s Dream is sailing well but I can see our most challenging task will be putting a two-week supply of food and water plus five people in a vessel made for a one week supply of food and water for four people. For my sailing crew, think space conservation!

Tomorrow’s plans are to do some practice sailing across the Sir Francis Drake Channel and then back to Peter Island where we’ll try dinning at a new restaurant ashore. Sunday the 28^th should put us on Norman Island, the evening of the 29^th back in US waters at Francis Bay on St. John, and back to VIP Yachts in St. Thomas, the morning of the 30^th. Those are the plans….subject to change.