April 27, 2008
Where’s the dinghy? That was such a sickening feeling waking up early in the morning only to find no dinghy attached to our boat! I guess you could say shear panic set in….for a little bit. We dropped the mooring ball instantly and started searching the shore line of Cooper Island and not 300 feet from where we were moored, there sat our dinghy, on shore, tied to a palm tree. A real nice man and his partner were approached to help and they retrieved our little lost boat and brought it out to us. There are some real good people in the world.
We gave Kelly some helm time today. Winds were minimal….until we reached the middle of the Sir Francis Drake Channel and then we had easily 15-20 knots out of the east providing us we speeds in excess of 7 knots despite dragging a dinghy ¼ full of water! That was a nice performance from Dad’s Dream. We should be able to do something along those lines without a dinghy and 15-18 knots on the delivery. I hope…..
On one of the tacks we gave Rusty a holler on the radio and we were finally able to spot him and his home from the water. In due time he spotted us as well. That was really neat. On the last tack we headed right for Great Harbor on Peter Island where we grabbed a mooring ball in front of the new “Oceans Seven Beach Club which replaced the old Prospect Reef restaurant from the past. We’ll try to make it for dinner tonight.
Now if not the talking to Rusty on the radio is exciting enough, while we were sitting on the mooring ball at Peter Island, this guy comes across in a laser sailboat from Road Town Tortola, about 6 miles away! What a nut…..we thought, until he beached his sailboat and came swimming our way. All he wanted was some water but instead he got water, cheese and crackers and an hour’s worth of conversation! Philip is from Hamburg Germany and had just delivered a 54 foot sailboat from Portugal to the BVI! He had 26 days at sea with a crew of three on a 54 foot monohull! We talked a little about his experiences and they did it with three hours on and six hours off. He said after three hours he was just beat but then again he had no partners on duty at the same time. They saw no whales, no porpoise, and no dolphin. I expressed my concern for floating containers just below the surface and he said that that is more common in the Pacific. I’m feeling better already. It was neat listening to his experiences.
Obviously I am trying to write as events happen. We did go to “Oceans 7” on Peter Island for drinks and dinner. It was okay. It was phenomenal when it was “Prospect Reef Resort”, but it it is worthy of another try next time we get down here. Sheri and I had lobster which was the best I’ve had in the Caribbean while Kelly had a shrimp curie dish that was apparently cross-contaminated with fish and she had an immediate allergic reaction. I took her back to the boat for her epi pen but alas no epi pen was to be found. Sheri and I finished our dinner ashore but had also met three couples from northern California. Mindy and I had visited recently the areas where they were from so we had a few things to talk about but then it dawned on me, one couple was from Auburn, California where our former doctor moved to about a year and a half ago. Now normally that is not a big deal, but it is when the best primary physician we had ever met and our primary for nearly 25 years moves on. They’re going to say hi and guess who we met when they get back home, around the same time the delivery trip begins.
It was a dark and stormy night……..
April 28, 2008
All night flashes of lightning, high winds, and periodic bursts of rain kept us all awake or at least kept waking us. All I could think of is not losing the dinghy again and so I went up on deck and triple-attached the line. It worked although it was a little bit of overkill.
The morning was less violent, dryer, but still overcast with periodic glimpses of blue sky. Sheri and I were walking around like zombies while Kelly got some much-needed sleep. The good news is the wind is beginning to die down a bit and the skies are beginning to show a little more of the blue that we desire so much.
We seized the opportunity to slip from the mooring ball a little before 9:00 AM and headed out into the Sir Francis Drake Channel where we were met with 2 – 3 foot seas and maybe 20 knot of wind. It was a nice broad reach over toward Road Town Tortola, just because, and also to see if we could raise Rusty on the radio. We couldn’t so the next tack found us on a nice beam reach to Norman Island, our destination for the night. It was one of the finest sailing stretches we’ve had and we were pulling into The Bight by about 10:30. On our beam reach we hit 8.2 knots and again, that’s dragging a dinghy and motor behind us! Having a perfectly clean hull is going to make a world of difference on the delivery trip.
Once secured on a mooring ball we swam for a bit, had lunch and then napped. We’ll be going ashore shortly to visit “Pirates” the restaurant and gift shop. I suspect they have a wireless connection there so its from there that this will be sent, even before dinner and tucking ourselves in for the night.
We’ll clear in US Customs tomorrow morning and spend the night, probably at Francis Bay on the Island of St. John. On the 30th it’s up early in the morning for the final leg to St. Thomas and VIP Yachts.
