Leaving St. Martin.

April 27th - Well, we have now been in the BVI’s for 9 days. However, before that ……..a short update so I don't get too far behind

We met up a final time with Loud and Marlene off Rafiki in the Lagoon on the Dutch side of St Martin and said our goodbyes. They are not visiting the BVI’s and our paths will not cross again this trip as we head north and home.

In the lagoon we met up with Mike off sailing vessel ‘Quinn’ We were in touch initially via the morning cruiser net on vhf channel 14. Mike sets up Sat phone modems and links them to computers to provide weather at sea for cruisers. We had a convoluted system of getting weather during our last atlantic crossing, via text messages, but we really needed to sort getting grib files downloaded to the laptop for the trip back.

The weather systems are likely to be more unstable going home and we need to know what’s happening. Mike crosses the atlantic twice a year and helps the ARC boats in the Canaries every year. He set up our laptop for us using his own software. He went though the downloading processes with us several times so that we could easily access grib files via ‘mailasail’, without the laptop trying to download all our other emails via the sat phone modem! All sounds easy, and we had come so close to doing it ourselves. However Mike has set it all up and it now works beautifully. It’s really reassuring.  Hopefully we won’t need to use our back up system on the way home!

Before leaving the bay we had our genoa down for some quick sail repairs to the UV strip and to grease the furling gear which had started to get a bit stiff. We also used the silicone spray on the sail slugs which should make the main sail easier to hoist. All this was done early one morning when there was a brief lull in the wind which normally blows 15 – 20 kn.

Wednesday 17^th April

We had a good overnight sail up from Marigot Bay in St Martin, leaving the anchorage at 16:00 hrs. We expected the trip to take 14-16 hours. We had an easterly 4 as we left with a no.2 size genoa up on starboard tack. Within ½ hour we had the sail poled out and were making 5-6 knots. The seas were a bit rolly and it was definitely more comfortable on deck than down below. The genoa remained untouched throughout the night and the wind was a pretty constant force 4-5. By 01:00 the sea way was busy with cruise ships to port and yachts everywhere. We were pretty much holding our own speed wise with the rest of the traffic going the same way. Our eta at the way point at Round Rock off Virgin Gorda stayed pretty stable and arrival in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda looked about 8am which was good enough for us.

At 4 am [as my watch started] the rain came down and was hard enough for me to dig out the waterproof jackets. It cleared up about 7 am, by which time the genoa had been rolled away and we were motoring up the Francis Drake Channel, towards Spanish Town, the port of entry on Virgin Gorda.

Our first long passage this side of the atlantic had gone very well. 89 miles overnight left us tired and ready for an hours kip before going ashore to check in. We checked in for 30 days, the maximum time you can stay without temporarily importing the boat. Cost is $4 pp/day, we think, and you pay on leaving! This is as well as customs and immigration fees.

Anyway the sun is shining and we are ready for the next phase of our adventures including a beach party to celebrate Chewsys 30^th birthday.