BVI at last!

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I last posted on the blog. A lot has happened. I will give it to you from three perspectives. The captain's, mine and the crew.

Captain's diary.
My list of repairs continues to grow. Fridge and freezer are repaired and we have a reefing rope for the genoa. It isn't the right size rope and I'm not 100% confident that I can use it to reef the sail, but at least I can use the genoa. And I did a temporary repair on the water pump. It was a broken membrane so I patched it up with the bicycle repair kit. We left Domican Republic on Thursday morning with plans to sail nonstop to BVI. The first day was great. We saw some whales off the port side. Got around the eastern tip of D.R. And into the Mona Passage the next night. High swells and a strong wind coming in the wrong direction. I was just about to give it up. Turn around and just sail with the wind for once. Well, this was after I had broken the toilet and my repair on the water pump fell apart. Add that to the list, together with our broken stern navigation light. Oh, how do you break a toilet? When the waves come up to meet you, and you're heading down to sit on the toilet ... I was suddenly on the floor of the toilet with the bowl between my knees. What next. Oh, yes, forgot to mention that when we raised the stay sail, I noticed a seam coming apart. So, now I'm sailing with a genoa I can't reef, no stay sail, a toilet held together with duct tape, no runnung water and wind that just won't cooperate.

The wind changed direction and we were making good time again. I knew I would be motoring the rest of the way to BVI so we looked for a place to top up fuel. We headed into Ponce, Puerto Rico to find that they close at 3 pm on Saturday. We should have headed back out, but we were all a little exhausted from the bumpy ride during the last 48 hours. We moored up to the fuel dock for the night. Sunday morning we were all ready to go when we checked the weather. Not good. We waited till late afternoon hoping the winds would die down a little. All the other sailors in the port were going to sit it out till Thursday or Friday.

I found a marine store hoping to get a new toilet and rear navigation light and a repair kit for the water pump. We got ome out of the three. Good thing we have two heads on board. Now we had running water and fuel, but a small craft advisory. One more night in port.

We left Ponce Monday around 5 pm and got around the east cost of Puerto Rico in the early hours of Tuesday morning and finally got to Road Town harbor at 8pm. Thank God for the full moon and Eric's help, we secured a good anchorage for the night.

From The diary of the First Mate.
We have completed the last long leg of the journey to BVI. It was a tough trip, long bouncy days and nights at sea and my seasickness just doesn't seem to go away. I sit in the cockpit for most of the time, reading, doing crossword puzzles and soduku during these trips. It was great to see the islands. They are really beautiful. We arrived on the 7th and picked Antje up the next day. We are now settled in a really nice marina at Nanny Cay. Life is wonderful. We have a nice beach, small shops, and a really nice bathroom and showers for the marina guests. And free wife!

The captain has his list of maintenance. And I have mine. The memory card on my camera has given up. I guess I can't complain, as I've had it for coming on 11 years. But my biggest frustration has been with my Mac computer. Before Christmas, the hard disk crashed and I lost all the photos I had taken on our journey down the ICW. Now I have a problem with the screen going funny colors and worse still, it will no longer charge. I am doing the blog with my iPad now, which means slow going on the typing and I can't upload photos. Road Town Apple store don't offer repair services, but I was able to buy a new memory card for my Nikon.

Crew's perspective.
Finally we have reached paradise. Big smiles and happy times. The journey has been an experience, but we are both glad we're here.


Disclaimer...all of the above are my interpretation of the journey.