Bill
07/07/2012, anagada passage

18 00.20'N:063 37.57'W

This is a short post while underway. We got underway from Virgin Gorda around 0830. Photo is from the next morning as we arrived at the north end of St Kitts.

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Bill
07/06/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

I'm not sure how she got up there and what she was doing... but she was having fun!! She must have watched me climb up there to get the sail cover off or on...

I did two main sail projects: We have adjustable batten cars... which I have never taken the time to adjust. So, we will have to see how the boat performs with tight battens...

Also, I replaced the lower nettles, those for the fist reef with some left over 5/16" yale cordage. Carol Hasse had suggested using different line for the first reef so I could differentiate it from the second reef by feel and by eye. I ignored the suggestion back in November... Now, I think it is a pretty good idea.

Lara has been cooking up a bunch of food for the little passage and the boat is as put away as it has been in months, including stowing all of our spare sheets and halyards in a compartment behind the book shelves in the aft cabin... another thing I have been meaning to do since the shelves were installed.

Dinghy is on the bow, Engine is on the stern rail. Trash is ashore, sail cover is off, sun shades are stowed away... and the forecast still looks like we will have wind just north of east to help us sail on one long tack south to Guadeloupe. There will be current against us, so if we don't make it to Guadeloupe by nightfall Sunday, we will go to Antigua or Nevis or Montseratte (the NW corner still has a community on it.)

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Bill
07/05/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

Well, you must wonder... how do we wash up? Especially here in the tropics, we take a swim then go to the aft deck, where we have a hand-held shower. We do have a shower in the head (bathroom), but it creates another clean-up-project so if we have the privacy and it is warm enough the aft deck is quite nice... view is typically good too!

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Bill
07/05/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

We left our mooring, dropping the line and furling out the genoa... testing the Monitor as we did the short sail back to Leverick Bay. We returned there because it is easy access to the pass through the reef to leave, there is an OK WiFi connection and there are turtles.

Today there were two turtles near us, one quite big and the other little. It is hard to get anything done because you just want to watch for them for another moment. We have noticed that they surface and pop their head out of the water two or three times to breath... then dive for a minute or two... beautiful.

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Bill
07/04/2012, Gun Creek and Bitter End

Ice, now that is another pleasure that we can afford. I have always wanted to take the time to calculate how many amp/hours it takes to freeze a quart of water... There are several things that allow us to have ice. This is a big deal on a boat... often only a dream. It used to be a dream for us too, until:
-We installed a 12 volt, "keel cooled" freezer/refrigerator made by Frig-a-boat.(during the 2008-2009 re-fit)
-we installed the solar panels (2010)
-We redesigned the galley counter-top (2011) so we could put an ice tray into the freezer.
-Our friends on Rouac gave us one of their vertical ice trays (2012). (remember, we are a sailboat, and we may lean over (heel), so a normal ice tray would not work well!)

So, we often make iced coffee in the morning... a real treat!

Today we had to go back to BVI customs and clear in and out, again. We had told them in Road Town that we were leaving by the first... and we didn't. So now we are cleared back in and out to leave by Saturday. Currently the forecast looks like the wind will again go north of 90 degrees east which will make for an easier trip to St Martin. After the visit to customs and immigration in Gun Creek we motored across the North Sound to the Bitter End Yacht Club.

We heard they were having some live music and we (especially Isobel) has been starved for live music. Since we don't have our supplemental anchor rode ready to deploy we only have 200' of chain.It was clear that the Bitter End Yacht Club had put moorings in every spot 50' or shallower... so, for music, we coughed up the $30 mooring fee... only to find that they DON'T have music tonight!! Ah well...

It is a much more peaceful anchorage than Leverick Bay, so I was able to complete my work on the Monitor wind-vane steering... reinstalling the water paddle with a new release cord. With the boat still, I also went to work on the toilet. On this boat, the flush is manual, and we were having a water leak around the pump piston. That job was easier than I thought... whew!

Oh and Fourth of July... well we figure that is a date the British choose to ignore!
18 29.830'n:064 21.669'w

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Bill
07/03/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

Well every day begins with a little Coffee. Currently we are using the Pomarosa coffee that we bought from our friend Kurt at Hacienda Pomarosa in Puerto Rico. His suggestion was that no electric grinder will give a consistent grind... and so one will never have a consistent cup of coffee. Lara found this Kyocera Ceramic grinder. And we are quite sure that we can taste the difference. And, we don't need electricity. And it is a coveted early morning activity.

We have spent the past couple days doing boat work and organization. I installed a foot pump at the galley sink. This will allow us to use water more efficiently and eliminates some electrical (pump) use. I also rerouted the Monitor Wind Vane control lines. Since I installed the secondary winches, I have not been happy with how the lines ran from the Wind-vane to the wheel. Now they have a better lead through the blocks and a reduced trip hazard as they run across the coaming and aft coachroof.

We have been feeling that we have been on vacation the past month, with the beautiful bays and great snorkeling... as well as easy sailing and peaceful anchorages. And maybe it is because we are constantly surrounded by charter boats filled with people who are clearly on vacation. Today, there must have been some kind of Pirate festival... we watched all the charter boat people loading into their dinghies dressed in Pirate garb including some women clearly going for the wench look. Now, at 9pm the music with a throbbing beat is starting...

and for us, the vacation meant entropy! Piles of laundry (how many shorts and T-shirts do we have?), lots of various things in need of repair, extended tax returns needing filing, piles of sea shells and little cups of "special" sand on the decks and a hill of desk work needing completion.

This is a good place for this. No distractions. On land, a marina/resort that has an overpriced tiny grocery store, and a couple expensive restaurants. The water is not as clear as other places... leading us to jump off the boat when we are hot, but not linger. So, we have moved the boat much closer to being ready to go to sea. Hopefully this weekend we will see another opportunity to sail to St Martin.

18 29.975'n:064 23.431'w

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
07/02/2012, Virgin Gorda

When we cleared in the other day at Road Harbor, BVI, there was no dinghy dock. The sea-weed had filled the area by the ladder, so we tied up to a big cleat... should have noticed the very well warn tire-fender! Live and learn!

In the realm of items we are thankful for: Water Maker is one of the top things. Not a requirement for cruising... yet it has changed our lives. I installed it in February and since then we have not had to go anywhere to get water!! And we have been places where there were not places to go for water (Haiti and Cape Beata come to mind). At a seminar we attended one of the speakers said that you could subsist on rain water collection. Before the water maker we did that a couple times. And, what makes me think about the water maker and write this morning is the fact that we had a rain shower this morning for the first time in a long time. I think we had some squalls off the south coast of Haiti... Today's shower did not last long enough to wash off the decks...

For those techies: We installed a Spectra Ventura 150. There manual version. This system makes 6+ gallons an hour and uses about 1 amp/hr to make 1 gallon. We power it totally with solar and wind generated 12 volt electricity. Right now at 0810 we are making 15 amps with wind and solar... that will go up as the sun rises. We will make water all day, charge our batteries fully keep our fridge and freezer cold with sun and wind. Our poor engine has hardly run since we left PR. We have been sailing into and out of anchorages and the mooring fields at the USVIs. When we leave here, we will run the engine to help power the windlass as we have 130' of 3/8" chain and a 45 spade anchor out!

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
07/01/2012, Francis Drake Channel

You may think these photos of her at the wheel are posed... they are not. She has been very excited to take the wheel... and seems to have recently started to understand it. The attention span isn't there for much more than a minute at the helm. In this case she took the helm so I could run up on deck to put a reef in the main. I have just returned to trim the sail. For more see video below!

As we entered Virgin Gorda Sound, we followed a little boat that was clearly not a charter boat. You can tell: they were sailing, they had a self steering Monitor on their transom and it was not a typical charter fleet boat. It seems that we see a lot of huge Catamaran sailboats from Moorings, Sunsail or Horizon Yacht that motor around at top speed. A very few sail and all of them compete for the closest mooring to the island restaurant or bar.

So... we saw this cutter rigged boat with a windvane and followed her. We anchored near each other. As it turns out SV Solstice is a sail training vessel. They have a beautiful website. Since "class was in session... so we didn't get to chat more than to say a quick hello.

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kids on boats

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Bill
07/01/2012, Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI

After our post office visit we wandered into the Michael Banzhaf Studio which was near the Sun Dog Cafe...

Michael and Claudia are wonderful people with a wonderful art and jewelry gallery. Michael does produce some of the most beautiful jewelry. Isobel was very interested in trying on the 2" gold bracelet that was encrusted with diamonds... I suggested that she get a job...! Not a great photo... but you get the idea! It was great to meet them

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Bill
07/01/2012, Cruz Bay St John

One reason (other than the generally greatness and beauty) for hanging out in St John was to wait for our new WiFi antenna. For those of you who follow our blog, you will have noticed that we haven't been posting regularly for weeks. Thanks to Towndock.net we have had this NanoStation wifi antenna which allows us to pick up wifi sites on shore.... and this allows us to blog, check weather, email and surf the internet from the comfort of our boat.

Being the great guy that he is, Keith also included a couple cool gifts for Isobel... he knew well that if I were getting a present, she would need something too! Thanks Keith!

This post is late because we had so much un-expressed blogging to do and photos to post...

Cruising lifestyle

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