It was time to make our way to St. Kitts our last island destination onboard Kyros for the season. We had planned to leave early in the morning, maybe 6 or 7am, as we had a long sail ahead of us. However at 3:30am a very nasty mosquito decided to have an early breakfast from my eyelid. I am not sure if you have every had a mosquito bite your eyelid, but it has happened to me twice in the last four months and is terrible! The first time it happened we had to stay on the boat for a full day to wait for the swelling to go down so that people didn't think that I had an abusive husband. This time I put vinegar on the bite right away, yes it stung a lot when the vinegar made its way into my eye, but it was better than having a swollen all day. Needless to say I was wide awake so Marc decided we might as well get up and hit the open seas. Anchor was up and we were headed out at 4:00am.

There was no wind to speak of so iron sails it would be. I curled up on the salon sofa, and Marc held the helm. After a few hours Marc noticed some lights in the distance but was having trouble determining the direction the boat was heading, or what kind of boat it was. I heard a funny noise and all of a sudden the port side engine stopped. Marc headed to the engine compartment and I took over the helm. The lights were heading right for us; it looked like a very large boat, it was so dark outside, all you could see were a few lights. We turned on the starboard engine and made a hard turn to avoid whatever was coming towards us. Turns out it was a very large sailboat - thank-goodness Marc had not fallen asleep. During our entire sail we saw only three boats, two of which were on a collision course, what are the odds??

Marc decided to leave the port side engine until the sun was up to take a closer look at why it stopped. The rest of the day was more of the same - No Wind!! Blue skies, warm sun, whale spotting in the distance and only three boats in site on an ocean as calm and flat as a lake. Next thing we know the starboard side engine stopped. Things were not looking too good; no wind, no engines and a long way from shore! The problem turned out to be a V-belt, which Marc quickly changed out. Marc tried the port side engine and it hummed along just fine - we have no idea why it stopped, which is a little bit concerning, but we will deal with that later.