Left Marina Cay this morning in a blow...Big surprise...winds still have not calmed down. Heading for Road Town, and the BVI Yacht Charters docks in Port Purcell. We have a list of things that need to be attended to and our friends in St. Martin recommended them. We arrived early in the day and Jim had to back into the slip. Two questions...why is it the first time you dock at a strange marina the piers are always concrete? And why are they only 30 feet long?

There were two dock hands standing by to catch our lines, and of course Jim maneuvered her perfectly...but that doesn't mean we weren't apprehensive. This is a big workday...the boat is covered with salt from the sea spray we are constantly getting hit with, and we really haven't washed the boat since St. Martin anyway, so while Emily and I went looking for Wifi, power, showers, laundry and the nearest grocery store, Jim scrubbed the boat and waited for the mechanic to be ready. List for today...replace the port exhaust hose, tension both engine belts, fix the loose port shifter, splice the starboard engine fuel gauge, replace the starboard dingy spinlock clutch (the thing that keeps the dingy hanging up off the davits).

We found the Wifi and powered up the computer in the admin building. Then we walked over to the Rite Way and did our shopping. Emily was getting a little nervous watching me put gallons of drinking water and 2 liter soda bottles in the cart until I hauled out my granny shopping carts with wheels and starting loading them up. As it was we were one bag short...but managed to haul the whole lot back to the boat with relative ease. This is grocery shopping WITHOUT a car - requires strategy!

Joe, the mechanic was aboard when we returned and he got all the work down in just a few hours. He also showed me how to replace the spinlock, so now we have a spare and I can replace the other one if necessary.
Jim and I are used to having a wealth of spare parts for all our systems. Because this boat has always been professionally maintained, we feel like we have to acquire them piece by piece as things come up. Kind of a buy two but fix one mentality. We appear to have a small oil leak in out port engine, so we also need to acquire some extra oil to keep it topped off - we should be able to get that looked at in St. Martin.

The weather looks like it is going to turn favorable on Wednesday and Thursday and so we are planning to take advantage of the switch and head back to St. Martin, and begin our journey down the islands. As always...weather permitting.

The water in the marina here is a bit rough, so while we are in a well, there is a lot of movement on the boat. Also, as with any marina, the breeze is fickle and not always from the proper quarter to give us good breeze thru the hatches. Looks like it's going to be a warm night - and nobody sleeps well when it's warm.