Sunday, April 8th, 2012

Big day for us today as we leave St Thomas and head over to Cruz Bay, St. John to clear out of the US and on to St. Martin. We had an equipment failure while on the way from Vieques and our wind instrument stopped reading. The windex at the masthead (the thing that sends the information) seemed fine, so we never took a trip up the mast to check it out for sure. This turned out to be a big mistake. As we left St. Thomas I noticed that the unit was now hanging a bit off kilter, then more so, now it looks like it is shaking a little, and then finally, one especially bumpy ferry wake caused it to finally disengage and jump off! Now, since we have a 12 x 12 foot trampoline net comprising most of our foredeck you would think that maybe it would land ON the boat...NOPE...right over the bow, maybe 3 ft in front of the anchor! Darn it...well, at least you can get Everything boat related in St. Martin....we hope!

After arriving St. John, and picking up a mooring in Caneel Bay, and rocking and rolling with all the boat wakes going thru here, we dropped the dingy, picked up Wind Shepherd and motored around to Cruz Bay where we grabbed some lunch and then took care of customs. Ok - it's all official, we can leave! 2:30 we did just that and headed around the south side of St. John - and set course for St. Martin.
Moon rise is at 8:50 tonight, and we hoped we would get to see the nearly full moon rising from the sea, however clouds prevented that. We did have the moon peeking in and out of the clouds all night, so that brightened things up for us...but still find that I Don't love night sailing. It's bumpy on our course so the boat is moving around like a washing machine and the waves slapping the hull sounds like someone banging on the bottom of the boat...you kind of get used to it...and the earplugs help but it does make sleeping difficult. When Jim woke from his short nap at 4am he said he felt like he was slammed by wrestlers...not really a restful off watch. We continue east.... dead into the wind and seas...(in case I didn't already mention that!)