I've thought of many titles for this post, among them "Sewing and Towing", "Mr. Perkins has COPD", "Not on the Itinerary", and others, but obviously the winner is "Man Plans, God Laughs".

Trying to get to Grenada initially for Thanksgiving fell flat so we bumped up our hopes to be there by Christmas. Surely (in a perfect world) that would be everso do-able. Alas, this is not a perfect world. Attempting to race our way South to beat the onslaught of the "Christmas Winds" proved futile and so we are surrendering and parking our butts in Antigua til they pass.

Ongoing issues with Mr. Perkins (our diesel engine) seemed to indicate a diagnosis of COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, as he was always having air to fuel issues and shutting down. Poor Bruce has spent hours and hours in the engine room bleeding fuel lines while we languished in 6 to 8 foot seas. He may have developed an addiction to Stugeron (anti seasickness meds) as he had to pop them frequently. Flogging about in those lovely seas also caused a rip in our main sail which really hampered our ability to move forward.

Here's the story. We had a small weather window for Thursday and Friday, December 12th and 13th, so we departed St. Kitts en route to Guadaloupe or The Saintes. Should have been about a 24 hour run all the way to the Saintes, with a fall out in Deshais if need be. About 7 miles off Montserrat (NOT on the itinerary) the sail ripped and Mr. Perkins quit. We were adrift. Various boat lights were seen in the distance all around us including cruise ships and freighters, so we put out an informational VHF transmission to make boats aware that we were adrift. The Montserrat Police came back to inquire if we needed assistance. We decided that unless we wanted to end up in Cartegena, Columbia, we should say yes, so we did. They coordinated with Guadaloupe Sea Rescue after which we were contacted by a boat called Midas who offered to come tow us. To our utter shock and amazement, Midas was a FREIGHTER! Bruce went below and pulled out our hurricane lines and tied them together, giving us about 500-600 feet of line with which we could be towed. Midas came along side (HUGE!) and threw us a heaving line to which we attached our line and off we went, nice and slow. Captain Mats Tammi was constantly on the radio with us, as were the Montserrat Police, coordinating all of this. Midas eventually towed us to a decent location off Montserrat and stayed, shining his huge spotlight on the area until we were anchored. Unsettled night as the anchorage is not very secure or calm. Next morning Bruce met Welshmen John and Ross who offer further assistance.

John and Bruce worked on the engine for hours as Ross and I hand-sewed the torn main. They were headed to Antigua (North and East of our intended destination) and suggested we go together so they could watch over us if need be. Antigua has excellent marine services and was a short 25 miles away. We agreed. Halfway there Mr. Perkins again bit the dust. John and Ross on s/v Chelone TOWED us the remainder of the way and we got into Jolly Harbor about 2 a.m.

The Christmas Winds are Caribbean winds that blow about 20-25 knots constant with gusts in the 30s and 40s. These constant winds make for large seas. They arrived about one week early this year, alas. It is just not worth the beating to head into them, so we are going to sit comfortably here in Antigua and wait them out before continuing south. The good news is, our friends Mitch and Jessica are due to arrive here for Christmas so we will have familiar folks to celebrate with. Yay!

Mr. Perkins' COPD issues may now be resolved with the cleaning out of the tanks.

The main sail is going to the sail loft today for repair.

St. Barts, Montserrat and Antigua were not on our itinerary, but obviously God thought they should be.

Another thought...our issues developed past midnight on Thursday...so Friday the 13th turned out to be all it was cracked up to be.