I finally found time to update the blog. Since arriving Saturday afternoon, we have been cleaning the boat, doing laundry and tending to much needed personal hygiene and grooming issues. The crew was still able to make time to celebrate the accomplishment with the other boats in the rally having pain killers (a very yummy rum drink) on the beach in the evening.

Let me tell you about the fantastic crew of At Last. We were the eighth boat out of sixty to arrive in Tortola. The boats that arrived ahead of us were much larger (10 - 30 feet) and so they were able to travel much faster than At Last. As of now, there are still twelve boats yet to arrive. The team feels very proud to have sailed so well, especially when you consider the fact that two of the crew had never been sailing off shore before and two had never sailed non-stop overnight. My brother, Chris, had been sailing only a couple of times with us in Narragansett Bay so this was an incredible accomplishment for him to have completed a Caribbean 1500. Janet had never been sailing off shore or overnight and she handled everything very well. Many of you posted comments on the blog asking about Andy our other crew member. Andy Baker, is our good friend, an experienced sailor, commodore of the Cruising Club of New England, and yacht broker for Springline Yacht Sales in Mystic CT. He, by far, has the most sailing experience of all of us and was invaluable in so many ways on the trip. Thanks Andy for all your help.

Andy and Chris left Monday morning for the airport to return to their normal lives. They take with them the satisfaction of successfully completing a 1500 mile passage on a 49 foot sail boat; an accomplishment shared by relatively few sailors. It was a tearful moment for us to see them leave.

The crew felt that it was important to do something together to demonstrate our team work. So we all decided to grow goatees on the trip. Janet decided to shave hers off before the picture was taken. I don't think there will be any confusion regarding which one is my brother and which one is Andy. Apparently there is a family resemblance except for the hair.

Now Janet and I have six weeks to see the islands. We have to be in St Lucia by December 26th. We start the trip around the world on January 8th. We will stay in the BVI for a few days. Next stop? Who knows? We are on "island time" now. We will be updating the blog at least weekly though with plenty of pictures of the islands as we make our way to St Lucia. Stay tuned.

One last note... I can't tell you how much it meant to me and Janet to see the comments posted to the blog and the emails you sent to us. Thank you very much. We can receive email while on the passage if sent via the web site but could not read the comments on the blog till we arrived in Tortola and found internet access. Now that we have some time on our hands, we will be responding to your emails and posts. Thank you all for the wonderful support.