We are in a marina in Red Hook on the east end of St. Thomas. In a few hours, we will jump off for Bermuda, 830 nautical miles or about 900 'regular' miles away. A nautical mile is one minute of one degree of latitude or 6000 feet. A statute mile is 5280.

The biggest concern will be not enough wind as opposed to too much. We have enough fuel to about 150 hours and at 5 knots per, that is much more than half way there. But motoring is noisy and a real chore because I have to hand steer the entire time. When sailing, I us the wind vane self steering and don't have to. Besides, at $5.19 a gallon (at the dock here) why burn through it. (PS the price of oil isn't going up, the dollar is going down) So we will make the most of what wind we get, motor if necessary when in the transition zone between the easterly trades here and the south westerlies further north. In other areas, we may just drop the sails and have a swim while waiting for a breeze. Andy arrives on the 4th or 5th of June so we have 11 or 12 days to go the 800 nm.

We have spent several days waiting for the weather in a cove called Christmas Cove. It's on the western side of Great St. James Island which is just off the east end of St. Thomas. It is a very pleasant place and in fact, several people live there on their boats and commute by dinghy to St. Thomas. A guy named Gil came over to us and shared that he was looking into the islands to the south and ended up on this blog. When he figured out that the boat in the blog was the boat anchored near him, he dinghied over to say hey.

We also had a great night out with people we first met in Grenada. Margot and her husband Davis have shown us every kindness and Davis has a band we saw at Latitude 18. The band was a blast and loaded with very talented people. The next day, Margot took us to a store in the interior to provision. Thanks Margot!

Will post again in Bermuda. Try to get the weather a bit warmer for us up there in the north east would you. We're going to freeze otherwise.