7th December

22 21 N
72 59 W

Weather: sunny, wind 5 to 10 knots NE, waves 1 to 2 foot.

18 MORE SLEEPS, TIME TO CLEAN THAT CHIMNEY!

When I left off yesterday I was telling you that we were slowly making our way to Mayaguana and would be travelling through the night with winds that didn't look too promising. We were worried that we were going to have to motor for most of the way, happily it didn't turn out that way. After typing for a good deal of the day and trying to get the blog to load we had the same issue that we had once before, the red port optimizer wouldn't connect to the satellite phone so I had to give away trying to post yesterday's blog until today. Just like last time it worked first try today, go figure, all I know is that we did nothing different to every other day when it worked just fine - electronics, can't live with them and can't live without them! Having finished with staring at the computer I was feeling quite nauseated so sat quietly in the corner minding my own business. The wind picked up and died down then picked up again ad infinitum and we continued to sail sans engine. The waves weren't too bad but every time there was a big gust we heeled over and bounced around a bit, it wasn't so bad for us who knew what was going on, but I had to feel sorry for poor Priss who hasn't a clue what she's done to deserve such dreadful treatment, she managed to vomit a couple of times - Gerry found them both as I wasn't going below deck for anything at that point. Our speed varied with the wind changes, we saw as much as 7.5 knots and as little as 2.3 knots, luckily it didn't stay at below 4 knots for any length of time or the engine would have been turned back on.
I had pre -thought our dinner plan and had pulled a "ping meal" (as my youngest brother calls them) of Thai coconut chicken out of the freezer which would only require a few minutes in the microwave, that along with some 90 second rice and dinner was organized! It was a good job we had pre planned it as there was no way on earth that I was going to do any cooking feeling as I did. Gerry took charge of heating our dinner and bringing it out into the cockpit, I was hungrier than I thought and ate with gusto, we were both impressed with the "ping meal" - it was from Aldi and there was plenty for the 2 of us in the one pack, I wish I'd bought a few more of them for evenings like this in the future. The washing up was going to have to wait until we were in Mayaguana and not moving all over the place like a lift. We tried to get Priss to eat or at least drink something but she wasn't having a bar of it, she did however stay out in the cockpit with us and snuggled down on my lap for a good part of the night. We took turns in watch keeping/sleeping, Gerry went below each time to sleep but I stayed in the cockpit with a pillow, blanket and Priss. We alternated between wallowing and flying along for the rest of the night, passing just one other boat, on my watch of course, which was lit up like a Cruise liner. There were so many lights that I had difficulty identifying the navigation lights and hadn't a clue which direction he was heading in until I saw his direction on the AIS and knew that we weren't going to collide. Gerry slept peacefully through the moment of anxiety!
I think he generously let me have more sleep than he took, it of course catches up with him and he is currently asleep long before "snore o'clock". As dawn began to lighten the sky the wind seemed to settle at about 10 knots just forward of our beam, not the best sailing point but also not the worst, it was managing to keep our sails full and us moving along at a steady 5.5 to 7 knots. We snatched a breakfast of muesli bar and fresh pineapple which I managed to grab on a trip below deck and again we tried to encourage Priss to at least drink some water. I had poured fresh water into her bowl out of our water container that we keep on deck but she just sniffed at it and walked away, I couldn't understand why until Gerry pointed out that he had squeezed some lemon into the water container. It wasn't enough that we noticed but Priss could obviously smell it and wasn't going to touch it! We emptied her bowl, refilled it with fresh tap water and low and behold she drank like there
was no tomorrow, now that we are stopped and at anchor she has also caught up with eating again thank goodness. I mentioned previously that there is a small port hole in the cockpit which opens from the quarter berth and that Priss had poked her head into it but hadn't tried to go through it. This morning she took the leap of faith and we caught her just as her tail disappeared through the Port hole, she's discovered a quicker and easier way to get down below than having to negotiate the companionway stairs. We found her curled up and asleep a few minutes later on the quarter berth, England you have a certain Olympic champion sleeper in Priss!
We managed to sail all the rest of the way without the engine running, it was peaceful and a good sail in the end. When we were a mile away from the anchoring spot that we had picked at Mayaguana it was time to furl the sails away and motor to the spot where we were going to anchor. With the engine on, we picked our path through the numerous coral heads that surround the entrance, you wouldn't want to be doing that in the dark as there are so many of them and you have no idea how close to the surface any of them are. Some of the coral heads could be seen fairly easily in the sunlight but how big they are is any-ones guess, our chart plotter has most, if not all, of them marked so we carefully followed the chart plotter all the way in with no mishaps. The water colour changed from the darkest indigo through Quink Ink blue to Aqua and then to almost an Eau d' nil as the water depth became shallower. I wish that all the colours would show in our photos but it is just impossible to capture them. We arrived at our chosen spot and set our anchor, we are a bit of a distance from the town but as we draw 6.5 feet we didn't want to go in any closer where the water is shallower. A quick lunch, some preparation for dinner, a shower and we are now up to date. We think that we might spend a couple of nights here but I'm sure that will all change once Gerry has studied the backs of his eyelids followed by a detailed look at the weather forecast for the next few days.
We haven't got any internet here, probably because we are too far out from town, so there won't be any editing of the blog so please forgive the typos, spelling, grammar, widows and orphans, lack of photos and replies to questions for the time being, I'll get to it eventually!