4th April

18 20 N
64 56 W

Weather; sunny, wind 5 to 10 Knots SE, waves 1 to 2 feet

For those who are taking note of our position you will notice that we are back in Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas - it's not a mistake. We had a terrible night of rolling in Cinnamon Bay as the wind had changed direction and the swell was coming straight into the bay, hitting the beach and bouncing right back at us - very unpleasant and a great shame as this is a beautiful bay. We didn't get too much sleep because of it and when we listened to the weather forecast the prediction was for the swell to increase today. Gerry and I decided that we didn't want to have another night of rolling and little sleep so we were up , dressed and ready to move after listening to the cruisers net for the day - again lots of conflicting information and confusion, I think it"s probably best not to listen to too many of these broadcasts however we don't want to miss the one important one! We radioed Gypsy Palace to let them know that we were going into Frances and Moho Bays to see if there were any mooring that had become available, they weren't ready to go anywhere but we said we would radio them if anything was available and if not we were going to check out the 3 mooring balls across the other side of the body of water, just behind Whistling Key though we were doubtful this was an option as we had watched a catamaran check it out earlier this morning and they then headed across to where we were and picked up the last remaining mooring ball here. Gerry dropped the mooring and I steered us out of the bay, he took over the helm and took us on a tour of Frances and Moho Bays - there was one mooring ball vacant but there was another boat that was looking to take it. As there was no other mooring balls free we radioed Gypsy Palace and let them know it was no go and we headed across to check out the 3 balls that were all free by Whistling Key, we got within 100 foot of them and instantly decided that they were going to be worse than Cinnamon Bay as the swell was wrapping around the Key and bouncing off the shore in huge waves so we turned away, radioing Gypsy Palace as we turned. The decision was then where to go - not a difficult one as we know that Charlotte Amalie is as safe as any place and we could check out all the other small bays along the way for vacant moorings. Gypsy Palace was about ready to move now and followed us out into the channel. We motored to begin with as the wind was on our nose. We checked out Caneel Bay, Cruz Bay and Christmas Cove for vacant moorings as we came to them but nowhere had 2 vacant moorings so we kept moving forward. The wind was quite light but eventually it came around (or rather we changed course) until it was just at an angle where we could put up our stay sail and jib and get some wind assistance. After we had gone through the cut near Christmas Cove the slight change in angle again gave us better wind and we could turn off the engine and sailed for a while - nothing record breaking but we were happy to see 4.5 to 5 knots. At this stage Gypsy Palace deployed their code zero sail and were moving though the water really well, we took photos of them as it's always difficult to get pictures of your own boat under sail, they also took some of us - I've yet to see them. The turn towards Charlotte Amalie saw the wind die to nothing and we furled the sails and started to motor the final leg into the harbor where we dropped our anchor, got given the stink eye by one boat who probably thought we were too close to them so we hauled it back up and went a little further ahead and dropped it again. I have to say I didn't like where we were in the first place, whilst there was enough room all around it probably would have taken us over the stink eye boat's anchor if the wind changed direction, I was much happier with our second spot. Dale and Lorie had similar issues with their anchoring spot but we are both securely anchored now. Our dinghy was returned to the water just as Dale and Lorie appeared to assist with another of Gerry's jobs - he wanted a hand to take the jib down as he thought the sacrificial edge was coming unstitched (I stupidly had pointed it out some time ago). Anyway Dale and Gerry pulled the sail down whilst Lorie and I manned the lines. With the whole sail down on the deck (and taking up most available space) we examined the sacrificial edge - it was worse than we thought and needed stitching in several places. Gerry was thinking he would hand stitch it, this was far too big a job for that. I wasn't sure if my heavy duty, but domestic, machine would do the job as there were several layers of canvas and sail to get through but we would give it a go. Out on deck with the machine, plugged it in via the forward hatch and both Lorie and I squashed ourselves into an uncomfortable position to try and stitch. My machine managed the first small line that needed stitching then the needle broke and we decided it wasn't up to the job so Dale and Lorie went across to their boat and brought back their sailrite machine which is better suited to sewing through layers of canvas and sail cloth. We went through the process of packing away one machine and setting up the other. For anyone who thinks this is an easy job let me assure you that it doesn't get much more difficult - I should have taken photos but was too engrossed to think about it at the time.
So here is the written visual; the sail was taking up most of the space reaching up to our shoulders, the machine was sitting flat on the deck, plugged into the power via the hatch behind us, Lorie was sitting on the deck legs splayed around the machine to operate the machine, I was sitting on the deck legs splayed on the opposite side of the machine to feed the sail though as Lorie operated the foot pedal with her hand, Dale was over to one side to help with heaving the sail into position and Gerry was acting as the thread spool holder. Deep breath everyone! We stitched the second line - the stitch width and length need adjusting but it would hold for now. Lorie adjusted the stitch length and width, we dragged, pulled, pushed rolled and folded the sail to get it under the walking foot and stitched the next line - it was better so we continued until all the broken stitch lines were re-stitched. As I said it wasn't pretty but it would hold until we take it to a sail loft. Oh what I didn't add was that all of this was being done in the direct early afternoon sun - it was darn hot and uncomfortable all round. With the final line stitched we packed the machine up and Lorie and I both had difficulty standing up as we both had dead and wobbly legs! The sail then had to be returned to the forestay, Lorie and I returned to the cockpit to operate the lines whilst the guys fed the sail back into the channel and hoisted it into place, finally Lorie and I furled it away. It was time for some cold water and a sit down in the shade. We were all knackered and very quiet for a while. Gerry offered to cook burgers for the 4 of us for dinner a little later but in the end everyone was too tired and we postponed the burgers until tomorrow night. We are eternally thankful to Dale and Lorie for their help, we couldn't have done it without you guys. Our evening was spent quietly down below, I tried an eggplant recipe which needs some tweaking before trying it again. We watched some terrible TV and finally went to bed dreading the night as we were rolling a bit most of the evening but were too tired to care, sure that we would sleep through a hurricane!
Did you know that the collective noun for cats is a Clowder? - see my picture of a clowder of "cats" in Cinnamon Bay!