What a beautiful sail from Tyrrel Bay. It was a beam reach all the way down until I turned west heading for St David's Harbour. The sea state was generally rollie and got a little lumpy when I was nearer shallow water. However I had a lovely 13-18 knots of breeze all the way and flew full sail. Music playing in the back ground (Bob Marley of course) and my last attempt at fishing for the trip. The fish didn't seem to like the music, so none were caught.
I arrived at St David's Harbour around 1.15pm having left Tyrrel Bay at 6.30am. About 33 Nm.
St David's Harbour appears to consist of 1-2 odd houses, a resort with detached chalets, a boat yard with a small bar and restaurant and quite a few boats on the hardstand. The harbour faces north-south, therefore the easterly swells generally do not create a problem. Although in some cases, waves do roll in from the south and rock the boat around.
I settled in for the next four days at anchor, preparing the boat for a 10 month stint on the hardstand.
Those four days went rather quickly. I took advantage of the sunny days by sanding back the cap rails and decorative trim and varnished the timber, applying two coats. I am not sure if this will last the ten months, but this is all I can do. I will ask the yard to check on the varnish during the lay up period and advise me if it needs to be redone.
On Monday, 10th January the boat was hauled from the water and positioned in its new home for a while and given a good bottom clean. The level of growth that had occurred on the boat was quite amazing. This was all within a period of 10 weeks. Prior to the Caribbean 1500 Rally commencing on the 8th November 2010, I had a diver do a scrub of the hull which after an inspection confirmed it was very clean. Clearly this is a job I am going to have to do every month or so, while the boat is in tropical waters.
Jobs that I have completed during the first three days on the hard, included; flush the engine with fresh water, change the engine oil and filter, recharge the batteries, remove the wind generator blades, remove the sails from the furlers, rinse with fresh water, dry them (which turned out to be difficult due to what appears to be typical tropical weather- rain every hour or so, sufficient to wet the sails and start the drying process again), clean and dry the bilge, remove the dodger and bimini, dry and store all ropes, remove the wifi antenna from the spreader, remove any excess stainless steel from the deck including the mainsheet and boom vang sheets and blocks, cover the cockpit instruments with sumbrella cloth, deflate the dinghy and store, remove the jerry cans and teak timber support from the rails and store in the cabin, fill the fuel tank and apply algae retardant solution, remove all food that would expire prior to my return, clean all cupboards and fridge and finally do all necessary laundry ensuring it is dry prior to storing.
This whole process took about 4-5 days (three nights while I was sleeping on board and the last two nights while I stayed at the nearby La Sagesse Hotel).
I do hope I haven't forgotten anything. I suppose I can always get the yard to do any necessary job that I may have missed.

My last task was to finally commit to a custom made cover be made to help protect the boat from the summer sun. I don't think the teak deck would stand up to well with the tropical sun they get here. At $40,000 for a replacement deck, I think this will prove to be a good investment.
Unfortunately, this brings stage 1 of my trip to a conclusion, with departure on Saturday, 15 January 2011. Stage 2 to commence sailing prior to 1 December 2011 with a lot of that pre-storage work to be reversed and for the hull to be re-antifouled.