Back in the water again...

Alizee went into Sailor's Wharf on 14 March, where she was hauled for a bottom job, water line repairs, and some other work I wanted done in preparation for our trip to the Dry Tortugas the last two weeks of April.  Unfortunately, the hunt for "the last rat on board" kept her in the yard at least a week longer than we'd hoped, so I didn't get to pick her up until 19 April (yesterday).

The bulk of the work (Maintenance Log) was completed, but unfortunately not installation of the electric conversion kits on the two primary winches.  The conversion kits wouldn't arrive from Lewmar until early May, so I'll be taking Alizee back into the yard for installation when we get back from our little cruise in about three weeks.  This probably is just as well, because we are on a watch for any signs that "the last rat on board" somehow managed to survive the regime of traps and poisons of the past three weeks.

So far, so good.  I can smell pretty distinct signs of decomposition in the bilge, when the floor hatches are lifted up, and that may be the critter.  The odor does not come up into the cabin, which is very nice.  And, he bilge pump - true sign the bugger is chewing water lines - has not gone off but once, which occurred only right after I pumped out water from the refrigerator drain.  Perhaps that drain line was chewed and not noticed by the yard.  Today and tomorrow I'm cleaning the interior of the boat thoroughly and will be checking everywhere for signs of the little bugger.

Lot's of work to do to get Alizee ready for our cruise and the Tuesday arrival of first mate Penelope and second mate Patricia.  Better get to work!

Damn/spit! A rat on board ...

Penelope and I got to the boat a week ago (Friday, 1 March) with plans sail up to Tampa to meet some friends in the Dolphins Sailing Club for the weekend and then head off on our own for three more days.  Alas, when we arrived we discovered our fresh water system had a broken line.  We looked first under the galley sink at the fresh water distribution lines.  No leak.  Still heard heard water gushing, and it sounded like it was coming from aft of the refrigerator.  I went out to the cockpit locker, opened it up, and found it.

Damn/spit!  We discovered we have a rat on board, and the little bugger had eaten up the fresh water lines to the cockpit shower, as well as lines to the water maker.  Moreover, it had chewed through a soft bag and two floatation cushions at the bottom of the cockpit locker -- a mess, for which I emptied the locker, turned myself into a pretzel and climbed in to clean up.  Since the day was not yet over, I went to a local chandlery, got plugs (and mouse/rat traps), cut the lines to the shower, plugged them, set the traps, through out the ruined stuff and put what we had to get out of the elements back into the locker.

We thought we were free, but when we tried the water again, galley water pressure was weak.  More water seemed to be gushing.  Where or where?  I uncovered the hot water heater -- no leaking.  I uncovered the holding tank, but the fresh water lines are routed outside and around it.  Then, when I looked in the engine compartment (midship, under the settee and galley storage area), I finally found the leak in one of the water lines leading between the galley and the sink in the head (forward of the salon).  Completely out of reach and under the sole, the only way to get to it will be to run an entirely new line (or maybe lines, since there are three lines there) from the head to the galley.

So much for the weekend trip.  Instead we stayed aboard, listened to hear a trap go off and considered our options.  We both had brought some writing work to do, so Saturday and Sunday we hunkered down to it.  By Monday morning, I was pretty convinced that the leak under the sole was from the hose leading from the forward water tank to the main fresh water distribution system (under the galley).  The bilge pump was cycling every 30 minutes or so, and the water level in the tank was steadily declining.  Time for action: I went up to the marina manager's office and reported our stowaway.  She immediately said she'd get an exterminator out: "We want no rats in our marina!"  That afternoon, Robert appeared with some more traps and some high-powered bait.  Meanwhile, I arranged to take Alizee into Sailor's Wharf Yacht Yard the following week.  Assuming we get the rat off, I planned to have the water lines replaced, do a thorough check of wiring and do some other needed jobs (re-bed a couple of leaking port lights, paint the bottom and re-bed a rub rail on the starboard side).

We spent one more night, by which time the forward water tank was about empty, and left for home early Tuesday.  Saturday we were back in the car and off to the marina.  Robert told us he found one rat in a trap on Thursday, but he saw another skitter away, so he re-baited the traps.  We didn't arrive at the boat until late Saturday, but, alas, the other rat hadn't been trapped.  On Sunday, we hunkered down again to await Monday, when Robert came over and set about flushing out the final rat with his own special smokey-chemical concoction.  We stayed off the boat, visiting a friend and later going out to dinner.  Then on Tuesday morning, Robert said he didn't see the rat jump off but was sure he'd gotten it.  Two days later (14 March), our friend Jeff Grant delivered Alizee to Sailor's Wharf for us. 

The damage was much greater than expected!  Virtually all the fresh water lines needed replacing.  The little bastards were just starting on the wiring: radar, miscellaneous electrical, etc.  Since my boat insurance has "pests"  as an exclusion, I'll get no financial help from them. 

Did I say "damn/spit" already?  Well, after a week in the yard, the bottom done, port lights fixed, all the water lines replaced, water tanks filled and the boat splashed, the yard discovered one of the new lines chewed through.  Robert's smokey-chemical concoction apparently didn't work, and the second rat is still aboard.  The yard set traps, called the exterminator and promised they'd get the bugger, but what a nightmare!  Another week went by, and still no luck trapping the rat.  Into the third week, with traps set everywhere, the little bastard is still loose, and the exterminator and the yard people are as frustrated as we are.  We're moving ahead with some other work we want done on the boat, but the rat has to be eliminated. 

Well, if I didn't say it: DAMN/SPIT! 

A week for maintenance ...

I spent almost a week from Sunday to Friday on Alizee in order to put two coats of varnish on the cockpit coaming, hatch covers and stern-pulpit seats.  Arriving too late to start work on Sunday, I spent Monday taping and sanding, after which I washed her down and made a trip to West Marine to buy a new can of Epifanes Wood Finish and some brushes.  That evening I was spared cooking dinner, as neighbor Jeff Grant and his wife Susan held an impromptu party on the dock and he cooked up food along with another couple.

Tuesday at 08:00, I used a shammy to wipe away the morning's dew, and starting an hour or so later  applied the first coat of varnish, on the pulpit seats and hatch covers applying to only one side.  I spent the afternoon and evening reading, then wandered around the docks a bit and took some photos of the top'sl clipper schooner Lynx, an interpretation of the privateer that was commissioned a month after America's declaration of war against Great Britain on 14 July 1812.  She was visiting the Harborage Marina from 25 January through 4 February, and all this year is celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812.  Lynx is a weatherly, fast and armed 78-foot schooner with a sparred length of 122 feet.  Her beam is 25 feet, the main mast measures 94 feet, she draws just under 9 feet and she displaces 98.6 tons.  There is a great video of her sailing and of aspects of her construction as well as lots of excellent historical information on the Lynx web site.  Although I didn't take the offered two-hour afternoon cruise on her, lots of folks did, and they all seemed to have a great time.  I was impressed watching the crew furling the top'sl at the end of the daily cruise. 

Wednesday morning the second coat of varnish went on the cockpit coaming and on the bottoms of the pulpit seats and interior sides of the hatch covers.  I drove over to the little Marine Outlet store nearby and bought two anchor shackles, and when I finally got back to the boat at 13:30, stopping for breakfast on the way, to my horror, I discovered that David on the trawler tied stern-in across from Alizee's bow had been sanding his teak while I was gone.  To my horror, because a southeast wind of 15 knots had come up as I finished varnishing that morning, and it easily could carry all his dust on to my still tacky varnish.  I appeared it had a bit, but all I could do was ask David to stop.  He felt pretty badly, and explained that he thought I'd finished the day before.  Oh well, I just had to wait and see. 

Thursday, between 03:00 and 05:00 it rained pretty steadily.  At 0530, I got up and used the shammy to pull the rain water off the newly varnished teak, then went back to bed.  At 08:00, I got up and discovered that the water had not hurt the varnish and, indeed, the dust from David's sanding seemed to have washed away.  At 08:30, Jeff Grant came over with his very-heavy-duty bolt cutters, and we cut off the two frozen anchor shackles holding Alizee's primary and secondary anchors.  I stowed the secondary Delta anchor in the dock box, made the CQR the new secondary anchor and put the Spade anchor we'd purchased after the Annapolis Boat Show on as our primary.  Got them all secured, and then applied the second coat of varnish to the hatch cover's weather side and to the top side of the pulpit seats.  Later that afternoon, I pulled all the tape, replaced hardware I'd had to remove and got the dodger re-secured.  Varnish looks good.

Meanwhile, my power steering had been going in and out on Wednesday, so I found a shop called Auto Tech about ten miles away in St. Petersburg and, after calling, drove over (without power steering) to have owner/mechanic Chico check it out.  Turns out that the power steering was not functioning because the air conditioner compressor was not working properly and when engaged to the drive belt was causing the belt to slow and slip, which in turn meant the power-steering pulley was not being driven sufficiently.  Turning off the air conditioner resolved the power-steering problem, but I'll have to get the air conditioner repaired - can't be without that in Florida.

Friday morning, I cleaned up the boat, packed up and drove home.  All in all a good week.  Met Cecil and Joetta Newman on Viajera, cruisers from Pensacola who are in the marina for a month on their way, eventually, to the Bahamas.  There boat is a classic 1964 center-cockpit sloop.  We had sundowners on Wednesday on Alizee and Thursday on Viajera, which was a very nice interlude to the joy of watching varnish dry. I'm only sorry Penelope wasn't there to share it.  We'll have to get over before they leave for other ports.

Flashback to Titusville...

It was early February 2010, and Penelope and I had just awakened in our anchorage by the railroad bridge just above the Titusville, Florida municipal marina.  We discovered that the alternator was not charging the batteries.  I thought it was a problem that rested in the batteries, for we'd had this problem intermittently in the Chesapeake a few months before.  Now, after a full day motoring the ICW from Daytona Beach to Titusville and awakening to little battery power, we realized the problem had to be the alternator.  We got a slip at the Titusville Marina and located Phil Scanlan of Mim’s Mobile Marine Service, who, on Super Bowl Sunday, no less, agreed to come out and check out our problem.  It was a bad alternator, so the next morning Phil ordered a replacement and over the next couple of days the problem was resolved and we went on our way.

It is now the end of January 2013, and David Royall, a sailing acquaintance from Palm Beach, Florida, is headed south to the Keys.  They arrived in Titusville yesterday, and David posted on Facebook that they seem to have an electrical problem.  Today he posted the news that Phil Scanlan of Mim's had come out and pulled the alternator to take it back to his shop and test it.  They are pretty sure it's gone bad.

       Left: Shibumi at the Titusville Marina
         
         Below, left: Phil Scanlon on Alizee, 2010

         Below, right: Phil on Shibumi, 2013 

It's a really small sailing world, but I'm wondering as I flash back on our five days or so in Titusville, if there isn't some sort of alternator gremlin residing in this pleasant little ICW town.  Ooouuuuu, could be very eerie!

Or not!  Turns out Phil remembered Alizee, Penelope and me.  Moreover, David's alternator, in his own words, "checked out fine. The culprit was the regulator; which are very difficult to find on the east coast of Florida, anywhere north of Ft. Lauderdale. After a lot of checking, we did find a local fellow who makes marine generators. He had what I needed in stock. We are buttoned up and set to move on in the morning."  

David also said that "another boat, S/V Gauneka , has had electrical issues in the area within the last few years. I'm not much for superstition but there maybe some serious electromagnetic vibes coming from the nearby space center. Two years in row I've had unusual GPS errors when I come through Titusville. I'm jus sayin'."  

Seems like the final word on this one.  
 

Fantasy Island ... who knew it was in Tampa Bay?

Springtime has come early to Florida this year.  Wow, seems like only a yesterday we were shivering in 30 degrees at our marina in Daytona Beach ... oh, no, that was two years ago.  Whatever, there has been no 30 degree weather this January.  On the 4th, I said: "Penelope, let's go to the boat and do a few days of sailing.  We've got five days of beautiful east winds at 8-12 knots every day next week."  We had a full order of organic veggies in the fridge that had just been delivered.  "What will we do with all this food?" she retorted.  A little more discussion, and we figured we could cook up some of it and take the rest with us.  Provisioning for a week turned out to be no problem and little hassle.  At 16:00 on the 7th, we arrived at Alizee, off-loaded our supplies from the car, and at 19:30 were enjoying a wonderful left-over meal of Vitalez (Belgian meatballs and cabbage) and artichokes we'd cooked at home the night before.

Next morning, I was up bright and early at 08:00 to supervise my friend Jeff Grant as his worker, also Jeff, hoisted him up the mast.  He had promised to replace (but perhaps forgotten) the wind directional element of Alizee's Raymarine wind indicator at mast top.  It didn't take long, and while Pen got Alizee ready for sailing, I dashed off to fill a propane jug (turns out it just needed a top-off) and stop at the market for a couple of things we discovered the night before that we need in the galley.  Then after getting the sail cover off, at 11:30 we left the slip.

The wind was a bit lighter than I'd expected this first day, but we nevertheless sailed at 3.5 knots southeast from the marina across Tampa Bay.  At 15:00, we turned up the bay and sailed north east.  As the winds died and we were unable to make our course, we cranked up the engine and motor-sailed to Spoil Island 2D, arriving at 16:45.  Searching through the anchoring sites on Active Captain (if you don't know about it, you'd have to check it out), I'd found an anchorage in a sort of cove on the southeast end of Spoil Island 2D, with a little spoil island on the south side of the cove called Fantasy Island.  It's a little park, with signage, what appears to be a covered event deck, and what seems to be a ferry dock.

Although we visited this anchorage twice on this little mini-cruise, we never put the dinghy down and went ashore ... the first time, because we arrived late, the second because their were people partying on the island and we didn't need that.  Nevertheless, some kind soul posted a video of the spot on U-Tube. 

  

A little on-line research revealed that around 2000 a restoration project was undertaken by the Florida Aquarium and the Tampa Port Authority and environmental protection agencies to plant native species on the island and make it an educational center.  The St. Petersburg Times reported in 2001 that "About $50,000 [in project funding] is coming from the Gardinier Trust Fund, which was the outcome of a settlement after a 1988 chemical spill in Hillsborough Bay." All this is good in our eyes.

On Wednesday morning we awakened to find that the 10-12 knot wind blowing all night had brought our batteries up nicely to full charge.  We relaxed, read and then cooked blueberry pancakes and eggs before weighing anchor at 10:30.  With the nice east wind, we sailed south toward the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that divides north and south Tampa Bay.  Winds were from 4 or 5 knots up to 12 knots, and not a soul was out on the bay.  Or, so we thought.  We became so relaxed that we missed spotting a little fishing skiff anchored ahead of us and came much too close to it.  "Put, put, put!"  We heard their engine fire up and a voice say, as they appeared on our port side about ten feet away: "We didn't know if you were going to run us over," to which I replied at least twice, "I am so sorry."  But then with a fading comment from one of the fishermen that "it's a big bay, isn't it?", we coasted away from them, leaving them to shake their heads at our inattention, if not our incompetence.  It wasn't as bad as driving one's boat into the rocks and killing everyone aboard, as happened on a race down Baja California's Pacific coast last year, but it was a near collision and not to be taken lightly.  

About an hour north of the bridge the wind died and we motor-sailed to the bridge.  I rolled in the Genoa before going under, then on the south bay, the wind picked up to 10 knots, we rolled out the Genoa and killed the engine.  We had two possible anchorages, one to the southwest and one to the southeast.  Figuring that the winds would still be from the east the next day, we chose the southeast anchorage, one we know well on the Manatee River.  We arrived at 17:00, anchored near an old metal trawler that has been there for a couple of years, and sat down with cocktails on the cockpit to enjoy the evening.  

As we watched the pelicans fishing and other birds swooping and diving, a kayak appeared on our port stern.  The paddler's name was Mo, and he had a definite Danish accent, which he was surprised I recognized.  His 28-foot Cape Dory was anchored about a thousand meters in front of us.  "Where are you from?" we asked.  "The Texas panhandle.  I retired from SMU, where I taught business math, bought an old school house on the panhandle, a place large enough for me to have an art studio as well as live in."  (Southern Methodist University is in northeast Dallas and home to the G. W. Bush Presidential Library, which scheduled to open to the public on May 1st this year.)  Mo continued: "I keep my boat here on the hard during the summers, and come down for four or five months in the winter."  His kayak was a small blow-up one, but he said he has two others on the boat.  As the sun began to set, Mo said he had to get back.  His two cats were probably getting to wonder where he was.  

We watched the sun set, baked a couple of potatoes, made a salad and barbecued two filets for dinner.  That night we watched a couple of episodes on Netflix, using our aircard, of a BBC series we discovered earlier in the month called "Doc Martin."  Then, with my computer battery at bottom, we called it a night.

10 January - Up at 08:30, brew coffee, decide to head out early.  Penelope has a phone consultation with her writing mentor at 16:00, and we figure it would be best to be in the slip at the marina before then.  So, we weight anchor at 09:15 and sail due west out the river channel under the main.  At the channel's end, we set a course for the Skyway bridge (40 degrees magnetic), set the sails for a beam reach, then roll out the stay sail.  Whooey!  A steady 17-18 knot east wind gives us speed over ground of 6.9-7.5 knots.  With virtually no chop on the water, Alizee lifted her skirts and ran.  We were at the bridge 45 minutes later, and once under it with the wind gusting to 21 knots and Alizee reaching speeds up to 8.6 knots with a comfortable heel, we agreed: "Let's just go all the way up the bay and spend another night at Fantasy Island!"  We arrived at 14:00, rolled in the staysail and Genoa, ghosted deep into the anchorage under the main, turned about into the wind, dropped the sail and lowered the hook.  It had taken us six and a half hours the day before to sail the opposite direction; we cut two hours off that time today.  We never tacked, had flat water and steady winds.  "It was the most perfect sail we've ever had ... in a long time, if not ever!" declared Penelope.

On Friday we definitely needed to get back to the marina, for our kitties at home were awaiting us.  We weighed anchor at 08:15 and had a light, comfortable sail across the bay to our Harborage Marina, arriving at 12:00.  A wash down for Alizee, canvas on the sails, and we were on our way home.  We've been talking about going on a three to four-week sail to the Dry Tortugas and Key West with Penelope's sister Pat, and I'd originally said back in November, lets do that in January.  But then, since January risks cold weather, we said maybe in April.  Hah!  Wish we'd known this would be the warmest January ever.  Here it is the 17th and it's the first chance at a little rain as a shallow front moves eastward.  If we'd just left for the Keys on the 7th, we'd be there now.  While the winds seem out of the northeast now, which is not good for the return trip, by the 24th they look to be shifting to the east, which would make for a fine return sail.  Oh well, we're watching the weather.  We'll make the trip sometime this season!

Two good sailing books ...

I recently reviewed two really interesting sailing books for Good Old Boat Magazine.  The first is a review of Team Spirit by Brendan Hall, the story of his 2010 win in the round-the-world Clipper race.  It is really a great book.  The second is Turtles in Our Wake by Sandra Clayton, a well-told story of giving up shore life and cruising the Mediterranean.  Both reviews appear in the December 2012 GOB Newsletter.  

Fair winds and here's to a Happy New Year.

BVI Redux ...

Since Penelope has never actually sailed in the Caribbean beyond the Bahamas, I took us on a week-long charter in the British Virgin Islands this past week, renting a 31-foot Beneteau from BVI Yacht Charters, which in my past experience is among the best of the small charter companies.  

We left Thursday morning, Nov. 29, and even though flying from Orlando is not that far away in real distance, we still had to go through Miami and Puerto Rico to catch our final flight to Tortola and didn't land until close to 1800 hours.  It took no time at all to find the taxi sent for us by BVIYC, and Godfrey got us in no time to our first night's lodging at the Hummingbird House B&B.  Yvonne, proprietor of the Hummingbird, greeted us warmly, noted we were the only guests that night and showed us to a truly wonderful room away from the other rooms and overlooking bay at Road Town.  We then took advantage of the honor bar in the lanai, made acquaintance with some of the feral kitties that Yvonne welcomed to the Hummingbird, had a rum and finally walked across the road to the Tortola Sports Club for one of the four reasonably priced and really good meals we ate while in the BVIs.  (Few visitors to Tortola know of the club's restaurant and bar, which is open to anyone.)

In my experience, the BVIs have become less hospitable over the years.  There have always been and always will be very welcoming people on the islands, and you can always count on the proprietors of inns, small shops and such to be among them.  But, because sailing the BVIs means sailing from tiki bar to tiki bar and boutique to boutique in bays crowded with mooring balls, the tiki bars and restaurants connected to them have a captive audience.  Consequently, the prices for dinner, when most charterers come ashore after a day's sailing, are awful ... for example fish a chips at Saba Rock (on the lunch menu reasonably priced) commanded $30 after 1700 hours. And, can you imagine being in the islands and the calamari and conch were imported, breaded, frozen varieties - really, not fresh??  In any case, all the meals we had that were good, fresh and reasonable in price were on Tortola and away from the water's edge.

Anyway, knowing this about the islands and knowing that we like to cook for ourselves anyway, we planned to do more meals on the boat than ashore.  I wrote ahead to BVIYC to get the size of the boats refrigerator and ensure it was working well.  Small but in good working order came the answer.  So we planned our provisioning for four fresh meat dishes, some clam linguini, eggs and pancakes for breakfasts, sandwiches for lunches and, of course, snacks of chips, nuts and such.  And, of course, a good supply of libations.  We ordered most of it ahead through Riteway Market, to be delivered to the boat on our arrival Friday afternoon. 

That morning, we enjoyed a nice home-cooked "breakfast by Yvonne" and then set off from the Hummingbird to explore Road Town and do some gift shopping.  Wow, we did not expect it to be as hot as it was.  It was like August in the Caribbean, not the first of December and we sweltered, spending as much time in air-conditioned shops as we could.  We had our second good and reasonably priced meal at the Roti Palace, up the hill on a little walking street off Main, and on our way back toward the Hummingbird, we stopped at the Village Cay restaurant overlooking the harbor for a pick-me-up drink.  We finally transferred our duffels from the Hummingbird to the boat at Joma Marina, really not that far a walk from the Hummingbird.

The first sign of trouble came as we approached the boat to find BVIYC's mechanic Chris working on the refrigerator.  He apparently was adding freon to the system, and pronounced it in fine shape when he was done.  So, we bought a bag of ice, our food arrived and we stowed it all, exploring Chablis in the process.  So much smaller than our Alizee, we nonetheless, found sufficient room to stash all the food and our belongings.  Rather than cook aboard this first night (actually the night before our charter began), we went up to C&F Bar and Restaurant, a well-known local barbecue spot, which was a 1/2 mile walk from the marina.  After talking to the chef/owner (on the right in the photo), who welcomed us warmly to his restaurant, we each ordered baby-back ribs, and were hardly disappointed by the amount or by the wonderful lime barbecue sauce.  Overall, a really good meal, and we left with a doggy bag - as left-overs the ribs were even better than when first served. A lot of locals frequent C&F and they are very friendly and the atmosphere reflects it.

We returned to the boat and decided to sleep in the aft cabin, which had a couple of fans.  I don't think it ever cooled off that night, and the fans were obnoxiously loud, but somehow we managed to get some rest.  The next morning, I got up and perked us coffee (we brought our own bag of coffee, half Peet's Major Dickinson and half Dunkin' Donuts), and I discovered that the entire bag of ice in the refrigerator had melted.  The cold plate on the fridge seemed hardly cold, and I noted that the house battery - even though on shore power - was only registering a little over 12 volts.  I went up and got a couple of more bags of ice (on the house, this time), and we repacked the fridge, putting the ice down on the bottom as well as near the cold plate.  Then, we walked to Riteway - just five minutes away - bought some provisions that we wanted to pick out ourselves and then returned for a 1000 chart briefing.

At about 1200, we set sail for Great Harbour, just across the Sir Francis Drake Channel, where we decided to spend our first night, catch up on rest and get used to Chablis.  This was also an opportunity for Penelope to try her hand at picking up a mooring ball.  In the Bahamas and almost everywhere in Florida, we've found that mooring balls don't have "painters," a line extending from the mooring ball and on its own little float that has an eye on the end through which you can run a line to and from your boat.  Without the painter, it's next to impossible to run your line through the mooring ball, unless you have a special pick-up device (commonly called a "happy hooker"), and naturally we don't carry a hooker, happy or otherwise.  But, in the BVI, all mooring ball's have painters I happily told Penelope.  She'd have no problems!

Thus, in Great Harbour we approached our first mooring ball.  WTF!?!  No painter!  "That's a fluke, sweetheart," said I, and off we motored to our next mooring ball.  "You've got to be kidding!" I exclaimed.  "No painter????"  "Well," said I, "it's probably just because the Ocean's 7 tiki bar ashore isn't doing that well, so they've let their mooring balls deteriorate."  Boy, was Penelope ribbing me, but nonetheless, I swallowed hard and motored off to yet another mooring ball, and lo and behold, there is a painter with a big orange float, and Penelope successfully picked up her first mooring.  Until the last night out of our trip, when we came back to Great Harbour to pick up the same mooring ball with flawless technique, it was the only time we were not at anchor.  Nevertheless, Penelope certainly looked relaxed and happy!

We cooked a linguini meat pasta dinner and spent a pretty good night on the mooring ball.  It was still hot and the trade-winds seemed to have taken a break, but we were a lot more comfortable in the v-berth than in the aft cabin at the marina.  Next morning, though, I found that the house battery was down to 10.5 volts, the fridge compressor was not operating (it had faulted out when the battery went below 12 volts), and the ice was about gone in the fridge.  Just as a group from a cruise ship docked at Road Town came into Ocean's 7 for their on-shore party, I dinghied in and went up to buy some ice.  One of the staff immediately said, "no way, we can't sell you any," whereas another, clearly one with seniority, listened to my plea and explanation that our fridge had quit on us, and agreed to give us some.  For $5 they gave us an enormous bag of ice, which once we got it in the bottom of the fridge cooled the whole thing down and lasted for most of the trip, with us adding another smaller bag or two each day thereafter.

Once iced up, we dropped the mooring to head east to Virgin Gorda Sound.  In mid-November, two-weeks before we started this trip, I saw a post on Facebook from Jim Burke, whom Penelope and I had met the Sea of Abaco in the Bahamas the Spring of 2010.  We'd struck up a nice friendship and kept in touch off and on.  While we moved Alizee over to St. Petersburg on the Gulf Coast, Jim sailed back from the Bahamas to Jacksonville, Florida, where he sold his little sloop Blondie and, with his new love Sharon, bought Sha Sha, a 47-foot Beneteau.  They spent the next year or so preparing Sha Sha for cruising, sailed up to Boston and back to Beaufort, NC, and the message I got from Jim said he was headed out from Beaufort to the BVIs.  He'd be there by the end of November.  So, I got in touch with Sharon, who was still stateside and would fly soon down to meet Jim, and got a phone number for them in the BVI and told them we'd try and hook up while we were there.

We anchored easily in Drake's Anchorage in the sound within 100 meters of Sha Sha.  They weren't aboard when we arrived, so we decided to cool off with a swim, and as I was towing Penelope around the stern of the boat on a life buoy, they appeared and saw us.  Pretty quickly we were aboard Sha Sha having rum and coke, Jim and I catching up in the cockpit and Penelope and Sharon enjoying their rum on floaty things in the water.  It's hard to not like a Beneteau 47.  Roomy, all the amenities, and it sails well, too.  And, plainly, Jim and Sharon were happy as clams.  We planned to go to dinner ashore, but we all were pretty worn out from our early cocktail hour(s), and so we returned to Chablis where I charred a couple of steaks for dinner and we hit the sack early.  The trade winds were up, and it was a wonderful, cool night.

Jim Burke - truly a happy camper aboard Sha Sha.

The next day, Monday, we started the day in a leisurely fashion.  After an omlelet a la Penelope, we finally got a bit of reading in.  Around noon we decided to go into Leverick Bay for some ice.  We put the cooler that BVIYC had provided us in the dinghy, stopped by and told Jim and Sharon our plans and agreed we'd all go into Saba Rock for a late-lunch/early-dinner after we got back.  Leverick Bay is a nice resort, with a hotel, pool, marina, a Pusser's boutique and, naturally, a tiki bar. There's also a little grocery there as well.  I found a really nice new breeze shirt at the Pusser's store; we stopped at the beach tiki bar for an island rum drink and picked up some ice on our way out and back to Chablis.  

Around 1330, we picked up Jim and Sharon in our dinghy and took them over to Chablis.  Then we weighed anchor and motored over to Saba Rock, where we found a spot to anchor along the north side of the mooring field.  Once at the restaurant/bar, we settled in for what turned out to be a rather long sojourn ashore.  We had appetizers and drinks, then adjourned to some couches set up overlooking the water, where we had more drinks.  The place filled up more than we expected with charter boaters.  Turns out that the entire Bitter End Yacht Club, the biggest sailing resort in the BVIs and almost next door to Saba Rock, had been rented out by an individual, probably for a major wedding celebration or such.  The mega-sailing yacht Athena, which had pulled into Great Harbour the night we were there, now sailed in as we supped our rums. Athena is a 295-foot clipper-bowed three-masted gaff-rigged schooner that Silicon Graphics founder James H. Clark had Royal Huisman build for him in 2004.

The result of this, of course, was that all the sailors in the sound who didn't go to Leverick Bay pretty much ended up on Saba Rock.  It was a lively afternoon that led into an even more raucous evening.  We finally managed to eat dinner, our most expensive and poorest quality meal on the trip, with a price tag that would knock your socks off.  But, it was great being with Jim and Sharon for the afternoon and evening.

 

But we hadn't counted on being so long at Saba.  We ended up dinghying back to Chablis and hoisting anchor to get back to Drake's Anchorage in the dark.  We were violating charter company rules by being underway after dark, but it wasn't far and I knew the way.  But we did run into a snafu, since a light had been left on in the head, it plus the fridge dragged down the house battery so far that the Garmin GPS plotter would not function.  Running lights were fine, but I had to feel my way back to the anchorage using just the depth sounder and dead reckoning.  I was less concerned than everyone else, but we made it without incident, got anchored and I took Jim and Sharon back to Sha Sha.

Charter boats rarely have solar or wind electrical charging devices, so one must run the boat's main diesel engine to charge the batteries. Typically, charterers are asked to run the engine for one to two hours in the morning and again in the evening.  We were faithful to this charge, yet no matter how much we ran the engine, Chablis's house battery dropped precipitously fast from 12.9 volts to 12, then 11, then 10.5 volts.  The fridge was the big drag, but the drop was so fast, that we found ourselves severely limiting our use of lights, not listening to music much and not running additional devices such as the cabin cooling fans.  When in Great Harbour, we advised Anthony, the chief mechanic at BVIYC, of the problem.  He said he could have someone in Virgin Gorda Sound meet us, but that didn't work out.  Thus, on Tuesday, we bagged the idea of going to Anageda, and arranged meeting a BVIYC mechanic with a new battery in Trellis Bay later that day.  

The sail down to Trellis Bay, which is on Beef Island just a few steps to the airport that serves Tortola, was a splendid one.  It was a bit roily getting out the channel into the sound, but once we turned west, we had a lovely broad reach ride.  We split our time at the helm, and Penelope had a fine time sailing across Drake's channel.  We found a nice spot to anchor in Trellis Bay, just a short dinghy ride to one of the local dinghy docks, and there Chris, the mechanic who had first been working on the fridge, came with his helper Elvis (yes, named after Elvis Presley), checked out the battery (pronounced dead) and replaced it with a new one.  Feeling a lot better about BVIYC at this point, we cooked up a hamburger Stroganoff for dinner.  Alas, the next morning we realized that new battery or naught, the electrical problem remained.  That fridge was literally soaking up amps by the second, but without instruments to measure the amperage usage, we were only guessing.

Meanwhile, I was suddenly beginning to feel a bit ill.  Heavy in the legs and really tired, we decided to stay in Trellis Bay for the next day.  I napped a lot, we managed to get ashore and have some lunch (okay but not really good), we got some ice and I took a bit of a spill into the dinghy trying to get it in the cooler ... I was really wiped out.  So, I napped until the sun was over the yardarm, had dinner ... I don't remember what ... and was asleep soon thereafter.  Meanwhile, Penelope had figured out a way to rig one of the extra sheets on the boat as a shade cover in the afternoon sun, which made being on deck pretty pleasant, indeed.

Thursday morning, the Captain was feeling better, got more ice, and motor sailed over to Lee Bay on Great Camanoe Island.  "This is the perfect Caribbean spot," declared Penelope, when we arrived.  It's just the sort of anchorage every cruiser looks for.  Few if any other boats, peaceful, a nice breeze, good holding and great swimming and snorkeling.  Another boat already there, departed fifteen minutes after we'd set the hook, and until around 1800, when a beautiful 1968 Islander 37 sailed in, we were alone.  I snorkeled into the reef along the shore, which were disappointing because they were worn down, but Penelope had problems with her fins and went back to the boat.  For me it was a thrill to find two little fish swimming with me, right in the face of my mask, all the way into the reef and back to Chablis.  But when I returned, I found that Pen had slipped badly on the cheap stainless ladder on the boat and badly torn the webbing between two toes.  Again, the charter company let us down, for the First Aid kit was half empty, there were no antiseptics, no tape to secure a gauze pad, and only a few band aids.  We managed to find an antiseptic wipe, with which I cleaned the tear as best I could, and then we used band aids to tape her two toes together.  Surprisingly, this worked and the tear is healing slowly.

We ended Thursday by cooking ribs - our last major meal on the boat - and the next morning, after running the engine for a couple of hours, we sailed north and east around Great Camanoe and Scrub islands, thence down Drake's channel to Great Harbour.  It was a lovely sail, and we picked up the mooring ball we'd dropped only five days earlier.  The next morning, I arose early enough to watch the sunrise, and as I was sitting filling in the after-action report for BVIYC, I coughed and felt a twinge in my lower back.  Damn/spit!  Within an hour my back was stiff as can be, so we scotched sailing across the channel to Road Town, even though there was a beautiful 15-knot breeze.  I simply couldn't get the sails up.  While I tried to recoup, Penelope did a yeoman's job cleaning up the boat inside, and then we motored back to Joma Marina, arriving at 1100, pulling into the fuel dock, unloading our gear and then going up to the office to check out.  At the office, Abbey agreed to give us $100 cash for our half-day missed sailing at Trellis Bay and waive the fuel costs ($25) which was about what we'd spent on ice.  Then we caught a taxi and went to the Tamarind Club on the east end of Tortola, ten-minutes from the airport, for our last night.  

The Tamarind Club turned out to be another really nice spot.  Very rustic with lots of locals as well as sailors, we were served a welcome drink, then napped, and came down for drinks and food around 1800.  My back was really painful, and as we got to the bar that evening Sean, the barkeep, after I asked if they might have an ace bandage, offered up a spray liniment that he said he'd tried on his "tennis elbow" but wasn't working.  Willing to try anything, Penelope sprayed it all over my back ... a couple of doses ... and, lo and behold, the pain gradually dissolved.  It reminded me of the liniment a friend of mine with whom I played soccer had used on ankles and shins after players had been kicked.  He said it was horse liniment, which he got from a vet (my friend was a pharmacist), and it really worked well.  Anyway, I asked Sean later if I could purchase the small bottle from him, and he said no, "you just take it; it's not working for me, and if I want more, I can get it here."  I can tell you, he saved me a whole lot of pain as we traveled all the next day.  And he was very generous with a couple of doses of Maker's Mark followed by red wine and a really great fish and chips dinner!

Our taxi driver, Mike, appeared in plenty of time the next morning to get us to the airport.  We're happy to be home, from a trip that was an experience worth having, but perhaps not ever repeating a lot of it.  We're looking forward to being on Alizee again soon.