This is actually a repost in one piece of all the bits of a trip report that was dribbled out previously, scattered in a thread. This repost was requested to make it easier to archive the report.
TRIP REPORT, 5-13 Dec. 2005, Sunsail Charter
Quick version:
Pleasant sailing, some of it magical, despite high winds. Our crew managed to come a day late, so we trimmed the itinerary: Cam Bay, Leverick Bay (2 nights), Diamond Cay, Great Harbour JVD. In one day we visited BEYC for geocaching and lunch, snorkeled Cactus Reef by Prickly Pear Island, and went to Leverick Bay Resort for showers, good BBQ with unbelievable Mocko Jumbie stilt dancers, and an enjoyable visit with Kimmers and Lew and manager Nick Willis and his wife Monica. At Diamond Cay, Bubbly Pool was doing its delightful thing, but Taboo was still not open for dinner (“Maybe January.”). In Great Harbour we had a really great dinner at Corsair, overseen by the irrepressible Vinnie. On our last day, we enjoyed unhurried snorkeling at the Indians, still top-notch, then hurried motoring back to Sunsail base. (My crew chose to spend a relaxed last night at Hodges Creek, rather than coming in the morning of departure for some rushed packing.)
Details:
Boston to Tortola and charter start:
This went smoothly, despite some anxiety on the first leg, BOS-SJU, 9:20am – 2:16pm. Our scheduled arrival in SJU was actually after the official boarding time for our flight to EIS, but the AA gate agents said not to worry. Then our flight from BOS was delayed 23 minutes in departing, and the gate agents still said not to worry. I worried, but our arrival in SJU was on time. It took us only about ten minutes to walk almost the length of the San Juan AA terminal from our arrival gate to American Eagle, then we even had to wait a few minutes for boarding. We made it, all our checked baggage made it, BVI immigration and customs were no problem, and we were at Sunsail’s Hodges Creek base by a little after 4pm, even before our boat was ready for us. Some minimal check-in formalities, then the promised 20+ minutes on the boat cellphone activating it, a brief look around the dockside convenience store (not on the parking lot side, where Ample Hamper had been), and Sunsail had our boat ready for us, early. Provisioning from Bobby's arrived a bit late. We kept the deliverer in the boat until we checked every item. Some items Bobby's knew they hadn't provided; we found one or two others, and the deliverer adjusted the total.
The Boat: (skip this if you’re not interested in details of small mono-hulls)
A Beneteau Oceanis 343, Lydley (better name than last time’s Avast Behind). This was a new boat from Sunsail’s “premium” fleet (although we got it for deeply discounted standard rates). No “wear and tear” issues. Well set up with four two-speed self-tailing winches and lots of line clutches. Biggest immediate disappointment was the small water capacity – only 68 gallons. Biggest disappointment later on was the rats and mice on board.
The 343 is the smaller of Beneteau’s new monohulls with the steering wheel that pivots 90° to port to provide a clear path through the cockpit on starboard. Another real plus is the helm seat bench that swings out of the way to give access to the swim platform. One hand operation; no more struggling with a heavy chunk of fiberglass, trying to fit it into its recessed position before it slips overboard.
In the cockpit, proper marine closed-cell foam cushions that didn’t absorb much water, dried out quickly. A pleasant surprise; Annapolis Sunsail HQ had assured me that we would have the old hardware store type lawn furniture cushions, which act like sponges and take forever to dry. Maybe the good cushions are a “premium” feature.
Two storage lockers in the cockpit. The smaller one had room for the second anchor and rode, the dock lines, and not much else. The larger one was mostly filled with an almost useless life raft in its hard case, but there was just enough room on top for our wetsuits and snorkeling gear. “Almost useless”, because there was no way my wife and I could have lifted the heavy raft out of the locker. I doubt that even our younger crew could have budged it, but I’m sure it met someone’s idea of what was required to keep some regulatory body or insurance company happy.
Instrument console at the helm had room for lots of instruments. Only one was installed, a combination speed/depth/log readout. Also pasted on the console was an interesting printed warning from Sunsail to trust your GPS or the on-board hand-held bearing compass, rather than the compass in the binnacle. Seemed warranted; the binnacle compass was always off by 5° to 15° compared to other compasses or GPS. When I sit down at the helm, I assume I won’t see forward, since I’m 5’ 2” short. Our 6’ crewmember complained, though, that the too-high console blocked his view.
Lydley had a full mainsail with “stack-pack” furling and two sets of reefing lines. During the boat briefing, I asked our briefer what were the two lines I saw at the mast, unclipped and dangling. “Forward reef lines. You don’t need them, only make it complicated to raise the sail.” I said, “I would like to have them attached.” No comment from briefer. After a moment, I added, “I’ll take care of that myself.” Which I did. The four reefing lines did, indeed, make raising and lowering the main a bit more complicated, but I was really glad that I rigged them when the big winds hit.
Here’s the extra drill: When raising the main, open the line clutches for all four reefing lines, in addition to the mainsheet and vang. Crank up the main, then hand-feed about 4-6” more reefing line through the clutches before you close them. After a few minutes of sailing, visually check that the reefing lines aren’t limiting the raise of the main, then lightly pull the slack out of the reefing lines. After lowering the main, pull slack out of the reefing lines. Pull hard if necessary to get rid of dangling lines. I found that the extra work of taking the slack out of the reefing lines was necessary to keep them from flogging and snagging.
This was my first experience with “stack pack”, lazy jacks rigged to an oversized sail cover that wraps under the mast. It’s supposed to be zipped shut on top after the sail is down, but our briefer told us to skip that. A good thing; the top of the sail cover is about 7’ above the cabin top, way out of my reach. Stack pack is supposed to be almost automatic, no need for you to touch the sail – wrong! The sail never comes down completely, and you have to climb up at the mast (there was a folding mast step for this purpose on our boat) and haul it down the last few feet. Since we weren’t using the zipper, and didn’t wish to disconnect the main halyard shackle (a non-captive screw pin shackle that made me very nervous the one time I did take it off and put it on again), the main was free to rise back up. The solution we used (and I noticed that other boats did the same) was to grab the main halyard after we hauled the last bit of the main down, then pull the halyard down in a bight and loop it over a cleat or clip on the boom (we used the outhaul cleat). Pull the halyard tight at the line clutch and two problems are solved: the main stays down and the halyard is pulled away from the mast and can’t slap.
Below, we had the 3-cabin version: 2 aft cabins for our daughter and a friend (the 6-footer), and the V-berth for us. Enough room inside each berth for a person to stand up and dress. The saloon had a completely adequate drop-down dining table and settees, with no pretense that the settees could be converted into beds. The 3-cabin version loses the separate shower in the head; no great loss, we thought; also makes the nav table smaller.
Both versions have a too-small L-shaped “one-butt” galley, making meal preparation a juggling act. (For example, it was impossible to open the glassware cabinet, behind the stove, while any cookware was on the stove.) An effective but very deep top-opening engine-driven fridge took up nearly half of the galley counter area. (Beneteau standard is a front-opening fridge/freezer; more convenient, less efficient, smaller capacity than the top loader. I assume that Sunsail specified the big top loader.) Anything you wanted was always on the bottom, it seemed. Next time we’ll organize the fridge better, with large zip-close bags, so all the cheeses are together, all the deli is in one place, etc. This should also help avoid the “fridge flavor” which seemed to permeate all of the food by the end of the week. We ate many of our meals on board, and the fridge was large enough for our perishables, the next batch of juices and mixers, and one bag of ice, so we always had cubes for our drinks. One of the prepared meals we brought down was a restaurant type frozen pan of “Cuban Bean Stew” (V-8 brand, bought at our local Pepperidge Farm outlet store, and quite tasty). This needed to be baked for over an hour in a hot oven. I was afraid this would overheat the cabin, but there was enough ventilation that it never became uncomfortable below.
The small water capacity was an issue, helped a little bit by there being a usage meter (in litres!) at the nav station. But you had to remember to reset it when you topped up the tanks.
Now for BillH’s favorite subject: the Holding Tank. Large, about 21 gallons; I don’t think we came close to filling it in two days of use by the four of us. A very simple system: one easy-to-operate valve with a large red handle under the sink. In the closed position, the head pumped into the holding tank. In the open position, the holding tank emptied itself by gravity, no pumping needed, and the head pumped overboard. We put a label on the helm instrument panel so we would remember to open the valve in deep water, close it in shallow waters.
Two more Sunsail annoyances, in addition to the unhooked reefing lines: only one well-worn winch handle on board, and we had to ask more than once for a second, which finally arrived, even more worn (causing difficulties in removing the handles after they locked in to a winch); also, we really had to insist in order to have an air pump for our inflatable dinghy.
Blow-by-Blow:
We were expecting one of our daughters and a friend of hers to join us, arriving at EIS 10:08pm on American Eagle from SJU, the same day we arrived in the afternoon. The 2nd or 3rd time I visited Sunsail’s office, just before closing, someone said, “Oh, there’s a message for you.” From the daughter, saying that she would be delayed 24 hours. Bummer. They were set to find us at Hodges Creek, we could make neither the payphones at Sunsail nor our boat cellphone work for long distance (and the CTC operators had apparently left for the day), so we couldn’t contact her and had no choice but to be back in the Sunsail marina the next night, as well as our first night. Feeling tired and not adventurous, we had dinner that first evening at the so-so restaurant, Calamaya, at Hodges Creek.
Day 1, Dec 6: On our first day, then, it was daysailing time! We didn’t rush to be under way, and we had to wait for our boat briefing, so we had time to enjoy watching someone else totally mess up the departure of his 40-foot boat, fronting out from A Dock, into a light breeze. Exiting from the marina required a turn upwind, to starboard. Somehow, he never got the turn going and the boat headed straight across the slip to B Dock, instead. Much shouted advice from the dock staff. Should have been easy, then, to back to port, but somehow he got it wrong and his stern went upwind, with the bow headed for land. He then stopped, decided to back all of the way out of the slip, and somehow made it.
Our boat briefer didn’t get to us before it was time for him to do chart briefing class, which I skipped. The office said that we wouldn’t have to wait for him to do the chart brief; they would send someone down right away for our boat brief. Fortunately, I could keep busy checking stuff myself and stowing our goodies until, you guessed it, the same briefer appeared to do our boat brief after he finished chart briefing.
After the briefing, we made it out without incident, and enjoyed sailing in about 10-12 knots of wind, no problems for the two of us handling the boat. I had thought we might go to Fallen Jerusalem, but it was upwind. I could almost head there, 45° off the apparent wind, but boat speed was under 2 knots! Falling off and heading instead toward Round Rock, boat speed picked up to 4-5 knots. This was not a good boat for beating to windward. Did sloppy tacks upwind far enough that we could see Marina Cay, then headed back to Sunsail. (My wife can steer, but I have to do all of the line-handling myself. I never got the knack of smooth tacks while running around the cockpit table.) Called in to base as we were approaching, were told to go to B Dock, fenders and dock lines on port. I expected the usual on-dock welcoming staff, but there was no one. We docked smoothly, just as if I had docked a 34-foot boat unassisted and short-handed before. (Actually, I’m quite used to docking a 23-footer single-handed. The principle’s the same, though the forces are greater.) And I could tie up the boat the way I wanted to, with one separate spring line. (Sunsail staff typically runs fore and aft springs with a single line, wrapped around the mid-ship cleat so it can’t be cast off from the boat. This bothers me.)
Our crew appeared that evening, with their explanation: my daughter had grabbed an expired passport on her way to the Oakland airport the day before, and AA would not let her board with it. Ironically, it would have been okay for entry into the BVI and the return to the US, but unless you can get on the airplane, that does you no good. By the time she could go home, pick up her current passport, and return to the airport, the available flights from the left coast would have required an overnight in some charming airport like Dallas or Houston, then an arrival in the BVI no earlier than afternoon the next day. She and her friend decided to stick to the original same-day flight schedule, one day late, and fortunately AA made the change without charging any penalty. Welcome aboard!
Day 2, Dec 7: No problems for us backing to port from B Dock, then heading out. But no pleasant little breezes; the wind was blowing 15-20. Because of our abbreviated schedule, after discussion with the crew, we decided to head for North Sound right away, instead of dropping downwind to Peter or Norman Islands for the day. For this trip, my wife was using scopolamine patches, and they had worked for her the previous day. This day, in more boisterous seas, she wasn’t feeling well. We decided to make a short day of it, dropped sail by Marina Cay, and motored through the Scrub Island Passage to our “fall back” anchorage at Cam Bay, where it was windy but the water was peaceful. The crew dinghied to shore and reported that the isthmus, between Cam and Lee Bays, was BVI National Park, which I hadn’t known. Trashy and not maintained, but at least clearly open to the public.
Day 3, Dec 8: Lots of sailing, which pleased the sailors. Gerry was feeling better, but glad to let others run the boat. Winds were even stronger. This was Thorsten Cook’s “blowing stink” day. We worked our way down to a double-reefed main with enough jib so that the boat was balanced and beat our way to North Sound at around 4-5 knots. I was really glad that I had ignored my boat briefer’s advice and hooked up the reefing lines. These were not the conditions under which you wished to be up at the mast, trying to clip snap shackles into reefing bails. Although the wind was high, seas never topped 4 ft, and the boat felt under control – never even put the rail in the water. With all our tacking (relatively smooth, with three active crew), it was around 2pm before we picked up a buoy at Leverick Bay for a late lunch stop. After lunch, we motored out to Drake’s Anchorage and anchored – and my crew mutinied. I knew that we were safe behind the reef (been there, done that, in the same kind of winds in 2004), and the boat motion was quite mild, but with the wind howling and the location being so exposed, everyone else felt quite nervous. It’s not my job to push my point of view at the expense of my crew’s feelings of well being, so we pulled up the anchor and went back to the Leverick Bay moorings. They swore that the wind was less fierce there; I didn’t think so, but no point in arguing. We ate aboard as planned, and everyone was happy not to climb into the dink in the high winds. The next day we heard that, about the time we were eating, a privately owned Swan broke loose from its mooring near us – I think I may have seen it through one of our portlights, thought it was just motoring around, looking for a mooring. It ended up over by Anguila Point and was pulled off the next day, undamaged. [Nick Willis of Leverick Bay clarified to me that the Swan that broke loose was on a privately-owned and maintained mooring, not one of the Leverick Bay public moorings, which are maintained by Moor Secure.]
Rodent Report: It was several days into the trip before we noticed any problem. I think it was at lunch on our arrival in North Sound, Dec 8, when we noticed that something had nibbled on our last loaf of bread. We threw out the nibbled slices, re-bagged the rest, and started looking around. A gift loaf of pear bread, which was sitting on a shelf in the galley, had been nibbled here and there, so we threw that out. Painful, because we'd had some early on and it was really good. One box of cereal had nibble marks on one edge, but no signs of penetration. We did find mouse droppings, and all the nibbles looked like mouse, so we thought we had only mice. We shifted vulnerable food from shelves into a cargo net that was suspended over the back of the port settee, but the next day there was evidence that they had jumped/climbed up into the net, so I hung it across the cabin. We then had to duck under the net to get to the V-berth, but no further incursions occurred. Some foods we also moved into an unused hard cooler; that gave good protection.
We found the rat damage when we were packing up to leave the boat. My wife had some (sugarless!) candies in a plastic baggie in the pocket of a heavy canvas tote bag. A large hole had been torn in the canvas and many of the hard candies were smashed and chewed. Also, we had brought down some sharp kitchen knives, with scabbards made from lengths of heavy-wall transparent plastic tubing. We found that the scabbards had deep gouges from chewing teeth; not mouse damage at all. We never sighted any of our uninvited guests, nor did we find any rat droppings, but the evidence was clear. On any boat, there are lots of small, interconnected spaces between the built-in furniture and the hull. It's easy for rodents to keep out of sight.
I brought the tote bag to Sunsail's office. They would have replaced it with one of theirs, but they were out of stock on the large size and Nick Parton, the base manager, gave me their sales price, $25, instead. They acknowledged that it was rat damage and said the boat would have to have some rodent control (extermination? fumigation? - I forget the words Nick used).
So what to do? Unless there are other charterers who say, "Oh, yeah, happens all the time, or all the time at Sunsail" my feeling is that it's an occasional charter company problem, and that most of the time you won't have any problem. You might want to ask the service desk if they think you will need rat or mouse traps - put the burden on them.
So that’s our “critter” story and my reaction – neither laughing it off nor immensely upset. Just a bit upset.
Day 4, Dec 9: My daughter wished to do some geocaching. There’s one on the trail from Biras Creek to BEYC, so we motored over that way and picked up a mooring at the south end of the BEYC mooring field. I thought it might be nice to dinghy in to the Biras Creek dock, do the geocache, then have lunch at Fat Virgin. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A large, polite, European-accented gentleman at the head of the dock firmly informed us that the Biras Creek grounds were now closed to riff-raff (well, he said “non-guests”, but I could translate) "to protect the privacy of the guests"; besides, Fat Virgin wasn’t even there, but over at a separate dock to the south. South wasn’t the way we wished to go, so we dinghied to BEYC, where no one threw us out (they didn't even notice us). After some false starts, we found the trail, somewhat overgrown, leading out from the back end of a small garbage dump in the southern end of BEYC.
After the geocaching, we took our lunch business to BEYC’s Clubhouse. BEYC is a beautifully manicured resort, with well-maintained landscaping and buildings. We had our lunch on the Clubhouse patio, enjoying the view over North Sound. Pleasant and tropical, for sure, but the impression I had was of some pretty scheme imposed on the BVI. I told my mates to remember it, for comparison to what we’d find in JVD. My wife and I had the buffet; the others ordered sandwich plates ($22 each! as I remember). My daughter’s friend, who was picking up the check, lucked out; the waitress wouldn’t charge him for the buffets, something about us not eating enough.
We had hoped to dinghy out to snorkel Eustacia Reef, but the wind was still blowing hard. I’m always willing to be the 2nd one on my block to try out something, but not the 1st, and there was no other dinghy out past Saba Rock. Instead, we motored over to Honeymoon Beach, Prickly Pear Island, anchored there, and snorkeled along the shore out to Cactus Reef. It wasn’t continuously lush and beautiful, but there was lots of good stuff to see: hard corals, sea fans, sponges, other soft corals, and many varieties of colorful fish.
Back to Leverick Bay for the evening: we moored, dinghied in to shower, then went over to the beach bar for the Friday night BBQ and pig roast (which benefits VISAR). The resort’s manager, Nick Willis, had emailed me about my problems in 2004 with a taxi driver from Leverick Bay to the Baths, offering to be sure we got what we wanted, and we’d corresponded back and forth a bit. We weren’t going to try the Baths this time, but I found Nick and introduced myself and crew. He turned out to be an enthusiastic and friendly host, glad to see that TTOLers were real people. (Kimmers and Lew and BillH were the only ones he’d met before. They’re real people, too, of course, just that there’s not many of them.) I’d recommend that any TTOLers visiting Leverick Bay look up Nick and/or his spirited wife, Monica, and say hello. He told us about his plans for the resort, which include fixing up the beach bar area with concrete platforms for tables climbing up the hillside, each one with a water view. We were actually the first ones to occupy one of these platforms. (I didn’t know, or I would have waited for someone else to try it first, of course.)
Since my Bay Area crew are involved with SAR there, I’d contacted Kimmers and Lew, who are active in VISAR, to see if we could meet. They were in panic mode, readying their villa for rental use and packing up to leave for Southern California for the winter, but they came down for cocktails and chatter. Good to meet them, and great fun, listening to Lew’s stories. (During our phone call with them to set the meeting time, our boat cell phone died; it seems the charging cord was kaput, so the battery never recharged despite the cord being plugged in. Another g.d. item to add to the boat checkout list! I finished the call on a crewmember’s personal cell phone, presumably at great expense to him. He hadn’t activated it in the BVI, but the on-screen display showed that it was running through CCT.)
I’m reasonably sure that I enjoyed a number of Painkillers, some good BBQ, and learned to accept the enthusiastic reggae band. Nick gave us the high sign when it was time to come down from the hillside for a good view of the dance floor, just before the Mocko Jumbie dance pair strode down out of the darkness. Really fantastic, unbelievable, a great show, not to be missed. Either they skipped the limbo contest afterwards that night, or we skipped out before it – either way, no loss in my book.
Day 5, Dec 10: Up and about, surprisingly early and painlessly – at least, no one complaining. Motored in to the dock after breakfast for our free water and ice. (Somewhat over half our water was gone.) No one at the dock, so we watered ourselves. After a bit, Nick himself appeared, reminded us to take our bag of ice. Then over to find the innermost red buoy by Colquhoun Reef, raise our sails, and we’re off to JVD!
(Incidentally, among Imray Iolaire, CYC, BA, Scotts’ Cruising Guide, and Virgin Anchorages, there are a number of opinions about how many buoys mark the north entrance to Gorda Sound and where they are. And the answer is (or was, Dec 8-10 for sure)(drumroll): three reds and two greens! As you enter, two red-green almost pairs to guide you between Colquhoun Reef on the southwest and Cactus Reef to the northeast, then another red to mark the southern extension of the reef and rocks from Colquhoun. Trust me, but don’t sue me.
JVD was almost straight downwind. How I wished for a spinnaker, but they’re not provided for charterers, and Lydley didn’t even have any rigging for a ‘chute. We tacked downwind, just enough off a run to keep the genoa filled. We sailed in about 10-15 knot winds, clouds and sun, with swells rising to 4-5 feet as we kept close to our heading, offshore from Great Camenoe, Guana, and, later, Tortola. A dolphin joined us briefly. As we left North Sound behind us, we could see to the south that Scrub Island and the waters around it were socked in solid, with clouds and rain. As we passed off Great Camenoe and Guana, Gorda Peak and the whole north end of VG disappeared into clouds and rain, which crossed the Drake Channel behind us to envelope most of Great Camenoe. We braced for it to catch up with us, but it stayed to the south. Then, however, all of Tortola from Long Bay west and JVD directly ahead of us disappeared. We sailed along in what seemed a magic bubble, never seeing any rain, as West End and JVD slowly reappeared. Sunshine greeted us as we picked up a mooring at Diamond Cay. Cousin Harold’s appointed dinghy appeared, to collect mooring fees and issue official receipts, but Taboo was dark. Most of the moorings had occupants, but it was still a quiet, beautiful spot.
Day 6, Dec 11: We dinghied over to the dock, no more complete and no friendlier to dinghies than it was a year and a half ago. We tied up to an end of the outer “T” dock, so our dink wouldn’t scrape under the dock. Then off to Bubbly Pool we went, with no canine assistance. A large group was there when we arrived, but I told them that their time was up, and they left. (They may even have heard me.) Lots of bubbles in the pool, lots of happy smiles, screaming and carrying on. Our expert geocacher wasn’t able to find the cache that’s supposed to be thereabouts, though.
Back at Taboo, I asked about plans for dinner, got the “Definitely January” response.
We should have snorkeled on the reef near the Diamond Cay moorings, but I took us to Sandy Spit instead. That was open to the wind, with surge and currents that I judged to be dangerous after we tried it. Well, at least it’s a beautiful place. There’s only that one tree on Sandy Spit, the leaning palm that everyone has seen in a number of TV commercials, and we watched while another group caught their kite in it. (They were power boaters who had followed us into Bubbly Pool in the morning. The “bozos and bimbos” I said – but quietly.) Fortunately, they retrieved the kite without pulling down the tree.
Then, it was off to Great Harbour. I spotted a “hole” between two other boats close to the inner reef. They were about 125 ft apart, and I dropped our hook so we would lie right between them. I even checked with the nearest boat that we had about the same amount of scope. I didn’t really count on the currents twisting us +/-90°, but they did. Sometimes we were all side-by-side, as we started, sometimes we were all in a row, pointed in to the shore, sometimes we were all in a row, pointed out of the harbor. If you do the arithmetic, with our 34 ft boat between a 40 ft boat and a 38-footer, you won’t be surprised that we were often pointing at the stern of a boat less than a boat length away. If a wind had come up, we would all have been blown back, side-by-side, with a comfortable distance between us. As it was, in light winds, we were all spinning around our anchor chain piles under our bows. No real problem.
We weren’t a group that was really into limin’, but we also weren’t into hurrying, so it was 6pm when we arrived at Corsairs. I think I startled my crew by making reservations for 7pm, but I wanted them to wander around JVD’s “big town” to get the feel for a place that was so different from the highly manicured BEYC. Enthusiastic Vinnie welcomed us to his restaurant when we returned. (To be certain, I asked if he was the owner. “Who else would work so hard?” he said.) Lots of happy chatter about his war surplus Dodge Power Wagon (not a jeep; larger). Food was excellent, of course. Our beer drinker used my latest Drinking Mans Guide for 2 for 1 bottles of Presidente beer from Dominican Republic. He was impressed.
Day 7, Dec. 12: Beautiful day, beautiful sail from Great Harbour, passing Sopers Hole, to the Indians. One last orange buoy was waiting for us. (Argument from the crew – “It’s not orange, it’s red.” Me: “There are no red buoys in the national park system, so this red buoy is orange.” They had difficulties with the concept, but we tied up.) Snorkeling at the Indians was fantastic, just as good as I ever remembered it to be. By choice, we spent a long time snorkeling, then motored back to Hodges Creek. Again, although we called in and were acknowledged, no dock staff to help us dock. I let my ASA “certified” crewmember bring us in. Wind caught the stern of the boat as we were heading into the finger pier. I had to jump four feet from the boat to the dock with the stern dock line to keep us from drifting into the boat to our port. (Well, two feet at least.) Our crew deserted us for dinner, but my wife and I had ours in the cockpit. The Sunsail marina is far from the worst place to be; it’s just not my favorite place, and we ended up staying there for three nights this trip.
Day 8, Dec 13, Back to Boston:
Without incident, except that two of our three checked bags arrived in Boston without the cable ties with which I had “locked” them before leaving Sunsail. Nothing missing, maybe because my handheld GPS and VHF were inside a gym bag inside a duffel bag. I didn’t intend this as a security measure, but for organization – all of the sailing stuff was inside the gym bag, so it would stay in one place on the boat. I thought that my greasy old wide-brim hat was missing, but no such luck: it turned up in a side pocket of one of the duffels. We arrived home around midnight in single-digit temperatures, with the house at 55°, set back to save oil while we were gone. As we huddled in bed under extra blankets, waiting for the house to warm up (to it’s usual 65°), we tried hard to remember that the night before we had dined in the boat cockpit on a star-lit night, wearing only shorts and short-sleeve shirts.
This time, I feel confident in saying that “we’ve gone to come back.” We have invited our other daughter to join us for a charter (it’s only fair) and she says that her current contract in Antarctica will be her last one (I forget whether it’s her 4th or 5th), and she’ll be ready to join us next year. I really look forward to that.
David
