Catching up for los time

Well sports fans, Looks like my postings will not be as regular as I had hoped. The BVI wide Internet access hasn't caught up to Vista yet. I can hear Kevin Hall and Terry Smedley laughing all the way down here.

So we are sitting in the yacht club resturaunt at the Bitter End Yacht Club on the far northern end of Virgin Gorda free wireless no less. Our last internet access was 5,00 for 30 minutes so I passed.

Here is what we have been doing for the last few days.

Monday Night 11-19-20
We are still in Road Town. We were suposed to leave today but I keep forgetting that this is "the carribean mon" and the only schedule that is kept is the composite all of the locals who you depend on for goods and services. We spent last night on the boat hoping to get an early start this morning. By the time we finished our briefing (4:00 schedule, 5:00 actual) and got on the boat, 6 pm, it was too dark to do the systems checkout. That was re-scheuled for 7:30 this morning. Under my breath I am thinking, it's November, it gets dark earlier, let's move the briefing and the checkout up earlier, but no, can't start the briefing before 4 or the checkout before 6. They wouldn't even tells us which boat was ours until 6. GRRRRRRR--- - - - - -.
Turns out the name of our boat is "Class Act". So far, this establishment is anything but!!!
So now it is dark and we still have no provisions, went to the restaurant for dinner again. Not exactly stellar service there either. Yesterday it took 2 and a half hours to get a salad. WOW.
Got back to the boat, went thru the provisions list only to find a lot of stuff missing. Too late to do anything about it, so that had to wait until morning. Well our 7:30 briefing started at 9:00, the rest of the provisions took 3 seperate deliveries before we got everything.
But who really cares, Its hot and the weather, well thats another story. Patti will tell you about the weather today.
Actually we have to start with last night. Little drops of rain kept waking us up, forcing us to batten down the hatches. This continued all day Monday. About once every hour a storm front would go through and dump ALOT of rain, warm rain. Every time we would be just about dry, another shower would hit. Since we did not receive our last provisions until almost 4:00pm, we could not leave Tortola and get to another bay before dark, so we are forced to spend another night here at the dock. Oh well, the showers and the bar are great!!
Needlees to say this is all in a days work or play as it were, pretty tough I know but somebody has to do it. Tomorrow we leave for the caves on Norman Island. Several partially submerged caves that offer great snorkeling. And of course a really nice beach and a great floating resturant with bonus time for those that elect to dive in off the yard arm.
11-20-07
Had a wonderful sail from Road town to Norman Island. 15 to 18 knots on a close reach, we blasted all the way there on one tack. Full main and jib nicely heeled over, averaged around 6 knots. Great for a 33' cruising sailboat. Found a mooring bouy to tie up to, then decided that it wasn't in a very good place since all the boat traffic to and from Willies would go right past us. Moved to the other side of the bay. Bill and Judy were there also. They have chartered the same size boat that we have and left at the same time.
Patti and I jumped in the dinghy, an inflatable with a 15 hp kicker. That can spoil ya in a hurry. I am not sure why I thought it necessary to get a kayak also, the inflatable is too easy. We zoomed around Treasure point to the caves to go snorkeling. Tied the dinghy up to the dinghy line and had a great time exploring the underwater caves. Well not totally underwater but close enough to give me the creeps. They say you don't want to go swiming at night round here, I was extrapolationg that too dark caves and thinking to myself, whats in there that I can't see, and would I really like what I saw anyway. We got out of there. As soon as we got in the water we were surrounded by fish. All kinds in all colors. Patti found a school of "husky fish", very small maybe 3" long and 2" high, and very narrow, that were flourescent (sp) purple everywhere except for their tail which was flourescent (sp again) gold. We also found some really cool looking antler coral. Some looked like a moose rack and others looked like a small buck rack, except it was purple. We feel right at home now, well at least until the 5 foot Barracuda went cruising on by. He was only 10 feet away and very intimidating. but we let him pass. I told patti to slow down and let him get a ways in front of us, I didn't want the Barracuda to think we were stalking him. Well he slowed down some more and then turned to look straight at us, Patti goes yikes, I think he is stalking us. He passed peaceully by, knowing that he was the king of this reef and could have us at will. We snorkeled for a couple of hours and finally headed back to the dinghy when a whole group of people came snorkeling by. They were making lots of noise and splashing. I l0oked ahead and there was our friendly Barracuda, right between us and the outher snorklers. We were between him and the open water yikes. The other people did'nt see him because they weren't looking at the surface. He was cruising less than a foot below the surface. Sure enough he turned and went right in front of us 5 feet away this time. I kept my arms at my sides and lay there, he looked our way as if to say, "you know, I am not really hungry right now but if I was- - - - ).

The real entertainment came as all of us old fogies tried to get back in the inflatable. I went first, and of course made it very gracefully(:>"). There were no witnesses so who is gonna know. The others, well I think it is akin to landing a really big fish in a really small boat. I will let your imaginations go wild with that knowing that you will know exactly what I mean.

Back to the boat for some outstanding Carribean "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" .Hey I even have that song on the boat, should have played it. Then it was off to Willies for a night cap or two.

11-21-07
Another great day of sailing. you non sailors are gonna get really tired of me talking about the great sailing. 5 hours, 6 tacks brought us to the Baths. These huge boulders sitting right in the water at the shore. Some of them twice as big as our house. Really cool with the waves crashing between them forming all kinds of swirling pools, mother natures jaccuzi I guess. All in all kind of "Fern Grotto ish." Dan and Nancy know what I mean but for the rest of you that means "Alot to do about nothing.: oh well, we can say we were there. Then on to Spanish Town for the night which will hopefully be the worst anchorage that I select to overnight in. Wind, current and rollers in different directions, rolly polly all night long, banging into the mooring float. "BANG", there it goes again.

11-22-07 Thanksgiving Day.
Got up several times to check on the mooring bouy, everything was ok until 6:30 when we wern't where we were sopposed to be. The line that connects the mooring ball to it's anchor had parted 5 or six feet below the surface and there we were, floating, free as a bird into the channel. The mooring ball was still attached to us so we took it over to one of the other moorings and lashed it there. Suddenly realizing that we had seen mooring balls lashed together other places.
Boy are we thankfull today for alot of things, our mooring ball episode included.

Well up at 6:30 and no place else to go so on to Gorda sound on the very north end of "Virgin Gorda". It was an angry sea out there, Wind blowing right on our nose. It felt like 20 to 25 knots of breeze and 5 to 8 foot seas. Doesn't sound like much, but motoring into it was a struggle, I think we only made 3 or 4 knots boat speed. The seas were steep and choppy, making for an interesting and wet ride. We could have sailed, but I was tired and want to take a nap after a long night. We pulled in through the reef into North Sound about 9:30, found a mooring bouy and took a nap.

Off to shore to get this posted. The islands wide Internet has not caught up to Vista yet, I now will have to go ashore to post to the blog. Hope all is well with you.
nufffornow.
Capt. Kook