So here we are. Me and Gill, together with John and Helena, our new owners. They flew out last Saturday, just a week ago to the rolly anchorage at Fort de France, Martinique. Keen to get started we left there next morning stocked up with water, diesel and, it being effectively France, wine and cheese. Eventual destination - George Town, the Bahamas, 1200 miles distant. Initial destination - British Virgin Islands , around 320 miles away. This is quite a passage for sailors new to Petronella. John has sailed quite a lot on his own but Helena is very inexperienced. We could feel the apprehension but at the same time a high level of excitement. We sailed slowly up the western side of Martinique then across the bouncy Dominica Channel to our favourite (or is that favorite) island of Dominica. J and H were feeling a bit under the weather so we stopped in Portsmouth. At night. This was a first for us but we dropped anchor beautifully. If we were impressed then J and H were very impressed! They were dead tired though. They were learning, the motion was new, it was hot and sultry and they could finally relax after a very stressful few months.
Next morning we were off early towards the BVIs. Guadeloupe slipped by, followed by Nevis, St Kitts, Statia and after some serious gybing eventually Saba. We stood night watches for two days and the wind dropped. We motored for 24 hours and J and H gradually joined us. Food was finally eaten, beds were vacated and slow conversations gradually developed.
Finally, early on Day 4 we arrived in Leverick Bay (home of the one man pirate show Em)! We checked in and grabbed a mooring ball (well done J and H). The next couple of days were practising motoring, docking, mooring balls, dinghy work etc, etc. J is great at handling P. H needed confidence which she is fast gaining. They will be fine even though J admitted they were both wondering on Day 3 if they had done the right thing. They have learned so much in a week.
Next up is the long passage to Turks and Caicos. We were going to go straight there but there are three metre swells north of Puerto Rico so we will hop along the US Virgin Islands first. Three metre waves are fine for us, P and John, but we don't want to frighten H early in her time on P.
In order to sail to the USVIs we first have to enter 'US' soil by ferry. So tomorrow we will leave P here and ferry over to St Johns to initiate Gill's ESTA which is like a mini visa.
So, everything is going well. P is beautiful and I get a pang of sorrow now when people dinghy past and tell us so. Soon she won't be mine any longer.
Star Date: 17th April 2017
Current Location: Soper's Hole, BVIs
Great news. Helena thinks I look like Sean Connery! At first she called me Scottie (as in First Engineer) but now she has decided I'm really a film star. Gilly on the other hand is simply Captain Cook because she is both captain and cook.
Yesterday Gill and I went to America! We caught the ferry to St John, just three miles away from our current island Tortola. $40 US return, plus $10 US departure tax each. The US has made it very difficult for Brits to get to US soil but this little wrinkle of popping across first by ferry appears to do the trick. Arriving in St John we were met by big open taxis. They reminded me of the African safari trucks. But these were full of large, loud American tourists driven by Spanish speaking locals. Small, somewhat down at heel, colourful bars and stores selling tourist tat. We hunkered down outside one with a coffee for a morning of serious interneting.
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| Gill's first official office on US soil |
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| Add captionThe VERY fast ferry from BVIs to USVIs |
Two frustrating hours later we had booked business class air tickets to Miami (includes two free hold bags and somehow cheaper than the Economy fare tickets??) from George Town in the Bahamas Exumas. And two tickets from Miami the next day to London via Lisbon. These were cheap tickets at £252 each but then we struggled to add an extra hold baggage each. In the end we added them but could not pay for them. This we must do when we get a connection as it will be more costly if we wait til the airport to pay for them.
By then an email had arrived saying the owners of a boat we might be interested in buying had arrived in Coral Bay just three miles away. We thought we just had time to see it before our ferry returned. So we arranged a (big) taxi to take us there - slowly, through the nature reserve that is most of the island. We arrive at the dock but there is no internet and no one has a VHF radio so we can't call them. A trip to the local bar (Skinnylegs) allowed us to email them and 10 minutes later Eric, the owner, arrived. He and his wife together with their three children had bought Laridae, a Westerly Ocean 49, two years previously, and sailed it back to the Caribbean. A great guy, and a great boat. But maybe just a bit big and a bit expensive. So I think we'll forget it for now.
So now we have 75 minutes to get back for our ferry. It's 9 miles, hot and Gilly. We start to walk. Very little traffic passes. Finally another taxi stops for us. Full of an American family who have chattered aotor cat. Thank you. Thank you. We get back to Cruz Bay only to find no one knows anything about our ferry. We rush from terminal to terminal asking immigration officials, customs people and ferrymen what is going on. The other 4.30 ferry back to Soper's Hole leaves and we are stuck. Just as panic sets in another ferry arrives. It seems we first have to go deeper in the USVIs to St Thomas. There we get off, go to the ferry operator to get checked out of the US and then return for a bumpy passage back to Tortola. A long day. But dinner and a beer await when we arrive and John is waiting in the dinghy to ferry us back to P.
Almost a disaster!
After a trip to the internet cafe Gill realised several hours later she had left her handbag there with credit cards and 200 USD inside. Panic. Dinghy back ashore to find that luckily the bag was behind the bar. Lucky indeed as Gilly had forgotten that both our passports and her driving licence were also in the bag! If they had gone missing the Bahamas would have been impossible to achieve.
So here we sit, frustrated and waiting for the weather offshore to improve. Hopefully we can leave in the next couple of days.
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