10/29 1700 position 18-30N 64-23W. On a mooring in Virgin Gorda Sound, British Virgin Islands
The marine hardware store in Rodney Bay insisted on charging the new battery overnight if Andy wanted it to be warrantied, so he went in to pick it up after breakfast on 10/27. He returned to Arabella and we were installing the new battery when we realized that it had 5/16" threaded posts, and not 8mm posts like the old one. Arabella was built in South Africa and nearly everything aboard her is metric, so of course we only had metric nuts in the spares locker. Andy had to go back to the hardware store to buy some 5/16" nuts.
He returned, we completed installing the new battery, and the crew got Arabella ready to depart. While we were going through the checklist a colorful fellow in a boat covered with palm fronds and branches making it look like a floating island approached blowing a conch shell. "Gregory" cruises around Rodney bay in his boat selling fruit and souvenirs to visiting yachts. Andy and Patty were in Rodney Bay a long time last year sitting out hurricanes Irma, Jose, and Maria. They got well acquainted with Gregory during that stay. The three of them caught up like old friends and we bought some fruit.
We got underway just before noon and headed north up the Lesser Antilles. The weather was perfect, ten knot trade winds from just south of east. We sailed across the channels and motor sailed through the lees of the islands. Martinique, Dominica, and Guadeloupe slid by to weather. Monserrat's active volcano was spewing smoke and leaving a trail of smog to the west. Nevis and St. Kitts went by, and we cut through the channel between St. Eustatius and Saba to avoid crossing the Saba Bank, a huge shallow sand bank to the west.
The chart shows that Saba Bank is only nineteen feet deep in places, and it cautions that it can be dangerous in certain weather. We were going to get there after dark, and the area was hit by two of the hurricanes last summer which may have moved some sand around. We figured avoiding the bank would be a prudent move.
After passing Saba Island we turned thirty degrees to port and headed straight to Virgin Gorda, dropping anchor off of Spanish Town at 1145AM this morning. The wind had crapped out completely at 3AM, so we ended up powering the final eight plus hours. The 350 mile passage took us almost exactly two days. Our rookie passage makers did a great job, and everybody had a good time.
When we were passing the French speaking islands the local Coast Guard broadcast a set speech a couple of times a day. None of us speak French, but we listened carefully and it sounded to us like the caller was asking for Pepe Le Pew to bring him some croissants.
Fishing improved. Andy caught a nice four pound mahi just before sunset our first night out and we had him for that night's dinner. He caught a small tuna the second day, which we threw back. I got tired of fighting with seaweed so didn't have my line out most of the time. Andy didn't have the same problem. Apparently his single hook lure wasn't as prone to snagging weed as my double hook was.
Andy and Lori went ashore to check us into the British Virgin Islands in Spanish Town, and Patty and I went for a snorkel in the crystal clear waters where we were anchored. The underwater scenery wasn't much there, but the warm water and unbelievable visibility made it special.
After Andy and Lori returned we moved Arabella a mile down the coast to "The Baths". I've never been there before, but the spot was already special to me. As a thirteen year old, I read about Robin Lee Graham's single handed voyage around the world in National Geographic Magazine. Those articles about his voyage are one of the things that inspired me to make voyages of my own later in life. Robin stopped at and wrote about The Baths in his articles, so it meant a lot to me to visit them.
The Baths are a quarter mile long pile of rounded granite boulders sitting on top of each other along a beach on Virgin Gorda. These boulders are all huge, and some of them are as large as a house. There is a trail between and underneath the boulders along the waterfront, and it is spectacular.
We moved the boat a few miles north to Virgin Gorda Sound at 4PM after we finished exploring The Baths, and Arabella is hanging on a mooring there as I write this while sipping a rum punch. It has been a great day, and a perfect way to end the crossing.
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