On 31 Mar 2024, at 13:42, John Hamilton <jockhamilton@myiridium.net> wrote:
Happy Easter everybody.
I forgot to mention that on my way back to the marina, with about a mile to go I had a puncture. As it was dark and I only had my cycle headlight I decided just to push the bike for the last mile home so that’s what I did.
Yesterday morning I fixed the puncture, or thought I had, disassembled the bike and put it back in it’s bag by which time the tyre had gone flat again. I’m not sure if the patch didn’t stick or whether there is another small hole, I’ll have to look at a later date. I had a shave ashore, ditched the garbage and went to the office to say I was going.
A boat had moored astern of me, full of women although I’d seen the boat the previous evening i only saw the crew in the morning, They were running out of gas but I couldn’t help them other than to say that Gary would probably know where to get gas inPonce which was their next port of call. I texted Gary and gave them his number, apparently it shouldn’t be a problem to have their bottle refilled in Ponce.
I then cast off and headed to an anchorage in the centre of the South of Viequies and stopped there for a few hours, I had been intending to spend the night but looking at the forecast I thought I’d better make more distance to the East whilst the going. Was good and so after a few hours picked up the anchor and headed to a secluded anchorage as far East as possible on the South Coast. My first anchorage was a party beach at Esperanza, and very noisy because all the boats seem to have very powerful amplifiers and speakers and compete with each other to make the most noise whilst whizzing around the bay, or indeed whilst sitting at anchor or on the beach.
I dropped anchor at about 1730 for the second time, in time and unsually I didn’t give the anchor a good pulll to ensure it had dug in, I don’t know why not, I think that I was thinking that it always dug in, we were in a safe anchorage with no other boats around and that the wind would blow us offshore anyway.
After carbonbara and an early night the anchor alarm went off, I re set the alarm but it soon went off again. I started the engine to dig it in but we just dragged when I went astern. I pulled it up and found that I’d managed to catch a loop of chain around the anchor so that the chain was pulling on the fluke of the anchor rather than on the stock - I must have still been going slowly ahead when dropping the anchor and managed to get it all in a twingle.
I set off at about 0600 this morning to try to get to the US Virgin Islands today, about 35 miles, not a huge distance but upwind, it’s now about 0830 and we’ve about 27 miles to go, the wind is on the nose but only about 15 knots so it’s, for a beat, quite a pleasant one, well so far anyway.
I’m not sure if I can clear out of the US waters tomorrow or whether I’ll have to wait ‘til Tuesday, I’d rather do it tomorrow if possible to have a day in hand in the BVIs before meeting everyone - crew D , on thursday morning at the airport.
Slainte Jock and Yemaya.
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