St. Maarten Bound

OK, here's the story of our trip to St. Maarteen (and a picture taken just prior to our leaving):


We headed out for St. Maarteen - Martin - Marteen - Maarten depending on who is doing the spelling - two days ago at about 7:00 pm. It took us about an hour to clear the British Virgin islands and head into the open ocean and by that time, it was already dark. The wind and waves were both a bit stronger than forecast so it was a bit of a bumpy ride. Coco and Cooper weren't happy about the rocking and rolling the boat was making and to top it off, when you're in seas like that, there is also a great deal of sloshing and banging to go along with the rocking and rolling. Well, if you're a dog, you either pee or throw up...and they did both.

Jim and I were each feeling a bit queasy and also respectfully afraid of the sail to come. We considered turning back, but decided that we needed to get use to harsh conditions and what we were going through wasn't all that harsh. So after we got ourselves psyched to weather out the storm, we heard this big BANG and discovered that our outhaul (the line that secures the clew of the sail) had snapped, leaving our mainsail "flapping in the wind" in a bad way. The sail had to be controlled and the best way to do that was to release the mail halyard and let the sail drop into the sail bag attached along the top of the boom. We took a vote and I was elected "vice-president in charge of crawling up to the mast in bad weather". So into my jack-line harness I went and up to the mast I scurried. Eyes of the World was in about 7 foot seas which, when you're heading into the wind, equates to up to 14 foot plunges into the troughs of the waves. I was facing the front of the mast with my back to the front of the boat. Every time we dove into a trough, the water sprayed up though the nets and gave me a cool, refreshing, dousing...well, maybe not so refreshing. With my back to forward, I couldn't see what was coming, nor could I focus on the horizon (please refer to the prior sentence describing the queasy feeling) and as a result, my stomach wasn't any happier than I was. Jim was behind the helm, holding the boat into weather so that when I did release the halyard, the sail fell straight through the lazy jacks and into the stack pack. Had he not been able to do that, the sail could have blown free and fouled itself in the rigging.

All went well with the dropping of the sail and we turned ourselves around on a heading back to Peter Island. Our initial plan was to head out at dusk and arrive after dawn. The theory being, "Leave with light, arrive with light." Now we were arriving back amongst the British Virgin Islands at 10:30 PM while it was quite dark. Being the prepared sailors we are, we had a watertight monitor installed in the cockpit so we could benefit from our GPS without having to be in the salon of the boat. The damn monitor was so bright that when we turned it on at night, it ruined any night vision our eyes had developed in the dark. What we did was flip it on for a few seconds and then shut it off, wait for our eyes to adjust and then make sure we weren't going to run into anything. Not the best way to come into a landing at night. We made it through the safest passage between Dead Chest and Peter Island and headed for Great Harbour to pick up a mooring ball for the night.

Most mooring balls are covered with a highly reflective paint and will light up like a beacon when illuminated with a flashlight. We pulled out our 1 million candle power spot light and began sweeping the harbout with enough light to tan a local. I'm sure the other boats in the harbour were a little peeved. However, safety first, a good night's sleep for the other folks resting in their already moored boats....a distant second. I navigated through a field of other sailboats and Jim grabbed the mooring ball with the boat hook like a pro. We snapped the shackle shut on our bridle and both gave a huge sigh of relief only then to discover that we'd lost both dogs overboard during the chaos. Ok, I made that part up. Both dogs were fine but after the peeing and the throwing up...who knows what I could have done.

We hope the next attempt at St. Maarteen will be nothing to write a blog about!