Going off the grid for a while - I'm Back!!!!!!

[JRacer]

Installment # 4:


Day 8, 11/25 – (10:00 – 22:15N;65:50W): We are 36-48 hours from BVI, seeing 12-15 knot winds and going well. Weather is island warm, shirts come off and we are drying out. Take the break in the weather as an opportunity to transfer remaining canned fuel to the tank and re-compute range – we are good – could motor the rest of the way if we had to. Midday, all but one of the crew goes off the stern to swim and get a bath with the boat ghosting along at 1 kt under main only. We determine we are swimming in the Puerto Rico Trench, 8000 meters deep. Deep blue water, visibility unlimited. Flew the A-Sail (The Whomper) again in the lighter breezes.

Day 9, 11/26 – (09:30 - 20:01N;64:59W) - : Sun is out, weather warm, but zero wind, sea is dead flat at 7AM, looks like a mill pond. Never imagined the sea in this state particularly after what we have been though to date. Along the way we get an unexpected guest. Hard to believe this far offshore. He rests a while in and out of the boat and then he is off to who knows where. 7 PM Land Ho!, Lights of Tortola 37 miles distant.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Heaven!

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[jssailem]

Heaven!

No the "Puerto Rico Trench"

 

[dLj]

Beautiful photos!

dj

 

[FDL S2]

This is a great write up! Thank you

 

[JRacer]

No the "Puerto Rico Trench"

Just a bunch of Kansas Sailors! We are used to a blow. It averages 15 here, blows zero or 30! ;-)

 

[JRacer]

Installment # 5:

Day 10, 11/27 - (00:30 – 18:27N;64:45W): We sail into Great Harbor, Jost Van Dyke where we will clear customs in the morning. We pick up a mooring ball and have brief cocktail to celebrate our arrival and we are off to bed in a boat that is not pitching and rolling. We get a good nights sleep. We have food left over. Beer, wine and whiskey are in short supply. We walk up the dock looking like drunk sailors, no land legs. Clear customs then motor over to White Bay and the Soggy Dollar Bar and some Painkillers. We anchor in “position A”, right in front of the live webcam and tell friends and family to tune in. “Boat Drinks, Waitress I need two more boat drinks”. We spent the day there then motor over to Peter Island and the Willy-T for an evening of festivities. Along the way, we detour through Sopers Hole and Nanny Cay to check out the recovery efforts. After several hours at the Willy-T, we manage to get back in the dingy with only one man overboard boarding the dinghy and make it back to the boat! Sopers Hole looks like very little has been done to rebuild although we know considerable effort has been made. There is still a lot to do there to get back to anywhere near what it was before the storm. Nanny Cay appears to be in better shape, new docks present but incomplete and mostly unoccupied. Throughout the harbor there are many small bouys marking underwater debris that has yet to be removed.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Incredible beauty is all around.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[JRacer]

Last Installment:

Day 11, 11/28: Motored over to Cooper Island. Four of the crew encounter two inquisitive dolphins and spend about an hour swimming and playing with them – what an experience. Me, I got “Land Sick” that day and could only feel better when I got back on the boat, go figure. Willy-T the night before probably did not help! We motor to Fat Hog’s Bay and Moby II’s rebuilt slip, same one that Moby had before the storm. Moby is back in the BVI.


Day 12, 11/29 and beyond: Three of our crew head back to the US. The remainder of us stay behind and island hop through 12/3 then back to the dock to put up the boat until the next time someone is down in a few weeks. We visit Anegada, my favorite island, for a couple days. Anegada is in pretty good shape. Leverick Bay is in decent shape. The Bitter End YC is completely gone and under reconstruction – they took the opportunity presented by the damage to scrape the place clean and rebuild from the ground up. At present, it is a clean sheet of paper. You can’t tell that the place was there if you did not already know. The restaurant and bar at Saba Rock is nothing but a concrete shell but in undergoing repairs. Other properties at that end of Gorda Sound are also severely damaged. Wherever you go, you can tell who did and did not have insurance.


Trip Statistics: 207 hours sailing; 1,698 nm sailed, 1368 nm as the crow flies; max speed 15 knots; Average Speed 6.6 knots; 36 hours enduring storms with 36+ knot winds and 15 foot seas; Arrived in the BVI with the same crew with which we left Brunswick – a good outcome. All crew got along throughout the trip and there was never a harsh word spoken – would do this trip again with this crew in a heartbeat. This boat really handled the conditions well and I was suitably impressed with its performance. I can recall only a few instances in which we were taking green water over the bow. Only drawback to it is that the salon is wide and open and does not have a great many places to hang on which makes it a little dangerous, it was apparently designed as a place to gather not survive.


Router debrief: Said he had never had to route a crew through such variable and unpredictable conditions.

 

[Gunni]

Wow, no kidding, BEYC is demolished! That was a ton of infrastructure (and jobs).