Overnight to the Fat Virgin
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Date 0730
– 17 April 2011 For those of a delicate disposition and before reaching for the
smelling salts, let me explain. Christopher Columbus came across the
Virgin Islands in 1493 and seeing the large number of islands it is thought
that he named the islands after the 11,00 virgin followers of Saint Ursula who
was martyred in the fourth century. He named our destination island
Virgin Gorda, literally “fat virgin” for its seawards resemblance
to a fat woman lying on her back. Honest! – He had been at sea for a long
time. Back to the sailing. In the company of “Let it Be”,
“Rainmaker” and “Highland Fling” we slipped at 1810;
Highland Fling was pressing on as they were happy to enter the sound in
darkness if necessary and they quickly disappeared ahead. The weather was
perfect with 15-18 knots of wind from the ENE giving us a beam reach for most
of the way. In fact the weather was too good (sailing is very perverse)
and we three boats in company had to reduce sail to keep the speed down so that
we would arrive in daylight. With three reefs in everything and at 5
knots we dropped back a little but winding everything back out produced 9 knots
and we soon caught up so back in the reefs went.
Everyone who writes about
sailing says that dawn landfalls have a magic of their own and this morning
proved that as Virgin Gorda and
We definitely crossed the
“finishing line” with “Let it Be”, Rob and Sheila Avery
After a certain amount of looking for a good anchorage avoiding the
mooring buoys ($25 - $40 per night) which crowd every good anchorage in the
BVI’s we anchored off the prosaically named “Rat Point” at
0745. |
