Lilli Mae - The Journey Home - End of the road!
Lilli Mae
Linton
Sun 29 Mar 2020 02:15
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Hi Everyone, hope you are all OK and
healthy.
Mike and my journey has come to the end. We have managed
to get a flight back to "good 'ole Blighty" tomorrow (Sunday 30th). Lilli
Mae is booked on a vessel back to Southampton onto which she will be loaded
sometime between the 12th and 18th April. Mike and I managed to get
all the planning sorted last Tuesday (24th March). The only thing we had to do
was to move Lilli Mae from the American Yacht Harbour, Red Hook to Crown Bay
Marina in Charlotte-Amalie. Crown Bay is the place Lilli Mae will be loaded on
to the boat MV Park heading for Holland and stopping in Southampton. We had
pretty much been stuck in the American Yacht Harbour marina for over a
week; we were almost the only people in the harbour. Charlotte-Amalie is only 12
miles from Red Hook but we decided to take the long way round. We sailed from
Red hook to Coral Bay in St John and stayed overnight in Otter Bay. And then we
sailed from the 19 miles to Charlotte-Amalie yesterday.
We had to tack all the way up to Coral Bay on Thursday.
We found a mooring buoy which was completely isolated. It was so quiet with no
boats around and only the wildlife noises. In the morning (Friday) we flew the
drone and took some really great pictures.
Later on Friday morning we set-off for Crown Bay
Marina. The winds were light and so we put the chute up. We managed to get the
drone up as well and we got some really cool pictures whilst we were sailing to
Crown Bay; and we managed to get the drone back on board! The picture "flying
the colours" is how we imagined we would have arrived in Montego Bay
 .We got into Crown Bay Marina at about 4 PM and straight
away we started getting Lilli Mae ready for her journey back to Southampton. We
have now competed nearly all the prep and we will lock her up at about 1030 AM
local time and leave her in hands on a local agent and the shipping company.
Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong.
Well that's it. We are at the end of this journey. We
did not finish the mission but it has been a trip of a life time. We are
sad Lilli Mae did not make it home but we are happy that we will
hopefully get an opportunity to retry the trip in a few years.
Mike and I hope that you are all keeping well and safe
from what is going on in the world right now. We have been watching all the news
from the UK whilst we have been "stuck" here and we think we are returning to
a UK which is different to the one we left. We have got acclimatised to the
28 degree temperatures and we hear the weather forecast for the UK this weekend
is cold and windy! That's going to hurt! But we are looking forward to getting
home. We are flying from St Thomas to Newark nr New York which is bit worrying
but we will need to be vigilant.
This will be the last update that the Lilli Mae crew
will send. But if (....WHEN) we do restart the journey to Mo'Bay with Lilli Mae
then we will start again.
Take care everyone. Keep your distance!
This is the crew of Lilli Mae signing
off. |
