Lilli Mae - Rides Again - New crew, amazing coincidences and new colours
Lilli Mae
Linton
Wed 22 May 2024 06:42
In the end we made it to St. Georges, Bermuda without any (fuel) drama. We arrived at just after 3 PM and anchored in St George’s Harbour. The overall journey from Stratford, CT was 1,077 nm and we had been at sea for over 9 days. 60 nm from Bermuda we managed to land a very nice Bonito fish!
Alan is an experienced sailor from Vancouver and had flown overnight to meet us in Bermuda. Our arrival timing had worked out well. Welcome aboard Alan.
We have had quite a lot to do in a short time; we are planning to depart Bermuda on the 22nd May (mid-day) giving us only 2 days to fix a couple of items and to do our final preparations for departure to the Azores. On Monday (22nd) Joan and Howard sorted out the restocking of food. Mike, Rick and Alan organised the boat refuelling.
On our return to our anchoring spot from refuelling we “ran into” Lilli Mae’s previous owner. Joan and Howard had met Dr Michael Albert in 2022 in Palma. By an amazing coincidence our paths crossed again here in Bermuda.
He and his family are en-route to Rhode Island, US. Bon-voyage Dr Albert and the crew aboard Albertone.
A major item we needed to address was our propellor pitch. We had burned through almost 1400 l of fuel since departing the US at a rate of about 12 l/engine hour. This was much higher than our normal (8 //hour) and so we (actually Rick!) made it an objective to try and address this in Bermuda before heading across the Atlantic.
Diving kit was hired and Rick set about the task of making the underwater adjustments.
We had dinner ashore in St George’s for Joan's last night aboard (Monday 20th) and she headed off home early this morning (Tuesday 21st). Thanks for everything Joan! And congratulations on your longest sea voyage!
A couple of other things happened today.
The Anning family came to visit. Dave and Howard have worked together at Smiths and Iter Consulting over the past few years. Shirley and Dave have been sailing in the Caribbean since their Atlantic crossing last year. Cerys, their daughter who sailed the Atlantic with her parents has really been bitten by the sailing bug and Cerys and partner have bought their own boat in St Lucia. Good luck with your adventures Cerys.
And the crew aboard Lilli Mae found some colours to replace those of our spinnaker. Our large Jamaica flag was hoisted below the port spreaders.
A celebratory beer and some loud Bob Marley music was played to mark the moment.
We have a few more items to address tomorrow. We are due to depart at 1200 local time. Not withstanding the forecasted very light winds we still have a few items to complete before we can leave. So we might be a bit late departing with the ARC Europe fleet. We shall see.
Anyway, that is it for now. We will keep you posted on our progress.
Until then take care of yourselves.
All the best.
From the crew aboard the proud and colourful Lilli Mae.
email: lilli_mae {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com
blog: http://blog.mailasail.com/lilli_mae
tracker: https://share.garmin.com/LilliMae