To Vigin Gorda and on.
Moonshine
Sun 8 Apr 2007 22:26
It was a beautiful night with a full moon, and did not get dark. The wind dropped to a gentle south easterly giving us a very easy beam reach at about 6 knots. In fact that was slightly too fast as I'd done the passage plan at 5.5k and to arrive at dawn, so there were times when I slowed the boat. We fished, but failed, listened to a little jazz, drank a little spirit, read a bit, and finally Sandra went to bed whilst I continued with the above.
At one point in the night, another boat, motoring from it's light pattern, approached us on a collision course. As I was sailing, I was required to hold my course. I did so until two things became clear. It was a charter boat, and was not going to avoid me. I steered to avoid it but passed as close as I dared, and shone a searchlight into the cockpit. There was nobody there! Almost certainly asleep below.
We arrived at Virgin Gorda at about 7am.and docked at Leverick to get fuel and water. Water gets very important in this heat. It's easy to carry enough to drink, but in this heat, showers are essential to cooling down. We swam, showered and cast off again to continue to Gorda Marina to clear customs. We could not do this at Leverick, and later the same day were on a marina at Gorda.
I won't bore you with the 2 hour clearance saga. It's par for the course!
In the evening we went to 'The Mineshaft', a restaurant on top of a small mountain, with a Cornish engine house beside it exactly as you see in Cornwall.
In fact copper was mined from here first by the Spanish, but when the mine got too deep, Cornish miners took over. In 1838 they built an engine house and left a real mark of Cornwall on the place.
The following morning we left for Pussers Marina at Marina Cay
So far this had been a delivery trip, but now we were in the heart of the most beautiful sailing water one could imagine.
Rod Sandra and the mouse.
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