..till the fat lady sings.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 17 Nov 2013 17:44

18:29.8N 64:21.6W

 

Sunday 17th Nov – 1,709 miles

 

Well, there we were powering along on the last leg, looking forward to a starry and peaceful final night with just 60 plus miles to run, with the wind blowing a steady 15 knots from the North East and the job just about done, when it seems that the weather Gods decided that they would have one last go at breaking our spirit and resolve.  Whoever it was who upset these Gods did a stunning job because they threw pretty much everything at us one last time.

 

The day (Saturday) went well and our only real concern was arriving too soon for a daylight entry past the reef, but gradually as is the way of these things the wind started to increase again and with it the seas also began to build. By 1700 hours we had decided to put in more reefs in order to reduce our headlong rush south. This helped but we then furled up the headsail completely and were just running under a heavily reefed main.  But still the wind kept rising and when it reached a steady 30 knots, gusting 35 knots plus, we rounded up and put in a final reef leaving us with just a tiny scrap of sail about the size of a handkerchief!

 

This did slow us further, but despite all of this we were still barrelling along at 7 knots with huge and very malevolent waves dwarfing us as they towered over us again from behind. The tops of the waves were now breaking and  being whipped up into white spume by the 35 knot wind and once again we had the complication of a cross sea running which threatened to swamp the cockpit from abeam.  But fundamentally all of this was fine and quite safe, but we also had a new worry which was that there were a number of yachts ahead and a few behind all on the same plan and at these speeds, we were very likely all going to end up running out of sea room as we approached the BVI’s in darkness.

 

But as the night wore on the wind began to subside and with it the monstrous waves slowly began to settle down and by 0200 hours we were pretty much on target for a daylight arrival although we still only had the tiniest scrap of sail powering us. But sleep was again hard to come by as we rolled and surged in the big seas again.  My case has not been helped by the fact that I damaged my lower back on the second day and so sleep has not been easy at all as there are no prone positions in the bucking bronco where the acute stabbing pain does not constantly keep me on edge! However, daylight broke with us still a few miles north of Anegarda Island which is the northernmost of the British Virgin Island chain and we were able to shake out the reefs and set the hard wind jib and thoroughly enjoyed the final 20 miles romping along at 8 and 9 knots in 15 to 20 knots of NE trade wind.

 

We swept through the reef and into Virgin Gorda Sound where we dropped the sails and made our way to the Bitter End Yacht Club that has given us a free mooring ball for the next few weeks. We made ourselves secure and gave a great sigh of relief.  Craig from  ‘Il Sogno’ (who arrived here last Wednesday!!) kindly ran me over to Gun Creek so that I could complete the Customs and Immigrations procedures which went very smoothly and I have to say that they are the nicest officials we have come across absolutely anywhere. Sarah in the meantime cleared up the mess inside and the afternoon…………well the sun is shining, the water is warm, blue and very inviting.

 

Cue the Fat Lady.