Normal service resumed

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 24 Nov 2013 01:09

Sun 17th to Sat 23rd Nov.

 

 

Well the fun was pretty much over once we had picked up the mooring ball here in Virgin Gorda but it still took a few days to sort out the boat and get ourselves straight.

 

On the evening of our arrival we went ashore to meet the others that had arrived but did not drink much as we now knew that Ruffian was hoping to arrive at the reef around 2300 hours and as they have no engine at all now, they wanted us to be out there to escort them home to safety.  In the event this all went fine although their master plan to text us when they were one hour out and 30 mins out to help us time our exit fell apart when they discovered that they had just run out of credit on their phone!  So the first we knew of things was when they called us on VHF Channel 16 to say that they were inside the sound and desperately needed a tow to the nearest mooring buoy. I headed out in the rib and was able to help Craig from Il Sogno who had also responded to their call.  We got them safe and joined them on board in a swift midnight beer to celebrate their safe arrival.

 

Over the next few days the rest of the boats came in, some with extensive damage including failed engines like Ruffian and others with any amount of serious gear failures. In fact the final tally will never be known as many boats are not keen to reveal the extent of their problems!

 

In fact this continued all week and one boat only arrived this afternoon (Sat 23rd Nov) but they had run to Bermuda and waited out some of the weather before continuing. In the end two boats were sunk/abandoned and two lost their masts. I believe that 6 suffered catastrophic steering failures including several lost rudders and a surprising number had major autopilot failures which resulted in crews having to hand steer the bulk of the way.  Most of this carnage occurred in the Gulf Stream and although things were decidedly unpleasant most of the way south, the true horrors were unleashed during the first two days.

 

On Monday we made our way over to Leverick Bay to use their laundrette machines to help break the back of all of our washing and then when we returned to Bitter End, we made a point of picking up a free buoy much closer to Saba Rock which is where the strongest wifi signal is.  The wait for the laundry was made easier as ‘Want To’ was moored there and so we went aboard and introduced ourselves. Now regular readers might be a touch confused by this and it is because we were also a bit messed up ourselves!  We were chatting during part of the trip to a wonderfully helpful crew on the catamaran ”One two”, or so we thought. We had decided that they must have been sent as our guardian angels as they always seemed to pop up on the radio when we most needed them. But when we arrived here in the Caribbean, we went to look them up on the list of rally boats and they did not exist!  Spooky or what we wondered…. Until we discovered that they are called ‘Want to’ but the Florida accent does not make this all that clear! John, Peggy and crew member Tom were great company and to round things off, they kindly invited us and Iain and Fiona from Ruffian to come aboard on the Wednesday night for a fish fry. This was essentially Tom’s gig, who had caught two enormous Wahoos, gutted and filleted them and now was cooking them in various special ‘southern’ breadcrumb mixes, all hosted courtesy of John and Peggy.

 

So we have been relaxing now for a number of days and once more getting into the swing of swimming and snorkelling in the beautiful crystal clear waters and along the extensive coral reefs here.  We have enjoyed the stay, but it is probably time to move on now although we get the distinct feeling that a number of the boats are likely to stay here for as long as they can on the basis of slightly frayed nerves and a total loss of confidence.  Also there is the small issue of Thanksgiving day coming up this Thursday and the American boats seem to planning a big ‘picnic’ on one of the long white sandy beaches here. They all seem to have slightly different takes on the concept of Thanksgiving, but are united on the point that it is an excuse to eat prodigious amounts of food, far in excess of anything you might regard as normal.

 

We were very well looked after on the passage south by Serafina and have always taken the pragmatic view that we are the weakest link in this chain and that we bought her specifically because she would be our safest bet if things ever turned bad.  As I have said, things were probably not as bad as they seemed then and time is a great healer, but on hearing other crews tales of woe, damage and losses, we are quietly thankful for our good fortune.