Puerto Rico to the BVIs with the "Akimbo Bimbos"

No, i didn’t coin that term.  Nor will i reveal who did.  But my only all female crew for this trip laughed at it.  Here they are, talking with the departing crew.  So far, each rendezvous has entailed a meal all together.  The previous crew "passing the baton" to the next crew.  Fun.  

Let’s see.  I left you off in Ponce, where Luis and son (Fernando) rebuilt the “Clark pump” on the watermaker, found a welder to fix a tube in the generator and gave me the confidence to rebuild the hydraulic rams on the backstay.  

What that means at one level is that i was busy enuf attending to these things…that i wasn’t taking time for other things.  But these were the necessities, they demanded attention, they were the more immediate entertainment, they demanded to be met.  As opposed to meeting my crew a little more deeply, and attending to the local vibe and scenery better.  But everything IS a compromise and perfection WOULD be boring.  Sorry.  Another way to describe this is that i haven’t had time for much reflection.  And i like to reflect.  So here you are, suffering thru my instinct to catch up. 

So how did these external things turn out?  The watermaker starts out okay but soon slows down.  Apparently warm water slows it down – and the water temp here is around 88, oh darn, but doesn’t that make swimming feel good.  The generator is running well.  And the backstay rams are holding nicely.  This last has been a real relief and timely.  We’ve been beating against fresh tradewinds (and squalls the first three days out of Ponce).  So the backstay has been under a LOT of pressure.  In fact, after returning the jury rigged blocks and tackles back to their running backstays, one of them broke without any real load on it.  Likely because it had been overstressed as a backstay.  Had it failed as a backstay support…the mast might have suffered for it.  Whew! 

Trying to stay on schedule and make our way against harsh weather, we left Ponce in the pre-dawn.  Again the jib and double reefed main served us well.  “Double reefed?”   If what we want is 12 knots of wind and it’s blowin’ 25…we want to catch only 12 and let the other 13 go, thus we raise only half of the main.  Then throw a 41 knot gust at us, and on the approach to Bahia de Jobos we took the mainsail down to go with the jib alone.

During the day along the coast, we admired a big wind farm – how much sense does THAT make in the tradewinds? 

Another pre-dawn start snuck us east along the south coast to Puerto Pastillas (Whiskers Port?).  But pre-dawn starts get old, as does the feeling (desperate?) that they are necessary.  We left after dawn for the 34nm to Vieques.  The wind blew pretty hard against us, the waves were big but not too big and slowed us down every once in a while with a “bow smack” (no, that’s not a nautical term, but one my young crew invented).  I consulted this crew.  Sure, we could do this, but was it worth it?  They were up for it if Akimbo would be okay, if equipment wouldn’t suffer.  THIS is what Akimbo was built for.  So we carried on and anchored that afternoon at Esperanza, Vieques. 

With only 15 or so miles to make to the east end of the island, we dinghied in the next morning and “stretched our legs” (what an expression), picked up a few groceries.  An afternoon sail led us to Bahia Salina del Sur.  That “staged” us nicely for a sail to Culebrita – little Culebra.  The anchorage at Salina del Sur was nice enuf, but the signs on shore warned us off of the pristine beach due to “unexploded ordinances” – the U.S. military had used Vieques for target practice for years.  At least our anchor didn’t detonate anything.

The next day was the first that we didn’t have to “beat” the whole day.  Instead of going south and east, we reached north to Culebrita?!   There we picked up a mooring buoy (rather than anchoring).  Ashore, we hiked to the lighthouse at the top of the island.

 Then found the “Jacuzzis” – a unique “tide pool” – waves created by the tradewinds push water thru a gap and into a rock enclosed pool.  It was a space i never would have imagined, a sweet place to wade into and cool off.

From Culebrita it was 30nm upwind to Jost Van Dyke, the first of the British Virgin Islands.  The U.S. Virgin Islands have a sad reputation of being trashed, so we skipped past them.  The real treat half way thru the day was to set the full mainsail.  Sure, we were still beating into the wind, but the wind relented and the waves eased.  It was a good day to sail.  We felt rewarded to arrive…but the contrast between Culebrita and Great Harbor was bizarre:  the place was PACKED.  Everyone anchored or moored too close.  It seemed only luck that thru the night we and our neighbors didn’t bump into each other. 

I’ve got to say, maybe again, that the autopilot is a wonderful thing.  When steering by hand, hour after hour, shoulders and neck cramping, getting tired and wandering on and off course…there is a term for this:  “tyranny of the helm.”  When underway, the boat MUST be steered.   At ALL times.  While “auto” is worth three crew, he is also deaf and blind.  He won’t see the boat crossing too close by, or the reef we may be headed for.  Still, he is a necessary tool.  But that day, rather than shoulders and neck, it was my hand that held the autopilot remote control that cramped.  How lucky is that?

When we checked in with customs and immigration…we met the only really grumpy people on the island.  Does that say something about working for/in a government?  That done, along with finding a few groceries, we started island hopping.  Sandy Cay, and Guana Island.  Next day, snorkeling at Monkey Point (very cool), lunch at Marina Cay (home of Pusser’s rum)

and finally picking up a mooring buoy at The Baths on Virgin Gorda. 

In our travels we "crossed wakes" several times with the beautiful and very large ketch, Roxanne of Valleta, Malta.

Side note: at Marina Cay there is a “field” of mooring buoys.  Before we picked one up…we ran over another.  I heard something chuckle along the hull (?) and then the engine died.  I must’ve been distracted.  But this is why i have a compressor aboard that can feed air to me while i work under the boat.  It only took a few minutes to untangle the mooring from our prop.  We had been idling thru the harbor.  The barnacle barrier paint on the shaft and prop wasn’t even rubbed off.  Whew! 

Our timing at The Baths was great.  The hordes who visit it everyday were gone by later in the day.  We were one of five boats there for the night.  We snorkled ashore and did the short hike to Devils Bay.  This hike, this geology, can’t be imagined or adequately described.  Huge boulders tumbled on top of each other as if by a giant, with space enuf for people to wander thru their maze.  The late day light lit the place up for us.  It is a unique space, as were the Jacuzzis at Culebrita.  Now maybe i know what a marmot or pika's world is like, under a talus field on a mountain.  But The Baths cannot be over sold.  If you’re ever in the BVIs, don’t miss them.  They are amazing.

And so this leg ends.  Thank you Lori, Carol and Kate for your help getting here.  We were an upwind crew.  You rarely saw more sail than the double reefed main and jib and never saw the drifter.  We made the distance to arrive at and share a little of a legendary place.  Thank you.

Next?  Jim and Heather and i have to go meet it to see what it is.