Monday, February 23, 2015

Land Ho!

Dear Family and Friends,

After 30 days at sea, we arrived in lovely Admiralty Bay, Bequia ("bek-way")at 0820 on Monday, February 23, and picked up a mooring in the northwest corner of the bay, off a restaurant/bar called Daffodil's.

We're glad to have the long (3200 nautical mile) passage behind us, and are grateful that conditions, if not ideal, were certainly do-able. The first half of the trip was pretty benign, with calm seas and following winds that were actually sometimes TOO light. We ended up making some course deviations to avoid areas of calms and light airs. The second half proved to be more sporty, with gnarly 6-10 foot confused seas, increased wind speeds, intermittent squalls, big rafts of sargasso weed, and a persistent rolling that made for some interesting on-board choreography. The weed put our wind vane steering device out of commission. From that point on, we had to rely on our wheel pilot.

SD soldiered steadily through it all, and passage casualties were few. One dark and windy night in mid-ocean, our boat hook abandoned ship, and the captain is decorated with an extensive assortment of very colorful bruises. All in all, not a bad tally, and we are very proud of our little ship. And very happy to disembark for a while!

Thanks to all for good wishes, prayers, and moral support. And now if you'll excuse us, there are rum punches and jerk chicken ashore with our names on them!

Cheers! K&K

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