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| Young crew: Dorothea
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The last step in our journey north was the long trip from St. Martin to the Virgins. Not wanting to be late for the birthday party, we jumped off from St. Martin as soon as we loaded our new chain and batteries. Leaving Simpson Bay with high hopes for the normally 12 hour downwind romp. Unfortunately: little wind. Certainly not enough to get us there in a reasonable amount of time. While waiting for the winds to fill in, we amused ourselves by rigging a whisker pole and fooling around with sails. A few hours of this convinced us we were not going to make it that day and so we trimmed sails for Anguilla just a few miles away.
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| Loud!
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| Schooner St. John |
A few days on Anguilla was the perfect antidote to the rush and hustle of St. Martin and when the winds returned we were relaxed and ready to take advantage. We headed off for the BVI with the wind directly at our backs. This has historically been a very poor point of sail for Queen Emma but our playing around in the light winds off St. Martin paid off. We got good speeds by polling out the jib to leeward as far aft as it would go and sheeting in the main hard, pulling the aft end of the boom down and to windward so that it was slightly by the lee and feeding wind to the jib. No roll and good speed, usually better than half the wind speed. The result was a fast, smooth run all the way to the BVI under autopilot essentially wing on wing. We listened to podcasts and watched the stars and took turns sleeping. Dreamy.
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| Dorothea and Betsy
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Betsy's 70th birthday party was everything we hoped for. She rented a house on the beach in Great Cruz Bay and we rented a mooring in the bay. We got to play with Dorothea and the others on a series of little day sails that we came to think of as our nostalgia tour of the Virgins. Much snorkeling, kayaking and sailing for all. We had one cruising friend ask us what we were doing tacking up the narrows with all these people on board. "Having fun" was our answer. It is easy to get so caught up in boat repairs, passage planning and bargain hunting that we forget the object of the game: maximize the fun/work ratio.
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| The birthday crew of Queen Emma |
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| Sunset, Virgin Gorda, BVI
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Speaking of work: the fresh water pump started cycling toward the end of our nostalgia tour. Parts are expensive and hard to find in the Virgins but readily available in St. Martin so we enjoyed the BVI with the minor inconvenience of having to switch on the fresh water pump just before running a tap. This is only minorly annoying but the issue rose to the top of the TODO list when the high water alarm went off. This is a signal (a dismayingly feeble tone) which signals that you are sinking and your bilge is full of water.
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| The old water heater |
In our case, we were sinking from inside with our own precious drinking water. We don't carry enough to send us to the bottom but it is horrifying to realize that the automatic bilge pump is not in the mood to prevent a visit to Davy Jones. Now our routine consisted of turning on the bilge pump after running water. Back to St. Martin and the lagoon.
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| The new water heater |
The source turned out to be the water heater. None of the connections leaked, but poking the insulation glopped around the thing produced water. Everyone we asked had the same recommendation for the ideal replacement water heater. Buy the one that fits. That narrows down the choice to one but of course that one is not mounted the same way as the original. It turned into a four day project to remove the old heater, get rid of it, build a mounting for the new one, install the new one, plumb up the new one, fix all the leaks and put the boat back together. That latter task takes a while after a project which seemed to involve opening every locker for parts, tools, access or work space. While the boat was open we fixed the bilge pump and replaced the foot pump for the fresh water. We celebrated with hot showers and fled the lagoon for Grand Case. We picked the day of the street fair, enjoyed shrimp and crab back and moved on to Orient Bay where we sit as I write. Next on to St. Barths where we hope to see some of the boats getting ready for the St. Barths' Bucket. From there, back to Antigua for the Oyster Regatta (the Queen will not be participating this year) and the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta. We definitely plan to restore the fun/work ratio to its birthday high mark.
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