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April 13, 2008
The Bight, Norman Island
I woke this morning before sunrise, went for a walk while Chis slept, ran a couple of errands, and made coffee. Chis awoke when I returned, and the marina had become a beehive of activity. Fitzroy arrived in the middle of breakfast, almost an hour late for our boat briefing. Our briefing took all of 20 minutes, because we had already explored the entire boat, and actually moved some of the saftey gear to more logical places. While it looked like the boat had never been chartered, there were signs that it had. Nevertheless, we moved a pair of life jackets, still in their packaging, from below decks to the cockpit, where they would be accessible and handy in the event we needed them.
We were Med-moored on the dock (stern tied to the dock with the bow tied to a piling). The space between two pilings, which we shared with the boat next to us, was almost exactly the width of the boat. We notified the people on the boats next to us that we were on our way, then began to wiggle our way out. There was no way to have avoided bumping into the other boats or the pilings given the way they had us all tied up. It was insane. I was not looking forward to our return.
We got under way in 15 knots of wind on a beam reach for The Bight, a wonderful, breezy anchorage on the west side of Norman Island, just south of Tortola. We picked up a mooring, had ham sandwiches (and bananas), and settled in for some serious reading. We enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon of beach combing, reading, swimming, snoozing, and lounging.
Posted by dave at April 13, 2008 11:20 AM