Marina Cay to Leverick Bay

I wake up at 5.30am and know that as Mike is still snoring it will be a long wait for my first cup of tea, but sleep eludes me for some reason.  At the first sign of Mike wriggling I accidently nudge him in the hope of bringing him fully awake, and into tea-making mode.  It works, and by 7.15 I have my first cup.  After the second cup, and my breakfast in bed, I’m almost ready to move.

When I eventually emerge, we are already motoring off as the sea is flat calm.  We arrive at The Dogs before 9.00 and pick up a mooring ball.  Caribbean Dream is already in, and has been since 7.00. - early birds indeed.

This morning Linda looks like she has had a fight with Mike Tyson, and I wonder what they all got up to last night while we were asleep, but she assures me that it is far more innocent than that – she has a mosquito bite on her eyelid.  It looks very painful – I think the sunglasses will stay on today.

All of a sudden there is a lot of commotion.  A fishing boat has arrived and laid down a net.  The guys are shouting to each other and there is a lot of activity, but 10 minutes later when they pull up the net, it is empty and they clear off.

A large barracuda stalks the boat and everyone puts off the evil moment of getting in the water, just like the beach scene in ‘Jaws’.  Then Malcolm gets in, and it’s one in, all in (well, one in, four in actually).  The barracuda keeps his distance.

To give another boat a chance at the mooring ball, we leave The Dogs and go over to a bay we haven’t anchored in before – Long Bay on Virgin Gorda.  There is nothing in this bay except a couple of villas and two other boats anchored close to the beach.  The sea is completely flat and turquoise blue, showing a lovely sandy bottom along which it is easy to see large rays moving across the sea bed.  There are a lot of fish jumping out of the water, really going wild.  Something big must be chasing them from underneath.  So everyone goes in, even me, again, twice in one week!  With the aid of my buoyancy aid and a bright barracuda attracting noodle, I stay in for over an hour and it is the first time I have been cool all day.

Photo:  Beautiful deserted beach at Anguilla Point, entering North Sound, Virgin Gorda

Late in the afternoon, we motor over to Leverick Bay – lots of the boats for the Second Annual Dinghy Poker Run are arriving into the marina at the same time.  We moor up next to Sophisticated Lady and Rick comes out to help us tie up.

Mike disappears over to another boat, Aristocat II, to help them sort out a problem with the genoa halyard swivel as we have had the same problem on Jeannius, while the girls do the laundry, braving the mosquitoes to do so.

Photo:  Heather and I after the laundry run

Back on the boat I am busy cooking the rest of yesterday’s tuna when we suddenly realise that the main air-conditioning unit is not working.  Mike removes the filter for the pump under the floor, and discovers that it is full of barnacles!  How the hell did they get in there?  He cleans it out but it still won’t start and the bloody manual is all in French.  He wonders whether it will start when it has cooled down, and eventually, nearly two hours later, he is proved right.  Another problem solved.

Then he realises that the water maker is not making water.  In nearly an hour it has only produced about ten gallons instead of twenty.  He discovers that the shore power tripped when the microwave was switched on.  It’s days like this when you wish you had a house to maintain rather than a boat!!!

Eventually there is enough water for Mike to have a well earned shower and rest, and I follow suit, feeling clean for the first time in hours.  Everyone else has gone out but Mike and I have a full day ahead of us tomorrow doing the results for the Poker Run, and we stay in, absolutely shattered.