Guana Island to Cane Garden Bay

Mike is still unable to get the starboard engine started.  No amount of tapping, and bridging components with a screwdriver does the trick so he phones Malcolm’s car mechanic, who also does boats, and arranges to meet him in Cane Garden Bay at 2pm.

We leave White Bay mid morning and have a really pleasant sail round to the north east side of Tortola.  The conditions are excellent.  The wind varies between 20 and 25 knots but is almost directly behind us, perfect conditions for getting the gennaker out.   The waves gently push us along from behind and the effect is soporific.  Beautiful.  Mike assures me that this is what it will be like 95% of the time when we are doing the World ARC.  I daren’t ask what the other 5% will be like!

Photo:  Arriving in Cane Garden Bay

We arrive in CGB and Mike’s favourite spot near Quito’s, is taken by a small group of Puerto Rican sports fishing boats.  The other side of the bay also has a similar group but we manage to anchor in a shot just outside Myett’s.  Mike notices Joseph from TMM working on another boat anchored in the bay and realises that if he had spotted him earlier, we could have asked him to have a look at our engine rather than organise the mechanic.  I’m all for cancelling the guy but Mike is too nice and leaves the arrangement as it is.

We have lunch and right on time, the mechanic calls and Mike goes to pick him up from the dinghy dock.  He arrives on board, goes down into the starboard black hole and comes up ten minutes later having connected a dangling wire.  Mike had noticed this apparently spare wire in his own investigation, but as he couldn’t see anything that it should connect to, and its rusty condition made it look like it had never been used, he had ignored it.  The bill for $100 will ensure that he examines any loose connection more closely in future!

While all this has been going on, there has been a steady stream of sports fishing boats entering the bay.  By late afternoon, the “Puerto Rican Navy” is here in force.  Boat after boat raft up together just outside the swimming area.  Gaps between boats are squeezed into and Jeannius starts to have less swing room around her.  By 5pm, it is obvious that we will have to put out a stern anchor too – there are just too many boats to allow us to swing at all and the weather looks somewhat threatening.  Mike goes out with it in the dinghy, and Simon pulls the line tight.  Now there is no possibility of us swinging into anything, we watch in amazement as another three boats edge into the gap, their drivers shouting to each other in Spanish as they squish themselves into smaller and smaller spaces like sardines.

Photo:  The Puerto Rican Navy start to raft up beside us

Photo:  Storm clouds gathering over Jeannius and the ‘Puerto Rican Navy’

At 6.30 we go ashore to the Elm.  Malcolm, Candace and Robin are along with Gary and Terry Warburton and Dawn and Jim.  They offer to share their table but there is not room for seven.  During the evening, Rick arrives with his new chef/hostess, Crystal.

The Elmtones are as good as usual, as is the food.  As we listen to their rendition of ‘Night Nurse’, I manage to get Mike onto the dance floor – a rare sight!

Photo:  Dancing to ‘Night Nurse’ with Mike

Photo:  Myself, Mike and Allison at The Elm

Photo:  I borrowed Rachel’s boyfriend, Simon, for this one 

We pile into the dinghy for the ride back to Jeannius and are surprised by the fact that all the Puerto Ricans seem to have gone to bed and it is quiet.  We were expecting wild parties and are pleasantly surprised.

We go to bed and Mike has only just started snoring when I feel the boat move.  This should not be possible given the two anchors so I leap up and look out of the window.  The boat is much further forward than I remembered it being so I wake Mike up.  We both go up to the cockpit and watch for a while.  Mike realises that the last boat to park next to us must have dragged our anchor when they put theirs down, but as we watch, there is no further movement so we go back to bed.

Around 4am we are woken by John knocking on our bedroom door.  He had got up for a drink and noticed that we are now a long way forward.  Mike gets up and goes out with him to look.  I start to drift off to sleep, sure that there is not a problem then suddenly hear the engine starting and realise that there is, so I put on a swimsuit and go outside.  John has pulled up the stern anchor and is about to reset it, going out in the dinghy trailing a length of rope behind him.  This is not an easy task for John as he has not used the dinghy before and it is pitch black, but after going round in circles a few times, he manages it and we are pulled back into position.

Then back to bed.