I want to get the decks washed early before it gets too hot but Mike needs to get our old genoa back onto the boat because it is bigger than the current one and may come in handy. Getting it into one of the forward storage compartments will be dirty work though, so he doesn’t want to wash the decks beforehand. This is the excuse I have been looking for and head back to bed!
I phone Monica to explain that there is no way we will get to Leverick Bay to say goodbye and am amazed to hear that they are at the airport waiting for a flight to St Martin/St Barts. Hurray! We can meet them there instead.
When Mike has finished his jobs, we begin to scrub the decks and the cockpit. This is hot, sweaty work and you get exhausted really quickly. We have to use the Ospho, which is really nasty acid stuff, to get the rust marks off then rinse it off quick before it eats away at anything it shouldn’t, such as our hands! There are so many dirty marks on the floor that these have to be scrubbed with a mixture of Cif and bleach, known here as Soft Scrub. This is fun work – not!
Around 2.30 Mike goes off to Immigration to check out of the BVIs for the last time for a very long time, and I carry on scrubbing.
One of the TMM engineers, Dougie, decides to come to St Martin with us for a few day’s RnR, so we have a bit longer to finish scrubbing as we have to wait for him to finish work before we head to Peter Island.
Just before 6 we are getting ready to pull into Deadman’s Bay. Dougie and Mike are up at the mast saying the conditions are as good as it gets for a sail to St Martin, as the wind is not strong and the sea is relatively flat. Mike comes back and repeats the conversation to me so I say, ‘Why don’t we just carry on now then?” This is obviously the response he wants because he gives Dougie the thumbs up sign and shouts “We’re on!” and the main sail goes up.
Because I thought we were staying in Deadman’s Bay and not leaving until 3 am tomorrow morning, I haven’t prepared any food and now will have to do it as sea, something I am not very good at. But it’s relatively calm so it should be OK.
As the sun starts to go down, I try to get photos of my last look at the BVIs. Unfortunately, it is really hazy and as we head out past Cooper Island, the sea starts to get rougher which makes taking decent photos difficult.
Photo: Sun setting over Tortola with Dead Chest in the foreground
Photo: Ginger Island, the last island we pass
Photo: Flying the flag as we leave the BVIs
I go below and make hummus so garlicky it’s hot! We eat it with Wheat Thins and baby carrots then I make sandwiches. I take the first two-hour watch at 8pm, Mike takes the second and Dougie the third, then we start over again. I sit in the cockpit with my lifejacket on, tied to the boat by my safety harness and sing along to the rock music coming out of the speakers. I am the only one who can do this because for later watches, there is always someone trying to sleep.
It is a full moon so visibility is good. But our earlier thoughts about the conditions being good were unfounded. The wind strengthens to nearer 20 knots and it is dead on the nose. We manage 3.5 to 4 knots and the boat pitches and heaves her way eastwards towards St Martin. When my watch finishes I am covered in salt spray and exhausted from trying to balance in the helmsman’s seat. Stupidly, I go to bed in my normal cabin at the front and am thrown about in bed by the waves. The boat sounds as though she is going to break in two and I can hear huge waves hitting the underside and breaking over my head. It is a long night.
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