Sailing for BVI April 26-29,09

Tuesday April 28,09

Our night watch was gusty and damp with a couple of big squalls as we passed the islands of Montserrat,
Nevis and St Kitts. The wind was gusting up to Force 6-7.

I had first helm and the ship steered beautifully only a few spokes to a full turn needed to keep her on
course. We are heading North by West (and 1/4 west to be exact) with topsails, t’gallants, foresail set plus
the outer and inner jibs, fore topmast staysail and main topmast staysail.

I hear a rumour that Jost Van Dyke may not have any Internet connectivity so not sure when you will get
to read this as the next stop is Bermuda about halfway back to Lunenberg.

More later…

Just got off the afternoon watch which was relatively uneventful. The wind is steady and the skies
basically clear and sunny with some high puffy white clouds.

Earlier this afternoon we changed course towards the high volcanic island of Saba and just as we were
getting ready to go on watch we entered the lee of this cliff girdled high island. There followed the alarm
and the call of “This is a drill man overboard port side”.

These drills are organized chaos but everybody knows pretty well where to be and what to do. Today’s
drill was a bit different because we were; A) under sail and B) the wind and sea conditions were gusty and
lumpy respectively. The drill went really well, the overboard object was in the rescue boat in 3 minutes!
The rescue boat itself was launched in about 1 minute. The requirement is that the recovery be done in 9
minutes.

Once we got all the equipment stowed we headed back on our course to the north now under a reduced
sail plan, no t’gallants, so we don’t arrive in the middle of the night.

We should arrive in the BVI tomorrow sometime, rumour has it we will be stopping for groceries at
another island in the BVI before going to Jost Van Dyke.

Thanks for reading
KJ

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