I wanted to do at least one shakedown trip on Zanshin prior to heading to Antigua. But why do that alone when there are others about who might want to have an opportunity to sail? So I’d arranged a daysail with my fellow guests at Soco House earlier, but due to weather and other factors it was postponed. Until today, but by now attrition had set in. Only Tina and Phil remained from Soco House but I had other takers from my dockside neighbors.
Departure
I’d arranged for a 10:00 meeting but that time passed and I was thinking of departing shorthanded. So I took one last walk down to the shore and found Tina and Phil outside of the dock security gate. They were on “B” Dock (which I’d incorrectly identified as my location) but we got all that sorted out and soon the 6 of us were underway. It was great having crew on on board, I didn’t have to get the fenders back in or coil the lines!
Sail South
The winds were light today and somewhat behind us, so the sail wasn’t particularly fast or thrilling. The shakedown began when I wanted to pull out the mainsail. The port forward winch wouldn’t self-tail the line and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong until it was pointed out to me that the bottom “gripper” was installed upside-down. Oops. I’d done maintenance to the winch and messed up the installation!
Anse Cochon
While there was still a bit of tourist traffic in Anse Cochon the big boats weren’t yet there. We anchored away from the snorkeling area and had a great cooling swim plus refreshing snacks (which I’d neglected to procure, but others had the forethought to provide) and then chilled out in the cockpit to talk and listen to music.
Sail Home
We’d departed late and stayed in Anse Cochon rather long, so the return sail had us arrive in the marina close to sunset. The sail back had a bit more wind and just a bit of the north swell curled around the northern end of the island. So Zanshin got to heel over a bit and make some good speed. Unfortunately, being a sailboat, that speed wasn’t 100% in the direction we needed to go. So after tacking twice and realizing that the last couple of miles would be dead against the wind we furled the sails and motored back into Rodney Bay.
Docking Zanshin was easy with so many people and I managed to not put any new dings into the paintwork.
Dinner
I had a celebratory beer after docking and after my guests had left and that put a dent into my motivation to fix things aboard. But I did shower and walked past the busy restaurants ashore. I chose to go upstairs to Bosun’s Bar and Bistro and had a spicy Thai meal along with another beer. Back aboard Zanshin I rested in my favorite cockpit spot but the extremely loud (and bad) live music from The Harbor Club forced me to retire below. There, my fan softened the painful tones coming up from above while I read a book before sleep.
