At Sea
No land in sight, so there’s little of interest to report for much of the day. The exciting events are mundane tasks such as making coffee and breakfast. I had some very weak winds during the night, so I’m running behind my planned 48 hour passage.
The leak in the prop shaft is still there, but is now a know quantity and thus manageable.
Afternoon
Approaching St. Barths I got a blip on my AIS system and there was a power vessel, Bella Vita, approaching at speed on a collision course. With a TCPA of 15 minutes I wasn’t yet worried, but the closest approach was between 0 and 50 meters. Since both of us were on autopilot I assumed this wasn’t going to change much. When the clock hit 5 minutes I hailed them on the VHF. The watchkeeper answered immediately, but after I’d told them I was the sailing vessel dead ahead there was an appreciable delay before the response came; I assumed they hadn’t seen me or had me on their radar. We both agree to turn slightly to starboard to give us separation and terminated our conversation – both happy at the outcome.
I had little to do and was motorsailing so I ended up cleaning the mess in the galley, where I’d basically thrown everything prior to departure. This took some time but when that was complete there was little else to do except watch the boat roll in the light winds and ocean swell while slowly approaching St. Barths and distant St. Martin.
Approaching St. Martin
I was chased by rain showers on the home stretch between St. Barths and St. Martin. Traffic picked and the wind dropped away completely so I furled my sails and prepared to approach Simpson Bay in order to anchor.
The AIS showed lots of boats inside and outside of the lagoon, and I was beginning to worry that I’d have to anchor very far outside. But upon arrival the anchorage wasn’t crowded at all. The AIS targets on the chartplotter are just dimensionally inaccurate and made it seem worse than it was.
I arrived after about 50 hours of sailing for 350NM giving me an average speed on passage of 7Kn, a respectable speed considering all the lulls I’d encountered. It felt good to drop the anchor and hoist the anchor ball day shape. I had some music playing in the background when showers came rolling through and I very quickly discovered 2 uncomfortable items:
- The Sunbrella leaks like a sieve. In the heavy rain I think it let just about every drop through.
- When I attempted to close the hatch, which consists of two interconnected halves, it jammed in the open position. I think one of the sliders has jumped off the track, but getting to it will take several hours of work. By the time I’d prevented the water from leaking into the companionway, I had a half bucket of rainwater to mop up.