After the hard work sailing upwind in the Antilles I had hoped (and expected) another wonderful sail on a beam reach in calm seas and with a stiff breeze. Unfortunately, the winds were fickle and absented themselves for large portions of the trip, then came from the west rather than the usual east! So I motored the whole way and kept the mainsail up to keep the boat from rolling around too much. I used the time on passage below-decks on the computer, sorting through the images of sailboats from Antigua Sailing Week and trying to organize them so that I could post them on this site. Every 20-30 minutes I’d pop my head up to ensure that nothing was approaching me from any direction (there were no surprises) and then return to work on the computer.
I had hoped to reach St. Martin under sail alone, but since I was motoring at about 1500RPM my speed wasn’t good enough and I pulled into Anse Colombier on St. Barths just as the last rays of light at dusk disappeared. Dinner was Instant Ramen noodles accompanied by John Lee Hooker on the stereo and then I had a glass of whiskey, my first in weeks, in the cockpit and enjoyed the silence in the anchorage.
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