After a leisurely morning at anchor I opted to head to the North Sound of Virgin Gorda as the north swell would make many other anchorages uncomfortable. I weighed anchor and set sail along the north shore of Tortola on an almost straight line to the channel entrance many miles away. The wind was perfect and the north swell was noticeably big but the waves were separated by 12-15 seconds. I had both sails full out in about 10 knots of wind and made really good speed, averaging 7 knots the whole way. I did misjudge the angle into the channel and tacked too early, but the second tack was better estimated and I squeezed through the channel and proceeded to sail up the sound to my normal anchor spot off Prickly Pear island.
I’d spent some of the upwind trip using the tube of “Star Clean” that Richardson’s Rigging said was by far the best stainless rust remover, shine and protector around (he’d called my previous favourite compound “Rubbish, Junk!”). I had bought a family pack of toothbrushes to apply the paste with and it really did a good job of removing stubborn rust and making everything shiny. I now hope that it has passivated the stainless enough to prevent rust from quickly reclaiming the territory it has lost. The downside of using this paste is that I literally have to go over every square inch of stainless tubing, wire and fixtures with a toothbrush – making progress quite slow. But, on the other hand, it does occupy time while on passage.
I could see a strong Wi-Fi signal from Saba Rock, but couldn’t connect to the internet for some reason, so I’ll have to wait until I get a real connection to upload the blog entries.
