The night at sea passed quickly, although the wind and waves shifted to my disadvantage and I had to drop the genoa sometime around 1 AM since it was flopping about and the preventer was doing a lot of work keeping the mainsail and boom from doing the same. Zanshin still did good speed under mainsail alone and I entered the North Sound at around 10AM and anchored right off Gun Creek. Since I didn’t plan on using the dinghy at all, I went ashore using the paddleboard after showering, shaving and making myself presentable for customs. Clearing in took only a short while, but unfortunately they no longer let do my temporary import (required in the BVI if you plan on keeping your boat there in storage). That had to be taken care of in Road Town now, and I didn’t know how I was going to arrange all that with my busy schedule for the next couple of days.
After clearing in I headed off to Leverick Bay and spent 15 minutes getting all my fenders and lines set up, then went straight to the fuel dock for my one and only fuel stop all season; this done so that I could leave the boat in storage with full diesel tanks. Zanshin took 480 litres of diesel which I think isn’t too bad for several months of cruising around. Then I was given a dock space which was quite close to shore and I wasn’t sure that my 2.80 meter draft would let me in there but the dock guys said it should be enough – and it was, but for a bit my depth sounder read 0 feet yet once at the dock I had 2 feet under the keel and it was low tide so I wasn’t worried. I did plan on getting out at high tide, though…
I didn’t get much done on the boat for the rest of the day and after happy hour ashore at Jumbie’s Beach Bar I read for a while and then went to sleep early to catch up on some deep sleep rather than the light sleep on watch during the previous night’s passage.
