I’d originally planned on leaving today, but the weather wasn’t playing along. I’d checked the wind and waves using Windguru and those looked acceptable, but I’d neglected to look at the big weather picture and there were serious squalls moving through the island all day, giving us lots of rains and some intense wind gusts. I opted to delay departing by one day. I drove into town, dropping by VISAR (Virgin Islands Search and Rescue) to ask if they could use the liferaft that Michael had given me and which was way past its “use by” date and they were happy to accept it. Now I just have to get it off the boat with my bad back… I’ll enlist some help for that as it is quite heavy.
I wanted to continue into town but the road was full of traffic that wasn’t moving at all, so I did a U-turn and risked driving up the very steep road called “The Elevator” while it was wet. My little Suzuki has new tires and 4-wheel drive so that was actually quite easy to do, although I had the windows closed due to the rain and had to turn on the air-conditioner and that did tax the engine somewhat.
Later in the afternoon the showers hit with a vengeance and I doubled up my stern line before one particularly dark and ominous squall hit; since Zanshin was sideway to the wind it does put a lot of pressure on the lines. The winds weren’t as bad as I’d feared and after that squall the winds died down to almost nothing and the owner of the docks came by to ask if I wanted to seize the moment and change docks to where I could get fuel the next day. We quickly moved the boat and just as we’d tied the new lines the next squall hit and everyone ducked into the cover of the nearby bar.
