Up The Mast

Going up the mast is something that most sailors seem to have done at one time or another, but it so happens that we had not yet undertaken this task.  With our chaffed genoa halyard that had fallen down inside the mast, it looked like this vertical trip was in our future before we could venture north to Dominica.

Early last week on our sail from Ste. Anne to St. Pierre, just after having a great sail across the inlet to Fort de France, we went to unfurl the reef in our genoa.  Instead of shaking out to the full size of the sail, the whole sail gently glided down the furler to the foredeck where it toyed with the idea of blowing overboard into the waves below.

Once we collected our thoughts, looked at each other and commented, "That's not quite the unfurl we had in mind!", Henry took control of the wayward autopilot that couldn't quite handle the sudden change in sail trim, while I went forward to wrestle the sail into a bundle that I then tied to the fuller and crossbar with the sheets. 

Not an elegant look, but at least the sail was safely onboard.

Once in St. Pierre we had a better look at the situation and realized that it would be prudent to replace all our lines at the mast, so the task was set once we procured all the necessary lines.

Fast forward to Wednesday after our shopping trip and excursion around the island, we were graced with a cloudy but relatively dry day and set up our plan:

1. Replace the topping lift - done from the deck just by using the old line to guide the new line into place.
2. Replace the spinnaker halyard - also done from the deck in the same way
3. Replace the main halyard which is a 3:1 setup with the bitter end tied to a shackle at the top of the mast.  We removed the connection to the main sail and then tied off a bight in the main halyard to raise the bosun's chair.  This meant we weren't using the 3:1 mechanical advantage but were also not using the bitter end of the line in the lift.  Once up the mast I could cut the knot and replace with the new halyard at the top of the mast while still attached to the old main halyard, and using the new topping lift as a safety line.
4. Replace the genoa halyard, feed the line down the mast and fish it out the exit hole about 12' up the mast.  My fingers just wouldn't quite fit in the hole in the mast, but careful use of a skinny screwdriver and a piece of wire fished out the line successfully.

Amazingly things went pretty well to plan and we had the genoa ready to be hoisted back up pretty quickly - just one last job:  replace the missing tell-tales that had disappeared over time.

Temporary butt-splice of the old and new line.  We found that even a wrap of tape over the splice was too thick to pass through the mast fittings.

New telltales on the genoa - we'll see how purple ripstop nylon holds up.

While up the mast I managed to snap a few pictures as well with a view of the anchorage and Blue Moon beside us.  Jason, meanwhile took a few pictures of me up the mast and reminded Henry that, "Now is the time to negotiate anything you want!".

Clouds rolling in from Mt. Pelee, St. Pierre waterfront is still dry.

A new view of Mowzer (yes, that's laundry drying on the front of the boat.)

Blue Moon in the anchorage next to us.

Hi there - but I'm not letting go!

It felt like a long way to the top.

Our mast has an air draft of 55' and while not particularly tall compared with other boats, every little wobble on the water is amplified.  It was a pretty calm day but I still came back to earth sporting a few bruises on my knees and forearms.

Our New Look - A Hard Bimini and Helm Cover

Life in Grenada is full of distractions. Not complaining but now that hurricane season is over and our departure date is looming we're feeling the push to complete our various boat projects.

We tucked in on the dock at Secret Harbour Marina almost a month ago and in that time we've tackled a (small) number of projects, the most involved of which is building a new hard bimini and improved helm station for Mowzer.

Mowzer at a great location on the dock, next to our friends on Nahani River (another Ottawa boat).  Notice how we improved the neighbourhood by slinging our canvas sunshade over the back of the boat once we removed our navy blue bimini.  It's still deadly hot on the back of the boat. 

Our old helm station was a hard plastic bench which no arm rests and minimal padding.  We had added a back roll but as soon as you put a cushion under your chaffing tush, the back support was in the wrong place.  Needless to say, not a very comfortable place to spend hours piloting the boat.

Old old uncomfortable helm seat removed and sitting on the deck - the new seat under it's cover that will hopefully keep it protected over the years.

Now that's riding in style and comfort!

And the back of the seat flips sides so we can enjoy the sunsets while sitting at anchor.

We were also quite unhappy with the sun and weather protection at the helm and generally over the entire cockpit area.  Not sure what the French engineers where thinking at Fountaine-Pajot when they built the bimini edge just above the cockpit cushions, but it meant that every time it rained we had to scramble to clear anything out of the cockpit or it would receive a good soaking.  In addition, the bimini top Sunbrella was worn out and leaky itself so half our living space would disappear with any rain shower.

Bring on a new design idea which we blatantly borrowed from a member of the Cruiser's Forum who so graciously shared photos and design drawings, we ordered three large sheets of Starboard (HDPE ½" thick plastic board) and a new padded double helm seat to be shipped in from Miami and finally, we engaged the services of a stainless steel welder.

The plan:  replace the existing helm seat, build a stainless frame above the helm seat and mount hard white Starboard panels in place of the navy blue Sunbrella fabric cockpit bimini.  The centre of our existing bimini was constructed of fiberglass and strong enough to walk on, so we left that intact.

Dry fitting the starboard panel over the bimini frame.

Its a good fit and butts up nicely against the central fiberglass panel.

The folks at Secret Harbour Marina were exceedingly kind to allow us to store the big sheets of Starboard in their garage and set up an impromptu workshop at the edge of the parking lot.  We spent a number of days cutting and sanding the three large panels under the hot Grenadian sun, but we ended up with nicely shaped replacements that extend our coverage out a bit further to drop rain on the decks where it belongs.

Thankful for a cooler cloudy day as I sanded out the large panel for the helm bimini.  The sweat was still pouring off us with 32C temps and 76% humidity.

Silvio (On The Spot Welding) did a great job building our new helm bimini frame, taking just one day to weld it all together "on the spot".

Silvio really gets into his work!  Here he is drilling holes in the frame for us to attach the Starboard panel.

Putting the final weld on the frame for the helm bimini.

Look at all the beautiful shade and weather protection we now have!

The Starboard we used has a really nice non-skid pattern embossed on it which gives a very good finish.

Next up, we still need to paint the unfinished top of the old fibreglass - this will be completed with a non-skid finish to make it as safe as possible up there when closing up the sailbag.  Then we'll mount our solar panels back up on the unobstructed surfaces.

And finally, I will sew sun/rain shades that will attach under the edges of the bimini to give us all-round protection.

We are so pleased with how this project has turned out.  It has been a lot of hot sweaty work but by doing as much as possible ourselves it was not an exorbitantly expensive project that will add greatly to our comfort on the boat.

As we tidied up our garage storage we pulled out some of the packing materials - they were a big hit with the boat kids (for all of about 30 seconds of course.)  It sounded like firecrackers where going off on the dock as they snapped the big airpockets in the plastic padding.

Small joys!

Solar Panel Installation & Experience

It's now been ten months since we installed solar panels on Mowzer and so here's a more technical post on the details of the installation and our experience with it so far.

One of our primary goals when we moved aboard Mowzer was to be as energy self-sufficient as possible with solar and/or wind power generation.  If nothing else, our five years of visiting the boat in it’s charter configuration had taught us that the last thing we wanted to do was to have to run the engines or a generator for a couple of hours a day, both from a noise point of view but of course also from a desire to use as much renewable and free energy as possible.  Of course the energy is not really free because you have relatively high setup costs for both systems, but once up and running, they have relatively low operating/maintenance costs.

For solar, we mapped out the cabin top and bimini top space, documenting where all our lines, blocks, cleats and other sailing paraphernalia lie and while still at home, mapped out a plan to add thin, flexible solar panels to the tune of 345 watts.  The flexible panels are a bit less efficient than rigid but much lighter and they don’t require a frame to support them so there is pretty much a weight/installation cost vs. efficiency equality in our minds.

We ordered four Solbian panels for delivery to St. Thomas:  two square 90W panels and a rectangular 40W panel for the bimini and one rectangular 125W panel for the cabin top.

Once in St. Thomas we played around with the configuration to get maximum sun exposure with the assumption that most of our time will be spent in the Caribbean sitting at anchor with the wind blowing from the east which puts the best energy producing sunshine on our mid-line in the summer months and slightly to starboard in the winter months.  The one disadvantage of mounting on bimini and cabin-top is that they both tend to sweep upwards from fore to aft which results in the panels being more angled away from the sun in the later afternoon hours - pretty much after 4pm there is little solar production.

Three panels sewn to our bimini and one affixed to the cabin top.

To mount the panels we used two different methods:

For the cabin-top we first tried sticky-back Velcro but this quickly succumbed to the wet conditions and the adhesive really only lasted a couple of weeks.  We toyed with using a 3M adhesive product to stick either the panels or the velcro down but really didn’t want to deal with the mess and in hind-sight, we ended up moving the panel a bit so we were glad we did not go with a fully permanent solution in the beginning.  Our final installation used 3M Lock-Tite which holds the panel solidly in place even in 35 knot winds.

Cabin top panel affixed with 3M Lock-Tite under the leading edge.

For the panels on the bimini top we used the placket and velco method described here http://www.bruceschwab.com/uploads/solbian-to-canvas-guidelines.pdf .  The only addition we made was to provide a little more rigidity for the panels by inserting a piece of corrugated plastic board between the solar panel and the bimini.  I used my SailRite machine to sew the Velcro to the panels in a long, wide zig-zag stitch.  As with the cabin-top panel, these panels have remained in place through 35 knot winds but if we felt the need, any or all of the panels are easily removed and stored inside.

To protect wires from sun, they run under a flap of Sunbrella on top of the bimini.

Profile showing the thin solar panel with velcro, the corrugated plastic board and velcro on the bottom.

Velco plackets sandwich the two layers together and hold them to the bimini.

I didn't make my flaps quite big enough to give full coverage and protection so the exposed Velcro will eventually break down in the sun.

Each panel has two wires that we connected to longer wires with MC4 connectors which we routed around the bimini and above the main cockpit door.  We drilled two holes into the port bulkhead directly below the bimini where we installed gasketted conduits to pass the wires into the cabin, and then routed them down behind the navigation station and into the berth below.  We mounted four MPPT controllers each protected by a 15 amp fuse, on the wall in the berth where they are easily visible and monitored.  The outputs are then combined, with the negative run through a shunt to measure real-time amperage and then connected to the negative bus in the electrical box under the port berth.  The positive runs through a switch under the berth which in turn is connected to the house battery bank in the port engine room.

Conduits in the bulkhead feed the wires inside the cabin.

MPPT controllers and 15 am fuse.

When sitting at anchor, we pull the boom as far to port as possible so that all four panels get full sun.  We also ease off lines that cast shadows on the panels and tie them off at the mast.  At maximum sun, we routinely see 15 to 18 amps at the shunt but lower if the battery charge exceeds 85%.

We installed our solar panels in November and they were our only means of renewable energy production through the winter months in the north-eastern Caribbean.  We have a house battery bank of 500 amp-hours and in general we found that on a good sunny day we still needed to run our generator or engine for approximately an hour a day.

To give you an idea of our energy use, our main consumers of power are our refrigerator and freezer and for much of the time we do not turn on our freezer, opting to shop more often.  We do not use our big anchor light since that consumes 5 amps, instead opting to hang a 0.1 amp LED ‘anchor light’ in our rigging.  (As an aside, we will be upgrading our main anchor light to LED once in Grenada.)  All of our inside lighting has been converted to LED bulbs so very little power draw there, we have our propane gas solenoid that gets its workout at dinner-time.  We have an electric water pump for the galley and heads, and then there are the electronics that need a daily charge - two tablets, a phone and a laptop computer.  Underway, we have one chart plotter, various navigation instruments and Sulu, our trusty electronic auto pilot.  In busy anchorages the VHF radio is on all of the time.

What have we learned and what would we do differently?  What are we going to change?  Well, we definitely need either additional panels or to add a wind generator to this configuration since 345 watts is just not enough for us.  We also find that given the angle of the cabin and bimini we really only have good power production between about 9am and 4pm - six to seven hours on a good day.  That leaves 18 hours when we are losing the power struggle with our batteries and without a boost on the batteries at about 9pm our morning levels are just too low to maintain good battery health.  If we turn on the freezer we have to add more generator time.

So, in April we bit the bullet and decided to add a wind generator (more on that in a separate article) and are still toying with the idea of adding more solar.  We will most likely upgrade our bimini so that the entire surface is solid rather than the current configuration of the solid central area with canvas on the sides.  This would give us a more secure attachment point and more water-proofing for the cabin below.  The bimini has lost its water-proofing over the years and having the sewn plackets has greatly reduced it further since water pools against the Sunbrella ridges and finds it’s way through the stitching holes.  We would also consider adding a rigid panel on a frame over the dinghy davits that would allow us to angle it toward the later afternoon sun and therefore extend our hours of solar production.  For the moment we will hold off on more solar panels until we have completed a full year in the Caribbean since we fully expect that the summer months (hurricane season) will be more cloudy and therefore would not gain us as much solar production anyways.

Overall impression:  we love the Solbian panels and the option that the thin plastic and slight flex gives for easy mounting options.  The only maintenance we’ve had to worry about is to clean them with fresh water after a salty crossing or when in an anchorage with dust blowing from land (or the Sahara).  Where wires are exposed to the harsh sunlight we have installed Sunbrella sleeves to protect them.  We are careful not to walk on the panels and in the course of ten months we have only one small mark on one that we can only assume is from a rope slap when a genoa line flogged.

Harnessing the Wind

Back in October we added four flexible solar panels to Mowzer with a total of 345 watts.  On a clear sunny day these panels can push up to 18 amps into our batteries and with a house battery bank of 500 amp hours, even with the fridge & freezer running we can get our batteries topped up by the afternoon.

However, on a cloudy day we just don't make it, and after about 4pm the solar panels can't keep up and we run to the negative overnight.  We've found that to avoid dropping too low, we turn off the freezer overnight (don't worry, it stays nice and cold - our ice is still in cubes in the morning) and have to resort to running our gas-powered generator for an hour each evening.

While this is a whole lot better than having to run our engines for three to four hours a day, we'd still like to be a bit more independent of the whole fossil fuel / noise thing.

Here enters the thoughts on wind generators.  Believe me we have pondered this one up and down, backwards and forwards, and listened to countless solicited (and unsolicited) opinions on this topic.  We've also cruised around every anchorage we've been in with our dinghy, checking out the various models and mounting options.

It quickly became apparent to us that along with efficiency, noise is a super important consideration.  We have sat next to some pretty noisy wind generators in various anchorages and can't imagine having that noise on the boat.  Isn't the whole purpose of being out here to try to gain some tranquility?  The noise of the wind in the rigging can be deafening some nights so we didn't want to add the angry whine of a turbine.

Our various forms of research landed us on the D400 - made in the U.K. by Eclectic Energy.    The unit runs almost silently, has good efficiency and great reviews both online and from those that we met that have it installed on their boats.

Once we'd chosen our wind gen, the next step was to figure out how we were going to mount the 17 kg (37 lb) beast.  We arrived in St. Martin with the goal of finding a stainless steel tubing fabricator who could build us a pole to hold the wind generator incorporated with a safer stern rail at the back of the boat; the current setup of three stanchions and some rather corroded steel wire needed an update.

After a bit of a hunt, we found Best Boat Yard at Bobby's Marina could do the work for us in the time we have on the island and so we arrived at the dock for the work to commence on Thursday.  By Friday afternoon, the old stanchions had been removed and the new rail and pole installed, with just an angled brace and some polishing to be finished on Monday morning.  Henry has assembled the wind generator and spent many hours in the engine room setting up the wiring which includes a regulator to control the voltage arriving at the batteries, and a diversion load which spills off any excess amperage in the form of heat (just what we need in the tropics.)

D400 (face down) assembled on the cockpit table - no outdoor dinner tonight!

Off with the old - Curtis cutting off the old stanchions so he could use the existing bases.

On with the new - drilling another hole in the boat for the wire to pass through the base of the pole and into the engine room where the battery bank resides.

All one unit with the pole in the foreground and the rail wrapping around the back of the boat to the other steps in the background.

The new rail at the side of the sugarscoop makes it much safer up and down the steps and also getting into the engine compartment.

The solid rail replaces the wire lifeline we had at the back of the boat.  Along with safety, we can now mount our BBQ a bit more out of the wind back here.

And there we have it!  The wind generator is installed and Henry's putting away our shore cord.

From now on we'll be checking to see if we're closer to breaking even with our power generation vs. power consumption in a 24 hour period.  The addition of the D400 should put us that much closer!

Engines Yay! - Chart Plotter Booh!

Sitting at Gilligan's Island gave us time to work on a few of the kinks that we have been experiencing, it's been an exercise in gremlin extermination.

Our engines have been chronically overheating with white vapor coming out the exhaust and what we felt was a reduced output of water from the cooling system. Our manual head (toilet) wasn't flushing properly and felt like there was something jamming the pump handle. Our compass light has never worked at the helm and finally, and most terrifyingly, our chart plotter would turn off its display without warning and typically it seemed, when we were trying to navigate tricky reefs.

For the engine, Henry was convinced that it had something to do with our haul-outs since we've had intermittent problems with the engine since Nanny Cay and more often since Casa de Campo. He checked the sea strainers (with help from Robert and an oversized wrench to get one open) and they were pretty clean, but he did notice that the air never seemed to clear from them. Referring back to all those years of running the pump on our swimming pool he set to work to get all the air out of the system and once again we can sustain full engine revs. This morning we ran at almost 6 knots for 38 miles and tested higher revs which put us up to 7.2 knots, with not a whisper of an overheating alarm. The lesson learned on this one (and experienced mariners probably have their heads in their hands) is to make sure the seacocks are closed prior to lifting the boat out of the water so that air can't get into the system.

Applying the same logic to the head, we found a slightly different problem but still a hose issue. A fold had developed in the hose where it was tie-wrapped to a support and the fold had very much constricted the diameter. This meant that not enough volume could pass through the hose which was backing up as resistance to the pump handle. We might also have developed an air bubble in the system. Once we straightened out the hose and opened up the kink, we were back in business (so to speak).

Henry reconnected the compass light and after a quick mid-passage adjustment last night we had a lovely red glow behind the compass. This was one of those simple jobs but the result can only really be tested at night, and we'd just keep forgetting to do it after we settled down for the evening.

Finally, the chart plotter. Sigh. It seems as though there might be some repeatable symptom in that if we turn on the autopilot prior to getting the chart plotter running with a position fix, the chart plotter will suddenly lose it's backlight, to the extent that you can't see the screen - it becomes a black hole looming with doom as you drive into the dark of night. Okay, that's rather melodramatic but it's a bit how it feels. The sudden darkness can be foisted upon you at any time, minutes or hours since the last petulant attack. Last night as we left Gilligan's Island in the dark we quickly installed the iPad in a ziploc at the helm station and ran the Navionics charts there all night as backup. This morning, Henry is reading up all the trouble-shooting tips and will be making good use of our phone card with a Raymarine tech, our backup plan being a trip to West Marine while we sit in Salinas waiting for the next break in the weather. I am convinced that I am not doing another night trip with this piece of cr... on board, but we'll see what transpires with techy advice and time.

Not to worry, our time at Gilligan's Island was not all work. With the folks of Almost There, we put in plenty of social time as well. We discovered that tucked in on the beach round the corner was the Copamarina Resort and they were most welcoming to sailors. We treated ourselves to lunch on Sunday once Robert discovered there were ribs on the menu and we were then welcome to lounge by the pool for the afternoon. Not too rough! We also discovered the cheapest laundry I've ever seen - $1.50 for a large wash and then the dryer was "jammed" on so it worked without further contribution. Got the sheets, towels and a blanket all done in one load and yes, they came out clean (nothing more disappointing than getting your clothes back dirtier than they went in.)

Plates loaded with ribs as we all tuck in.

A tree that could model for some of the God's Trees in Game of Thrones.

As you will have gleaned above, we have moved on now and are now anchored in the mangrove lined harbour at Salinas, a good place to wait out the next bout of high winds. The forecasts all converged and there was a 13-hour window last night with an opportunity to move comfortably eastwards. Almost There lifted anchor and waved goodbye at 6pm as they planned a longer trek than us, and we got up at 2am to make it up to Salinas by 9am. Finally, we had a perfect demonstration of the calming effects of the cool night mountain air stalling the trade winds and with nothing much over 10 knots and relatively calm seas, we hugged the coast and put the 38 miles under our keel in relatively quick order (with our nicely cooled engines.)

Nice and close to the coast, avoiding all the reefs and mangrove islands, gave us calm winds and moderate seas.

Westward Ho! ... A Teeny Bit

We returned to St. Thomas with a short list of items to complete at the dock and with today we saw the last check-mark on the list:

• Replaced our "borrowed" batteries with new ones and added one more for additional capacity. We now have four AGM batteries for a total of 500 amp hours in our house bank.
• Repaired the sticky throttle on our port engine. This turned out to be a easy one as the arm that connects the cable to the engine had been bent. A little straightening and all is moving fine now.
• Resoldered a corroded connection on our VHF radio so it now works better than our handheld radio and added the GPS linkage so that we can hit the Distress button on the radio and it will actually transmit our location with the distress call.
• While we were on the dock I pulled out the sewing machine and made a windshield for our helm. As an added bonus it helps to extend a bit more shade over anyone seated there, and with a velcro'd isinglass screen it will provide additional protection when there is rain or spray.

Looking back at photos on my camera, I had taken a few of the full cruise ship terminal at Yacht Haven Grande as we returned to Charlotte Amalie. Back to the hustle & bustle of St. Thomas!

Look carefully and you'll see the first boat is moving. The just radioed out that they are dropping their lines and leaving. Let's get out of the way!

So, now that all that has been completed and we said our goodbyes to all the good folks in Frenchtown, we headed round the corner to the Crown Bay fuel dock to fill up our main tank and jerry cans. Crown Bay was definitely a busy spot this afternoon with two cruiseships lined up beside each other and all sorts of other private and commercial traffic. Even the local ferry had to wait for us to finish at the dock before they could come in for room.

Given that it was almost 2pm by the time we finally set off, we decided that we wouldn't make it to Culebra before dark so we puttered around the end of the airport and into Brewer's Bay where we dropped anchor. We've now added a good dose of water to our tanks by running the water maker this afternoon and enjoyed the westward views as the sun set over Culebra and Vieques - our destinations for tomorrow.

Our destination for the evening, right under the flight path to STT airport.

Delta incoming.

As seen through our rigging.

Rewarded with a beautiful sunset.

Followed up by the sliver of the moon setting as well.

Peter Island Sojourne

Returning to the BVI and after a night at Leverick Bay in North Sound, we have now moved down to great Harbour on Peter Island with the intent to stop for a couple of days and work on some boat projects. What more could we have to do, you might ask!

Well, remember that we bought a new dinghy in St. Martin? We have been hauling two dinghies around with us since then but with an agreement to sell our old dinghy to Da Life our two-dinghy life is (happily) about to come to an end. We lifted the new dinghy onto our bow for the crossing from St. Martin and after three weeks of sitting in Marigot harbour it will be good to give its bottom a scrub before we drop it back in the water. We'll reinstall the engine and then clean up the old Carib before handing it over to Rick tomorrow. Very pleasantly we have made arrangements to meet up at The Bight on Norman Island since Rick is down on vacation on Da Life, which he and his wife co-own with Jay and Debbie.

Farewell to our old Caribe. But I bet things will be jus' fine on De Life!

Now that we are back in the beautiful clear waters of the Virgins, Henry got busy and has given Mowzer's bottom a real good scrubbing. Even though she was pressure washed in Nanny Cay back in November, Caribbean water, especially harbour water, is very fertile and we were starting a bit of a farm down there.

All squeaky clean again, well almost... And water so clear you can see the keel and rudder.

The last couple of months have been like a break-in period for us where we have learned what we did right and not-so-right with the projects we completed back on the dock in St. Thomas. One item we need to change is the layout of our solar panels. We've found that the curve of the bimini on the port side is too great and angles our two mid-size panels away from the sun just a little too much when we are at anchor. Given that the winds here are predominanlty from the east or some variation thereof, our panels need to be on the starboard side of the boat as much as possible. We had tried to avoid the boom shadow with our original placement but now realize that it will be much better to pull the boom far over to port and move these two panels as far over to starboard as possible, still leaving room to walk on the bimini to access the sailbag. This involves removing the whole bimini and sewing on new attachment plackets, although we are going to leave the old plackets so that if/when we travel somewhere where the winds are from the west, we can move the panels back to a more optimal position.

Panels in their old position, but too angled for our usual position at anchor.

New plackets on top, ready to catch more rays, once we swing the boom to the side.

Finally, and only if there is time, we purchased new life-lines to install on both sides and at the transom. Rather than going with wire strand and swaged fittings we have decided to try Dyneema line which we can splice ourselves and easily adjust or repair as needed. We have all the line and the fittings and I've done a practice splice, so this just needs us to remove the old lines and install the new. However, I think getting some of the old fittings off may be a bit of a challenge.

Dyneema and my practice splice, now just 11 more to go.

On top of all that, this Peter Island anchorage is a wonderful place to sit. We are tucked up in the eastern corner, completely protected from any swell with just the winds whistling over the hill to keep us cool. The water is deep, we're anchored very close to shore but still in 40' of water, and we can see the bottom so no problem making water here. And finally, the views looking north west over Tortola are stunning, especially as the sun sets and the distant lights start to twinkle. Again, after a month with the noise and lights of a busy harbour, it is almost mind-numbing to sit in a dark, silent anchorage with the full panorama of the stars overhead.