Meeting Liz

Liz

Prepping for sailing across the Atlantic seemed daunting. Was Alembic ready? Were we ready? You can have adverse weather or boat problems in any harbor or sea, but we wanted to be ready to be completely self sufficient for a month, even though the longest passage, Bermuda to Açores would probably only take fifteen days. One concern was that we may need a third person if either Bill or I were to become fatigued, injured, or seasick.
After many emails and Skype visits, we decided that Liz seemed the best fit. We invited her to sail with us for a week to try it out. She would fly into St Martin and depart from St Thomas, giving her a chance to experience Alembic at sea as well as in harbors.
When Liz arrived, we barely gave her a chance to get to know us or Alembic before leaving the calm lagoon and sailing two hours to Anguilla. Here we anchored in a very rolly anchorage for ten hours and tried to sleep before a 3am departure for the Virgin Islands. Knowing that the trip would take about 14 hours, we left early enough to ensure a daylight arrival. This was quite a test for Liz. The wind was perfect but we had a huge swell coming from storms well to our north. Even though this was a rough ride, Liz remained eager to continue. First test: Passed!

Sweet Bonnie came for dinner too

Johnny always has words of wisdom

Coming around Virgin Gorda was a sweet ending to our tiring day. Here we found calm water and Planet Waves! A few minutes after anchoring, we invited Johnny and Shelley to join us on Alembic for a dinner. Of course, Bonnie was invited as well.

Helen climbing at the Baths

Marina Cay under reconstruction

Mt Abram Love at Foxy’s

More New England visitors at Foxy’s

A church needing mending

Soper’s Hole

Pusser’s is about to reopen

The famous Willy T

The rest of Liz’s week was much calmer as we sailed around the BVI’s, visiting places we all had enjoyed previously with our families. First we sailed to Spanish Town to clear into customs, then on to the Baths, Marina Cay, Scrub Cay, Jost Van Dyke, Soper’s Hole, Nanny Cay, Cow Bay, Normans, Maho, Caneel, and Red Hook. Saddened by the constant evidence of devastation from Hurricane Irma, we managed to have a lot of fun and were grateful to these communities who are working hard to rebuild. Patronizing the shops and restaurants is what they need most right now, so we did just that!