we got up quite early, the sun comes up at 545am down, here and while aimee was doing yoga i got online. we are getting daily updates on hurricanes now from noaa so i always go check their site when i get the email. today it looked like it was going to be pretty calm for the next 24 hours with less than 1 meter seas and less than 15 kts of wind so i decided we should head east. it was only 50nm to virgin gorda our favorite place in the bvi so when aimee got done with yoga we had a quick swim and got under way. we both love going to new places/countries on the spur of the moment and the caribian is a great place to do it. there are always a few countries within a day or less of sailing!
we went around the reef we went through with larry and after 2 hours motoring we where in the lee of the US VI. The waves came down and we where actually able to sail for a bit. of course it was pretty sporty sailing and of course aimee picked that point to check the lines and discover we had a beautiful very tiered tuna! she got the gaff into it and i tied the tail off while trying to sail. things where getting way too sporty with the boat up on a 30 to 40 deg heal in 20 kts of wind with me hand steering to make an island.
this all seemed a recipe for disaster so i recommended we stow the fish in the cooler until we could get the sail down and into calmer water. this worked out nicely and aimee was adamant about cleaning the fish so after we got into calmer water and a bit of back and forth on the “optimal” fish cleaning technique aimee had two filets and not too much blood. no sooner than we had everything under control then we got another hit. this time things went very smoothy except for a bit of bload splatter when aimee hit the fish over the head with the winch handle a couple of times to kill it. after dragging for a bit this one was very blood free and aimee did a great job getting almost all the meat off the guy. i am so glad i no longer have this job!!!
the rest of the trip was very pleasant we motored by the BVI as the sun set with a few margaritas and pulled into vigin gorda about 9pm. we dropped the hook in one of our favorite spot off the bitter end mooring field. we where happy to discover blazing fast internet as well which will come in handy for our new blog update!
cheers, roger
