You may have seen from our tracker that we are now in Red Hook Bay on St Thomas, USVI. We had a good trip from Virgin Gorda on Wednesday, motor-sailing all the way (to make good time) in rather unusual weather conditions for this part of the world, rather muggy, full cloud cover, windy but no rain; it was more like a day on the Chesapeake in August but without the thunderstorms. Ed wanted us to meet his good friends, Jim and Kathy who live on their boat in Red Hook and they had arranged for us to borrow a friend’s mooring for a couple of nights. We met up with them for lunch and found them to be a lovely couple and most helpful in providing recommendations for services in the area. Indeed, they recommended Perry to check out our autopilot. Now, one day later, Perry has been on our boat twice, diagnosed that the controller (in the cockpit) was not performing correctly, and has fitted a replacement (used) part. So, hopefully Fred will be back functioning the way he should again ….. although we still need to strengthen the base on which the ram sits to eliminate a bit of a wobble that started during our trip from Hampton.
Ed took a taxi to the airport after lunch. The photo shows him giving Howard and Kathy a hug before boarding. We will miss him and hope that he will be able to join us again, maybe further down the island chain.
We will be back in Red Hook around December 2-3 to pick up 4x8D AGM batteries, that we have on order. They need to be shipped from the USA. For those who keep asking the question ‘What do you need to budget for sailing in paradise?’ It has been an expensive week this week, although this, fortunately, seems to be the exception rather than the norm. A rule of thumb for boat maintenance seems to be about 10% of the price of the boat per year, plus your general living costs (food, drink, eating out, dockage, etc.); although the latter will vary considerable depending on what kind of life-style you choose to adopt.
