Talk about a miserable evening. Sandra and I didn't get a lick of sleep this last evening. Not because we were without mainsail and would be at Cane Garden Bay for an indeterminate time, but our mooring ball was knocking against our bow all night while swells were hitting us from the side. I wasn't even going to mention the music from the bars at the beach reverberating across the water able to locate that very nerve on the back of one’s neck, that says "oh, that's going to send me to a clock-tower". Looking back at that sentence, I guess I was going to mention it.
We woke up at 6am. It may not really be waking up, when your eyeballs were already bug-eyed open from the experiences leading up to daylight. But awake we were, cooking up the coffee, wondering if we were going to get a repaired sail today. The charter company doesn't open until 8:30am, so we were caffeinated by the time we got the call. And the call was "It's a go!" Our sail was repaired, and they would be driving over to the bay at noon. Works for me! So, Sandra and I had a few hours to spare, so we geared up and went out on a morning hike up what was reminiscent of Mt. Hyndman back in Idaho. You couldn't stride it, so it looked as if we were doing a moon walk up a very steep road. Which, by the way, "Why are these like this?" Have they not discovered switchbacks in the BVI's? Up we went and observed cars coming at us from the wrong side of the road. We finally got up to the lookout restaurant, where I had banana bread while we watched a bunch of chickens and roosters run about the place.
Down the hill, which was also no small task with the "Negatives" on the knees. But back at the boat we eventually arrived. The sail should be showing up anytime now. Looking about the bay, I noticed it was virtually empty of boats, and the fuel dock was empty. So, the decision was made to try a little docking experience, and let the repairs happen there. Off we go to the dock! So, might be wondering if we crashed into the dock, exploded the fuel lines and ultimately rendered Cane Garden Bay uninhabitable for years. But as I type this, I can assure you it was perfect docking. For just the two of us, we were able to properly coordinate the jump-off and cleat the ties without drifting off into the rocks.
So now, the sail guys showed up, and they began the re-rigging. This was exciting for me, as I was over their shoulders peering, smiling, peering some more as I watched them rig up the main. It took a little over an hour and they were done a little past two o'clock. We could still make a little day of it. I tipped the fellas, and would've done more, but we got to get out of this bay and STAT!
We were able to leave the bay and do a few tacks of the channel to test the sails. We got about 2.5 hours in and that was probably enough since neither one-off got any sleep last night, and we wanted to get our mooring ball across the channel at Jost Van Dyke.
In all, we lost probably less than a day, but it was filled with other activities. There's still 6 more days left; so we're grateful that we didn't ruin a main-sail on a Sunday!