When You See the Southern Cross for the First Time....

It was 3 a.m. in the morning.  The moon had just fallen below the horizon and the sky became pitch black.  We had been sailing for 18 hours, having set out from Antigua at 9 a.m. the morning before.  By then, we were more than accustomed to the 18 to 25 knot winds and 8 to 10 ft seas that were coming just off our stern as we sailed along on a deep reach.  

The stars were beautiful and there, low in the horizon, I saw a very cool distinctive pattern. I said to Roger, "Hey, could that be the Southern Cross?".  Fortunately he had loaded up a star app on his iphone, and after a little maneuvering we determined, YES, it was.  It's hard to believe that we have been looking at these southern skies for over 30 years and this is the first time we had managed to find it.  I have to tell you, it was a special moment - another item off our bucket list! There were high fives all round. 

For the next half hour, we were singing Crosby, Stills and Nash, a song that frequently comes up on our Yacht Rock playlists.  

The sail from Antigua to British Virgin Islands is about 180 nm.  As we set out that morning, the GPS indicated that we would arrive in Road Town about 8:30 the next morning, almost 24 hours later. 

In preparation for our departure, Pirate got her last visit ashore, and I prepared some sandwiches that we could grab easily if the conditions were challenging.  On Roger's suggestion, we also bought a frozen lasagna that we could pop in our gimbled marine oven for dinner.  He and his friend Neil had used this strategy previously while doing the Lake Ontario 300 race from Toronto to Hamilton and Kingston and back.  

About 2.5 hours into our sail, we saw one of the competitors from the RORC 600. We thought we were going fast at 8.5 knots, but we could see on our instrumentation that this high tech racer was doing over 20 knots. 

We checked the course for the race and realized that they were heading for the little island of  Redonda, the last turning mark before the final leg back to Antigua.  At this point, they were 50 hours into the race.  Suddenly our 24 hour journey seemed to pale in comparison, especially since we were traveling much more comfortably. 

 

We would learn later that one of the TS42 catamarans in the race actually capsized 16 miles west of Antigua, following a 40 knot gust.  This happened at 9:30 pm the same night we were traveling to BVI.  Fortunately another competitor was able to come to their aid 25 minutes later, rescuing the 6 sailors and taking them aboard.  The sailors sustained only minor injuries, while the capsized multi million dollar race boat continued to drift in the sea.

By 5:30 pm, we had passed St Kitts, the lasagna was in the oven and Pirate was enjoying the sun as it started to set.  

The sunset on the open ocean is beautiful to behold but it also means the beginning of the cruise ship migration from one island to another, and we were sailing right through their path.  From 9 pm to 2:30 a.m., we were dodging 1000 ft cruise ships in the darkness between the islands of Nevis, St Kitts, Saba and St Barts.  

Typically, at night, boats display a red and green light for port and starboard, and a white light on the transom.  This aids in identifying their direction of travel.  The challenge with cruise ships is that they look like a floating disco with bright lights of every color in the spectrum, so it is nearly impossible to tell what direction they are traveling.  The only real way to confirm their course is with our onboard AIS and radar systems.  

At one point, Roger could see 11 cruise ships in the 10 mile safety zone of our radar display.  He actually had to call two of the captains on the VHF radio to ask if they wanted us to alter course to avoid them.  At another point, we had to thread the needle between two cruise ships that seemed to be heading in the same direction.  

Roger was on the helm for most of the journey with me supplying caffeine, meals and encouragement.  As the sun was rising, we were a couple of hours out from BVI, and I took the helm to give Roger some much needed sleep.   I maneuvered the boat, in the following seas, between Salt Island and Dead Chest island, conscious of the wrecks that litter the point off Salt Island.  The most famous of these is the RMS Rhone, A Royal Mail Steamer that sank in a hurricane in 1867.  The 310 foot wreck lies in 30 to 80 feet of water, and Roger and I have previously gone diving at this site.

By 8:30 a.m., right on schedule, after 23.5 hours of sailing, we pulled into Road Town and picked up a mooring ball so that we could head in to do customs and meet with the vet who would give Pirate her final clearance.  Pirate was obviously very excited to be ashore so she could do her business.  It was notable that even Roger and I continued to sway with the boat movement once we hit land. 

With all the formalities completed, we cast off again and sailed over to Norman Island to enjoy a couple of days at leisure before getting ready for our next guests.  First on the agenda, was a dinghy over to the beach restaurant Pirate's, where we enjoyed a couple of well-deserved cocktails, coined by Jimmy Buffett as "boat drinks"!