Some of us get up early to pack and clean up the boat while others sleep off their "last hooorah"
There is a steady 20+ knots of wind in The Bight and this makes the chore of packing much more tolerable. Once we get to the docks we won't be pointing into the wind anymore and it gets very hot while in the boat.
Cindy wanted to snorkel The Caves one last time, so we dropped the ball around 9am and headed around the corner to The Caves. We snag a ball and jump in. Within minutes all 6 balls are taken. We snorkel for a good 40 minutes and see a lot of fish with good sunlight. The highlight was the seeing a Spotted Eagle Ray.
We quit snorkeling, drop the ball and raise the sails for some very brisk sailing. 10 days ago when we last crossed the Sir Frances Drake Channel, the winds we 4-7 knots. They are now at a nutty 25+ knots. The crew is either busy with the packing/cleaning or nursing a top-10 hangover, so I raise the main with 1 reef in place. Soon the boat is humming along at a nice steady 7 knots with no head sail. The wind and seas get real nutty when we get between Norman and Peter Island. I keep the diesels on, but not in gear until we safely passed east of Pelican Island. If we had a sudden stearage failuer or lost the main it would'nt take long to blow into rocks on our port. Once we are in the open channel, I kill the iron sails and unfurl the head sail. We are really cranking now (well, compared to prior week) and get Kokomo settled into a solid 8 knots while crashing through some pretty big seas. I only unfurled the head sail 3/4 since I was single handling the boat.
Unfortunalty, I could'nt keep the traveler in the center. The force on the main kept moving the traveler down wind and this caused a considerable amount of wind to be scrubbed off the main. But even so, we hit 10+ knots a few times.
About half way across the channel, I spot a guy zipping around in a dinghy and quicky realize it's one of the "yacht shots" people. I wake the crew up from their comas and put Kokomo on auto pilot. I tell everyone to go up front and "pose". As soon as he saw that we were on to him he zipped over and started snapping photos. It's amazing the photos they can get while bobbing up and down in 4ft seas. At one point Kokomo is bearing down on him while he clicks away, but he waves his hand in a gesture as to say "keep coming, don't worry about me". Sure enough, just as we are 'bout to run him down he zips out of the way. He gives us a thumbs up and hunts down the next boat. Those photos are here >> http://www.digiproofs.com/ecom/page_view.pl?p=Acry1Tn
I'll be definitely ordering some in the weeks to come. I sorta wish I had full sails up, but I had to be realistic. Being overpowered and single handed is not the smartest move.
We reach the Road Town channel entrance and call Conch Charters as instructed. A member of Conch comes out in a dinghy soon after and takes over Kokomo and brings her into the fuel dock. Again, remarkably we only take on 12 gallons of diesel.
We finish cleaning up Kokomo, pack and give some unused provisions (42 cans of soda) to an outgoing family.
We do the standard boat "check-in" and then take a taxi at 1pm for a 3:30pm flight.
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On the way to the airport we make a stop at Pussers to get some last minute gifts and such.
EIS check in was quick and event free. Some of the crew was starving and had planned to eat at the airport until they saw the menu that included an $8 hotdog. We decided that since we had a decent layover in San Juan, we would wait. For some reason they had everyone on our flight leave this air conditioned room and stand outside for 35 minutes.
So we stare at our plane for 35 minutes then finally board and subsequently take off for San Juan.
We land in San Juan, eat, have our flight delayed, delayed some more and eventually take off for Tampa.
~Bryan
