Incredible Crossing from BVIs to St. Martin

Sunset en route from Virgin Gorda to St. Martin

A good crossing is a beautiful thing. In need of some pricey items (two 4D batteries, 200 feet of anchor chain, and a new windlass, the device that pulls up the anchor chain), we headed to St. Martin, which has the best prices on marine equipment in the Caribbean. We spent a lovely couple of days working our way up the BVIs (more on that later) so we could hitch a ride on the back of a cold front (cool front down here) with some northeasterly winds. And what a ride we had! The swells were 8-10 feet at times, but very long, so we just rode over the top of them like a cork. The winds weren’t much more than 10 knots, but at such a good angle that we scooted along at 6+ knots (yes, that’s slow in car terms, but really good in Mr Mac terms). In fact, we had to take in most of our sails during the night and slow down to about 3 knots so we wouldn’t arrive too early. As it was, we arrived about 6am and had to anchor and float around for the bridge to the lagoon to open at 8am. AND, this was the passage that started with two humpbacks surfacing right next to the boat, and another breaching in the distance, and I haven’t even mentioned the stars twinkling in the sky and the phosphorescence twinkling in the sea. Oh yeah, a nice passage.