July 13. Road Harbor, Tortola BVI

It shows again how small the world is, on our last day in Coral Bay a family showed up on the beach and a bit later swam out to us. We talked for a few minutes when we found out that they were out of San Diego. As we told them that we were out of Marina del Rey, she said that her father is a life guard in LA, since 50 years already. "No way, what's his name?" was Sid's reply and sure enough Sid knows her dad. Here is a photo of the family of Dick Ellerson swimming by our boat. Hope to hear from them when they get back from their vacation.

Can you all believe we moved a whole 12 miles further east because a tropical wave was headed our way (what's new), that was trying to become a low pressure system and since we were so close to a well protected marina we decided to take advantage of it and be safe. It should have been a very short and easy trip to Road Harbor as the Francis Passage we sailed across is surrounded by small islands and protected from the Atlantic swell, kind of being on a lake. But with the blow of 18 to 28 knots of wind we endured it turned this usually calm stretch into a churned up wild ride with white caps all around. In the middle of the stretch is a counter current and oh boy, did it get uncomfortable there. The bow dug into the waves, water sprayed over the dodger into the cockpit and the boat slowed down to 2.3 knots.
Customs in the BVI are very strict and you have to check in right away and only in Road Harbor if you have pets on board, which both of us have. You are not allowed to enter a marina before checking in either and have to anchor in a horrible anchorage, the only one here which is right in front of the customs building. The anchorage was full of mooring buoys all occupied with boats, surrounded by yellow cones stating no anchoring here leaving us barley any room. Right next to us was the busy ferry dock and we were right on the edge of the fairway and got the wake of each boat that came by. Check in was short and sweet, then we headed to the Mooring Marina to weather out another approaching wave. The weather has just been unbelievable, a lot of boats are still stuck between the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and here, just as we are. The positive side is, if it wasn't for the weather we would have not seen much of the Virgin Islands which are really too beautiful to miss. Almost forgot to mention, while in St. John no matter where we went people kept greeting Sid, some took photos of him, some gave him hugs, most wanted to shake his hand and we still want to know who they think he is. We'll see if the reaction is the same here.