Decent Internet and sad faces tell the truth about the work to come.
Dropping the sails cleaning and getting everything ready to store for 6 months is not fun.
Just look at all those fenders. It’s amazing that the all store in the bow locker.
Up early and raised sail around 7am. Slow start going around some rocks, er small islands and between some reefs, but all was well. Short changed the canvas that was up today, started with one reef in the main and full jib as there were some gusts, but really we should have had a full main. But we were making reasonable time in 14-15 knots of wind that we should easily clear customs by 3:30pm. We averaged about 7 knots all day, and cleared customs at 1pm and proceeded to pout. Well hide from the sun, its hot. Cool breeze but the sun is hot.
Made some texican breakfast tacos along the way, chilled out mainly on a beam reach, wind about 72 degrees to port, max speed 12knots on the GPS, average up to 7.5 at one point, but when we turned down wind it got hot even tho we were still doing 7 knots and in no hurry.
Had some snacks after clearing customs and then proceeded to hide from the sun. Christine worked inside the boat organizing, de-cluttering and getting rid of stuff we will never use. Wayne and I hid and had a few beers. As the sun started going down we dropped the jib, untied/tangled the main sail, its ready to drop on deck, the reefing lines are drawn, the mast cars are disconnected, the only thing holding the sail on is the lazy jacks and sail bag.
Pretty much ready for the haul out in the morning, when we’ll start the washing and cleaning / stowing of gear till the next trip down here.
Cooked some jerk wings for snacks tomorrow and some of our left over tuna for dinner. Tried the steaks on the grill, was okay but none of us was that hungry, so we finished off the ice cream instead.
Here is the other perspective to Matt’s blog below…Matt has a tendency to “wonder” (we need one of those harness leashes on him) and as Wayne and I were at the store, we came out to find him gone. We had mentioned we wanted to follow the road until it dead ends so we thought he would either catch up or meet up with us from the beach. We had money and water (we win). Wayne and I chatted with the very many goats and a few super cool locals along our little walk. We came to a little impasse that looked like the end of the beach so I walked down to the beach to see if I could see Matt. We had seen a guy in a red shirt a few steps back and assumed it was him but when I got to the beach, there were only 3 men fishing (one in a red shirt). Oh well, he will find us–he always does. We just had to take a photo of the strange baby in the tree (see below). We walked west around the island until the road ran out and climbed up a big hill to overlook the ocean which was majestic. At this point, we thought it best to turn around and try to find Matt to hydrate him, so we headed back to the store/dingy dock. We made it back having drank more than 1/2 of the 1.5 litter of water (it is hot), walked down to the store, the dock, and still no Matt so we decided to keep walking around the other side of the island until that road ran out. Still no sign of Matt so we decided to head back to the bar. On the way back we stopped in Matthew’s shopping center with a grocery store and gift shop. No sprite zero or Shandy’s for me, but found some 1664 for the boys. Picked up a cold one for Matt with the hopes of finding him some day. We headed to the bar, decided to walk down and peer at the pier and low and behold a man in a red shirt waiting for us. He came at us at almost a gallop, which was funny. I handed him his luke warm beer and we headed to the bar. My fitbit measured 10,674 steps!
