Airborne Repairs and Sailing to Barbuda

Airborne Repairs and Sailing to Barbuda

Saturday 30th  and Sunday 31st Dec 2023

It’s always a bit nerve wracking when your nearest and dearest is being winched up the mast.  Today was perhaps even more worrying than most occasions as Mike was climbing/being winched up the backstay.  His objective was to reconnect the cable to the antenna for the single side band radio (SSB).  As it transpired, the main halyard was not long enough to reach the backstay at deck level.  Mike tied an extra piece of line to the halyard.  Then using prussic loops, he started to climb the back stay with me winching up on the main halyard to hold him in position while he slid each leg loop past each insulator (which keep the cable secured to the back stay.) I was so slow at grinding the winch that we were forced to resort of short bursts of the electric winch to tighten the halyard.  Slowly, Mike made his way up to the point from which the cable had been disconnected.  He quickly realized that he didn’t have the tools he needed to affect the repair and asked me to lower him to the deck after placing a carabiner around the extended halyard and the back stay.  Unfortunately, as I lowered him, the knot securing the halyard to the extra piece of line became jammed in the carabiner.  Once again Murphy’s law had it’s way with us!

I can’t even describe how Mike solved that problem, I’m not sure I was taking it all in as he was doing it.  I was able to lower him to the deck. Then with the correct tools, he re-climbed the back stay and secured the cable to the antenna. Wiping the sweat from my palms, I lower Mike to the deck!  Once he had told me that we had now completed the last task on the list, I felt a lot better about the whole thing. 

Later we went to shore to meet up with our friends Will and Liz who will be spending the next week with us.

Gloria

One of our goals for the week with Will and Liz was to visit Barbuda, an island 25 miles to the north of Antigua. After a couple of weeks of mostly light winds, it seemed that Sunday would have more moderate trade winds and so we decided to jump on the opportunity to sail northwards. As incredible as it may seem, given that lack of wind forced to motor pretty much everywhere with Tasha and Mac, we did actually sail the entire way! We had 8-12 knots from the east north east and sailed a close reach at better than 6 knots for most of the passage. It was surprisingly bumpy, but we all managed to keep our breakfast down (just!). We also ran into a squall shortly before reaching our destination, but by mid afternoon, after a six hour passage, we were anchored off the west coast of Barbuda. We could see one other boat a couple of miles south of us and one a similar distance to the north, but other than that we got to enjoy New years Eve in splendid isolation. We ate tuna steaks, sautéed sweet potatoes and salad, followed by chocolates and peanut brittle from San Francisco. 

Mike

17 39.270 N, 61 51.456 W

Mike, 25 feet off the deck, reconnecting the cable that turns the backstay an arial for the single sideband radio (SSB)

Our final approach to Low bay on the west side of Barbuda. The genoa has been furled and we dropped the main sail shortly after, as we navigated around some shallow coral heads before dropping anchor

Will and Liz swimming off the boat in Barbuda

A squall passes to the west of us whilst at anchor in Low Bay

Sunset on New Years Eve after all the squalls had passed