Peter's Birthday

Today is Peter's birthday and we are in Nanny Cay Marina having left the Moorings dock yesterday morning. We had a birthday dinner party last night joined by 20 other crews from various World ARC boats who are all here in Nanny Cay to either depart with ARC Europe or wave them off like us. ARC Europe is the return Rally for many boats as it sails to Bermuda then the fleet splits and the American boats head up the East coast back to the USA and the European boats head to the Azores then onto Portugal or England. We stay here though!! Having sailed all around the world there is no place quite like the BVI which is beautiful and definitely home for us. ARC Europe leaves Nanny Cay on 4 May so we are booked into the Marina here until Sunday. Our plans have changed slightly in that we are now sailing back down to St Lucia leaving here on 15 May and arriving in Marigot Bay for 19 May. We have flights booked to return back here on 21 May to do two charters the first of which starts 24 May and the second 11 June ending on 16 June so we fly back to St Lucia on 18 June. All very tight but we only get 28 days in the BVI when we fly into the country compared to 30 days by boat. Although when we bring our boat back here in December we will have to pay $200 to temporarily import the boat and this allows us to stay for up to a year! Once we are back in St Lucia we have time to enjoy the countrty again and sail back to Grenada where we are booked to haul out the boat on 1 July to go in a cradle for the hurricane season. Have not yet booked flights back to the UK as we are still researching the best deal as it is complicated. We need to fly out from Grenada then back to the BVI as work starts 1 October 2013. We then need to find a window between charters to fly back to Grenada to sail our boat back up to the BVI for the winter season. This will have to be the end of November at the earliest for insurance reasons. All very complicated!! Today we have the riggers coming to carry out a full rig inspection now we have finished our long passages. We are also expecting the sail loft to arrange for someone to measure up our hatches to make some waterproof covers for use whilst the boat is stored in the hurricane shelter. Unfortunately we still have leaks every now and then but usually only small amounts of water get inside the boat but obviously we need to keep the boat dry over the summer to avoid any mould and mildew problems. We have actually bought some Damprid which is a product made up of silica crystals designed to eliminate damp from the air. We will place these pots in each bathroom and another in the wet locker (wardrobe for outside foul weather gear). My job today is to pack away our coats and foul weather gear in storage bags so we can take them off the boat. There are lock up store rooms available near to the Moorings and we are hoping to rent one of these for our surplus clothes and other boat stuff which we prefer not to leave on the boat whilst she is in storage. We also have to appoint someone to carry out a guardianage service whereby they check the boat on a regular basis (batteries, pests, damp etc) and open hatches to air the boat. It is not cheap but essential for insurance purposes. We will visit the Royal BVI Yacht Club at lunch time to collect our membership cards as we have kept up our membership on an overseas basis whilst we were away sailing. Now we are back the secretary wants some photos and stories for her newsletter!