Christiansted, St. Croix USVI

We've been having a string of bad luck where things keep breaking. First our alternator on our generator literally fell off (the mounting bracket broke). Then when Kevin was preparing the boat for the passage to St. Croix he noticed that one of our engine air filters had torn. So he tried to put on a new one, but it tore as he was putting it on. (The air filters are made of foam and very flimsy.) We didn't have another spare and didn't want to run the engine with nothing filtering the air, so Kevin MacGuyvered a solution using one of his dress socks. Things usually break in threes, so we knew that something else would be breaking soon, probably on our passage.

We left Falmouth Harbour, Antigua around noon. It started pouring rain the moment after we pulled up anchor, but luckily the rain didn't last long. We were pretty excited to be finally going downwind for a long passage (it is 180 miles from Antigua to St. Croix, for us it would take about 30 hours). We put up the main and were able to turn the engines off and save some fuel. Woohoo! Kevin threw out a fishing line and a few hours later he started reeling in what we thought was a huge fish. After a great deal of effort to pull it in, it turned out to be a big piece of fishing net. Oh well. But at least so far the passage was going well -- we were sailing, the seas were behind us and not too big, and we were making good time doing 8+ knots. Of course it couldn't last: shortly after it got dark we heard a horrible banging coming from the boom. Sure enough, a block that guides the mainsheet had broken and now the mainsheet line was chafing on an opening in the boom. Crap. If we left the line alone, it would chafe through and cause the boom to swing forward uncontrolled. Kevin tried his best to fix the line, but it was dark and rolly and with the sail under load it really wasn't possible to do much. So, we did the only thing we could do: we lowered the sail and turned on an engine. Kevin was extremely disappointed to have to motor when conditions were perfect for sailing. But there really wasn't any way to repair the problem. So once again, we motored our way around the Caribbean.

We arrived in Christiansted around 3pm on Saturday. Technically we are back in the good old US of A! All we had to do to clear in was make a phone call. So simple. We were both exhausted but managed to make our way ashore to the Golden Rail Bar where we had two Bud Lights and some awesome cheeseburgers. Then we headed back to the boat to get some much-needed sleep.

Where we are:
Location=Christiansted, St. Croix USVI
Lat=17 45.051
Lon=64 41.858