Wednesday, February 3, 2021

A Motor Sail from Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas to Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten, 1/29/21

We took advantage of light wind out of the northeast to make the jump to St. Maarten.  It ended up being a motor sail the whole way with an average boat speed of 5.9 knots - a little slow for Joli.  We left in the dark at 6 am and arrived in the dark at 11:30 pm and the full moon setting then rising that evening was gorgeous.  We were excited to see a pod of dolphins nearby as we went along the south side of St. John but only one came to play in Joli's bow waves for a couple minutes.  A few hours into the trip, the engine overheated and spewed about a gallon of coolant into the bilge.  It turned out that a belt had broken; a pretty easy fix for Bryan.  He determined that the cause of failure was that he neglected to have his departure beer.  Oh no, won't make that mistake again, even if it is 5 in the morning!!  






Moon setting behind us

Happy captain before the engine belt failure - I guess that coffee in his hand should have been a departure beer!

Sun rising in front of us

French Cap Cay


St. John and BVI in the background


Sunset as we neared St. Maarten



It was a bit chilly in the morning and again in the evening, requiring a long-sleeved shirt.  I even put on long pants in the evening (even though they were only pajama pants 😂)!


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