Ward’s Journal – First Leg

1/6/03

I’m certain that all great journeys start with momentous events. This one may be the exception.

The first couple of days had more to do with misplaced equipment and luggage problems than anything else. At the airport, there was a "baggage embargo" in effect since January 2nd, where the usual 85 pounds allowed was cut to 70. The Avon dinghy, naturally, was weighing in at 85, after I took all the oars and stuff out, and there seemed to be no way to break it down further - just the rubber and bottom/engine mount left. Nevertheless, they let me pay the $80 excess baggage charge but I could only send it as far as San Juan. In San Juan, in baggage claim, I walked up to a bunch of porters and asked them for help in my predicament, falling upon a wonderful nice guy named Michael who just happened to be married to an American check-in officer. I told him it was worth a $100 bucks to me to get this boat on the plane to Tortola. He and I tore the bottom off the Avon, repacked a bunch of my stuff, and still found that we were weighing in at 78 pounds for one bag, 70 for the other, but that if we held the bag with one hand while on the scale we could make it look like 69 pounds. Then he begged a very nice check-in lady who must have known his wife, and she said she would help us out, as we're standing there holding the bag on the scale with one hand while I distracted her asking if she would marry me for being so nice. Meanwhile, I'd missed the next two flights, but she tracked down the head supervisor and got me on the next one, told me she was already married, and I slipped the $100 to Michael behind my back.

Needless to say, it was an emotional moment.

So then I finally came into Tortola on the last flight, no problems with customs who were only interested in the Avon and paid no attention to my other bag at all (with all the prescription meds and weirder stuff) and had a fun taxi ride to Conch Charters where I bought the driver and I a healthy roadside meal of chicken, corn, and french fries (chips here in the UK) - no noticeable GI problems yet. Dragging my bags/boat down the concrete dock to the Liana-Jane was another emotional moment, finally crashing in my bunk and sleeping like a baby until 8AM or so, when John the Insurance Inspector Guy arrived on the dock and we exchanged "ahoys" as I scrambled into some pants. I'm still

pretty sweaty, gross, and unshowered, but extremely happy.

In any case, it’s the first full day and I’m resting comfortably in the cockpit – “resting comfortably” like a new mother in the hospital perhaps, feeling like my orderly little world back in the U.S. is suddenly shaken up and a bit more exciting, as well as pretty far away. Bobbing here peaceably, moored at the dock in 75 degree weather with a steady wind from the southeast, things do appear to be pretty calm. The electrician – Jesus, pronounced “Hey, Zeus” rather than what you say when you hear bad news – just appeared to work on the radar and autopilot systems. It does seem odd that we’ve been planning this work for upwards of four months, yet he’s here, finally, just a few days before we’re slated to leave. Somewhat unfortunate.

In any case, I’m propped up with the laptop on my lap, naturally, a bowl of popcorn on the floor, a glass of my special mixture Boatjuice (mango, pineapple, ginger ale) within reach, and the last of a movie ready to go. The day consisted of looking around for boat supplies and groceries, taking a nap, charging my laptop in the pub next door, and checking e-mail. Frankly, there’s nothing interesting to report so I’m hanging it up early. Tomorrow my parents come, then my uncle a couple of days later, and this thing gets going . . hopefully.

1/7/03

Finally a day to write about. Resting comfortably in the cockpit again as dusk settles over the harbor. A gigantic cruise ship is filling a big wet chunk of the eastern part by the tall scrubby hills, white lights set against it’s white frame like a snow-covered Christmas tree in some wealthy northeastern suburb. At this moment, two guys are trying to dock a 32 footer right next to me. I offered to help them with the bow lines but Brian, one of the charter company owners, popped in at the last minute and seems to be taking things over. Meanwhile, their boat has made three decent attempts, including one where the crew tried to throw Brian a line not yet attached to the boat. They’re European, from the accent, and just threw their next line in the water. This is really quite interesting to watch, and apparently the evening’s entertainment as my parents haven’t shown up yet.

They were supposed to have come in at some point this afternoon or early evening. In their honor, the Liana-Jane is strewn with random electronic equipment, a mesh diving gear bag, shelving, one of the stereo speakers that I dismantled in an aborted attempt to fix it, boxes of random gear, and some canvas material that I’m not sure where to stow.

So I meet up with this guy Mark, a non-admitting real estate developer who just turned 50 but acts 25, manic with an apparent long-term zest for life and seizing the moment, and he seems to have taken me under his wing to learn the finer things about the world and what is. He grew up in Ohio, went to Kent State somewhere in there, then got enamored with a girl who worked for an optician. The optician, apparently, would lend young Mark his Lincoln Continental and have him drop off stuff to his five stores. Mark – never afraid to make a buck – decides to go to optician school so he can have stores of his own, which he ultimately does but I’m not sure yet how that figured into his life plans. Instead, he bought a bunch of land somewhere on contrived credit, fooled the bankers, and built up duplexes that he sold for some kind of handsome profit, which he later spun into various real estate spins, wheeling and dealing his way through two marriages and two kids. The youngest, a 10-year-old girl who’s joining him in the Dominican Republic on his way back home to Miami, is chauffeured around, apparently, by some famous singer Mark knows from Miami who I remember as Barry Manilow but might be a Gibb brother. Whatever the case, Mark is a ridiculous name dropper who loves to be adored, appears to be spreading his seed to any woman who’ll bed him – and apparently quite a few do, especially with his beautiful 42-foot, mid-cockpit cruiser, with a big queen size bed in the aft cabin that I almost wanted to lay in. Having the cockpit in the middle of the boat seems ingenious, like a big comfortable living room you can also sail from, with close access to the mast and rigging and, apparently, few problems with waves breaking over the bow. Mark says he bought the sloop for 42 thousand, which must be some kind of amazing steal. I think he’s a really interesting guy.

The dock next door had a just-returned charter with two guys and two girls, a story you think would be simple. The first guy popped his head up and invited himself for a tour of Mark’s boat. His name might have been Josh, the other fellow was probably Sean. Josh, then, made himself comfortable with a beer from Mark’s cooler and the two of them had one of those conversations where both people say things but no one actually listens. Apparently, one of the girls “belongs to” Josh, in some loose sense, but the other one, a friend of Josh’s girl, won’t “spread ‘em” for Sean, which has been a source of significant consternation during their week in the isles. Josh and Sean live in New York City, work with computer companies, and went to the merchant marine academy together way back when. Josh – the younger version of my fascinating buddy Mark, I think – made it 8 weeks on a cruise ship as a second officer before he got kicked off for having too much sex with the crew. Sean, the quieter one, just wrapped up a divorce. People around here are really fascinating.

It does seem to me that guys who finish divorces go sailing. There could be a market in that somewhere, but it’s late now – after 11 PM – and I’m no longer capable of real rational thought. My parents should be showing up tomorrow morning along with the electrician, who did some more work tonight on the instrumentation and radar equipment. There’s no way he’ll get everything done before the 9^th, our planned departure date. Too bad.

1/8/03

Some progress here – tonight I’m lounging cross-legged in a Mayan hammock, stretched from the bow roller furler (a long pole that wraps up the front sail way at the tip of the boat) to the mast. It’s rocking sideways with the wave action from the last boat maneuverings of the day and feels much like a little world floating above the forward cabin.

It was hot today, in the 90’s and very sunny throughout, hardly a cloud. My resourceful parents arrived in the late morning on the first ferry of the day from St. Thomas. I was charging my laptop in the restaurant next door reading a vampire paperback that was way too verbose anyway. Mom sidled up and sat down next to me. Anyone who knows my parents appreciates their not-so-subtleties. Next to trapeze artists, none of whom I’m acquainted with, they are the most energetic managers of chaos that I’ve ever met. They came with about five big rolling duffel bags full of stuff – much of it sorely needed for the trip and a few things I’m still trying to figure out. The best gift was a dozen white fitted caps emblazoned with “Liana-Jane, Tortola, BVIs” (stands for the British Virgin Islands, where we are now) and they look right sharp. They’re for the various passengers and crew to come aboard over the next several months. Naturally, I grabbed one, bent it up a bit and smeared my hands all over it to give it some wear. For most of the day I cooled off by dipping my new “lid” into the ocean and plopping it dripping on my noggin. Not only does it work, it makes the cap look like it’s floated the seven seas in style.

Although we’re still moored at the dock, there’s been some headway – courtesy of my “get things going” father. The electrician has been plugging away at the autopilot unit, a complex mechanism installed in various places toward the stern of the boat. It pushes and pulls directly on the rudder using information from a computer – installed elsewhere, apparently near the aft bathroom – that reads data from a GPS unit mounted in the cockpit. Although I’m overwhelmed with the technology, I’m sticking to my adage about expecting everything complicated to break down, visualizing the fine art of steering into an anchorage with no engine, no depth sounder, no electronics, no GPS, and no workable crew. People are complicated, of course; they break down mostly due to seasickness, colds, and being mad at me. Hopefully I’ll get lucky.

I also go the tender all set up. That’s the nautical term – I’m told by those in the know – for the little dinghy we’ll be towing around the Caribbean, the one I hauled in through the airport. The line that connects it to the boat is called a “painter;” I have no idea why, but I’m taking all my vocabulary very seriously so that, at least on some basic level, other sailors take me a little bit seriously. I took Mom across the bay in the tender, which chugs along pretty well, and we shopped around some until Dad came tearing by in a taxi. He was returning from a trip to the metal fabricator’s and saw us walking along aimlessly. In the heat of the day, then, we found pillows, sheets, coffee mugs for my parents, four good towels, and a few odds and ends. Afterwards I treated everyone to the most delicious rose-pink papaya, strawberry, banana, and honey smoothies. The guy at the stand was both solicitous and genuine. I’ve been so impressed with the Tortolians (for lack of a better-sounding word), who are sincere and kind. One night I left my amazing new leatherman tool out on the dock and someone set it up on a post so that I could find it. In Road Town, all the children wore very proper navy and white uniforms; very southern hemisphere and British. What a delightful country.

Mom and Dad are pooped. They want to sneak off to dinner nearby, some kind of all-you-can-eat up the hill at the Fort Burt Hotel. I’m not really hungry, but it’s good to take care of the crew, plus they’re probably the most generous people I know and I’m not very good at saying no to things they give me, which is about everything in the world it seems.

On the mustache front, I continue to look like a complete idiot, but I’m not giving up. It’s a conversation starter. Last night that guy Mark treated me to pizza at Pussers, a local rum joint, and he’d hit on girls that walked past us to the bathroom by saying “how do you like that guy’s mustache? He’s trying to grow it in.” One lady was a captain who just delivered a boat from the Canary Islands. That’s almost all the way across the Atlantic, for the uninitiated, and I was pretty darn impressed. She didn’t say anything outright negative about the dead caterpillar under my nose so I pointed out that I look pretty ridiculous, which made her laugh, and must have provided Mark with his way in. He told me later that she was asking to come to his boat. I can’t figure that guy out.

1/11/03

The last few days have been extremely busy. The Liana-Jane had two major projects due at the same time in order to qualify it for insurance on the trip to Florida and prepare all the new electronics. The first project involved a bunch of little projects all the way around: tightening the stanchions (rails) and the wire that ties them all together, fixing the bow light (did I previously mention that one?), finding all the equipment that belongs on the boat, replacing the broken hatch cover over my bunk, stowing a special sail designed for this boat mostly for going downwind (called a Gennaker, I believe) as well as the two new dive tanks, scuba equipment, stuff for the tender (the dinghy), and more. We’ve all been zipping around trying to do several things at once on these little projects. But the second big job has been installing all the new electronics. This included the radar and GPS mount, which is on a 9 foot mast of sorts bolted to the starboard (right) stern (back) of the boat, with two long supporting posts that connect right to the deck. The pole had to be built by hand; a guy named Tony would come by, take measurements, check fittings, leave, return later, and so on. Dad was working with him to get all that in place. Today I was the bolting guy, completely buried in the starboard rudder locker – where I’ve always kept garbage bags in the past – reaching past wires and around dark corners to bolt in the base of the radar mount. Dirty and exhausting, but interesting work if you can get it.

We did a good, preliminary provisioning today, actually, Mom did, in two big trips. I’’m so impressed with my parents. It’s like they can do anything. She brought back about a dozen water jugs on the first one. I bought a cute little folding dock cart to stash in the cockpit locker (a very deep storage bin on the starboard side – you cold practically have lunch in there and room to stretch out) which everyone has been using to tote stuff around. Another project included buying the most gigantic battery I’ve ever seen for our brand new house battery. It’s about two and one-half feet long, as wide as a regular car battery, and must weigh a good 60 pounds. Then, separately connected to the alternator for charging when the motor is running, are two engine start batteries under my cabin bunk. Another of my projects is to connect those up with a switch under the mattress so that we can alternate their charging while the engine is running.

We now have the following electronics, apparently in working order: radar, GPS, depth gauge, anemometer (measures wind speed and direction), and speed gauge. Apparently, all of these instruments work together using a language called Sea Talk, which is part of tomorrow’s goals, to learn how to make everything work.

In any case, we finally got out of Roadtown, off the dock, making for a group of three small islands northeast of Tortola and right across from Virgin Gorda called The Dogs. We motored the whole way and, oddly enough, I fell asleep for an hour. I’m still recovering from a sore throat and a cold – can’t seem to kick it – so that felt good. Now, my uncle Darrell is asleep in the main cabin bunk, and so is my dad, while my mom apparently plays solitaire on her laptop in the cockpit. My eyes are getting blurry as I write. Mom made a great dinner of cooked shrimp, middle eastern rice, and a homemade salad. I had macadamia nuts for dessert.

It’s good to get away from the town. Tomorrow we check out of Virgin Gorda (by getting something called a zarpa, or official government port clearance to leave) and make the run to Anguilla overnight. Mom, who originally planned to take a plane and ferry instead, is thinking of joining Darrell, Dad, and me. We’ll see how that one works out. Hold onto your hats!

1/13/03

The last few days have been pretty interesting. I realize now, bobbing gently back in the Roadtown Harbor, that it’s really just been one day. Everyone is exhausted. We had quite an adventure.

The first sea trial and attempt at the Anegada passage to Anguilla was a terrific success, depending on how you define success. Let’s see: the boat did not sink, no one was seriously injured, I learned a lot and am actually more confident of bluewater sailing now than I was before the attempt, and we’re safe. Those are all good things. On the other hand, my planned crew member and faithful sailing partner all the way down island to Venezuela has opted out of the trip, and my dear parents have been harboring serious doubts about the boat’s ability to make it all the way around the Caribbean Sea. That’s not so good. Let me relate the story, blow by blow.

We checked out of Virgin Gorda – it cost a staggering $5.14 to do so – pretty much on time at 1:30. I say pretty much because the customs and immigration guys asked me to turn their Open sign to Closed before I left. It was Sunday, after all. I was still warm with my electronic success from the morning, when I “fixed” the VHF (which wasn’t powering on at all) by tracing the problem to a corroded circuit breaker with my exciting new multimeter. A multimeter, by the way, is a voltmeter that measures more than just the amount of electricity flowing through a wire, but a whole bunch of stuff that I’ll probably never understand for the life of me. Nonetheless, you can use it to narrow down where on an electrical line a short has occurred. Incredibly exciting for someone with a college degree in Creative Writing. Anyway, we crossed the southern tip of Virgin Gorda and headed as much into the easterly wind as possible, but couldn’t make much headway. The seas throughout the entire trip seemed quite heavy. The waves, or swells as the sailors are supposed to say, ranged from and headed as much into the easterly wind as possible, but couldn’t break through it very well. The seas throughout the entire trip seemed quite heavy. The waves, or swells as sailors are supposed to say, ranged from 4 to 7 feet high and tossed the Liana-Jane around like a flag in a good stiff breeze. There was the sense, at times, that you couldn’t do anything but lie there in the cockpit and absorb the constant rising, falling, tipping that is, unfortunately, the ocean. After about an hour, we tacked (made a turn into the wind, as opposed to jibe, which is when you turn downwind – it can thrash your boom though, which is bad, bad, bad) and headed northeast, staying about 2 miles off Virgin Gorda, then tacked once more on a heading to the south of Anguilla – 70-some miles away. Our delightfully-named autopilot, Otto, was faithful and steady but backwards in his reading, always 180 degrees off the compass heading. We still haven’t figured this one out. Mom was sick down below and apparently barfed a couple of times. Still, she’s been in such excellent spirits. My parents are so incredible. Personally, I felt queasy at about 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 – 10, which wasn’t too bad. The winds ran from 15 to 20 knots, on average. I remember dozing in the cockpit a few times and really struggling to get my push-ups in as the deck was tipped about 30 degrees. We ran the engine a couple of times to charge the batteries, which seemed a bit low probably because of Otto, that big fat energy thief.

There were some really nice moments. Right at dusk a pod of 15 or so dolphins appeared, cruising around the sailboat like so many zippers, blue and dark, smaller than I thought they would be, and fatter too. Sunset itself was a magnificent feast of oranges, tomato sauce, and chestnuts, staining the darkening ocean like – day I say it – a really good screensaver.

About 10 miles off Virgin Gorda, after 20 or so miles of actual distance and at midnight, the engine would not start. The starter motor just went click, click, and a little light blared at us about low pressure, like there’s anything we could do about low pressure in heaving swells almost totally out of sight of land. I took all the panels off and tried to track the faint whirring sound, messed with the voltage meter on the power panel, and basically did everything except the one thing I should have done. Within a few minutes, a sense of doom had descended on the whole sailing team – the autopilot wasn’t functioning without it’s power source, the engine wouldn’t start, we were having trouble getting GPS coordinates from the portable Magellan unit, nobody could work the high-tech radar/GPS, and there was some uncertainty about the VHF. It was dark, we were bopping around like yo-yos in a clown school, and it seemed that everything originally stowed away in the cabins was sliding aimlessly around the floor – with a couple of gallons of bilge water we forgot to drain back when our world was a steady, organizeable thing that could be controlled, calmed, and tucked away neatly.

I don’t really blame them for deciding to turn back, I just didn’t agree with the decision. After all, Tortola, back from whence we came, was familiar territory, they knew our boat, and was the closest land.

Thus, we spun about and began the much-more-abbreviated trip back toward Virgin Gorda and, ultimately, Roadtown.

Although we never lost sight of the hilltop lights back there, it was a good long way, sleeping a bit, taking turns at the wheel (which could only be locked into place now, a form of autopilot that takes more concentration on the part of the person steering). We came within a couple of miles of Virgin Gorda around 3 AM, then were faced with the decision of passing through a channel – there are several, about half a mile across between the scrubby little half-desert islands – or, as I suggested, standing off and waiting for dawn. We took turns changing sails as necessary and, with my uncle and dad doing almost all the exhausting piloting during this sometimes-rainy stretch, stuck it out until dawn. I am eternally grateful for them throughout that whole experience. The whole crew was really wonderful. My mother was on the helm for about half an hour but lost her moon visibility. Already deeply terrified of hitting reefs or rocks offshore, she called for help and was relieved by my competent and confident uncle Darrell – who was actually quite worried. I slept through most of this part on the assumption that a rested head would be particularly useful later in the morning. In retrospect, we could have simply heaved-to – which is a sail technique not unlike pulling your car over to the side of the road and waiting out a rainstorm – but we didn’t know how. Meanwhile, just to make things more odd, there was a weird smell of gasoline in the air.

When dawn broke, our beaten and disheveled cruiser began making for the Ginger Island passage, drawing up on Round Rock to our starboard side. The winds would gust then die out, ultimately fading to little puffs just as we approached the passage, eyes drooping and tempers flaring here and there. It took hours to get closer. Dad and I realized together that, with no wind, no engine, and no way to call for help, we could easily dash into the rocks, so the next project was to ready the tender to try to tug the Liana-Jane to safety in just such an event. The hardest part would be unhooking the engine from it’s mounting on the taffrail, the aluminum gate that forms part of the structure around the edge of the boat, and get it reattached to the dinghy engine mount. Naturally, performance of this ridiculous act fell squarely on my shoulders, as the high school pole vaulter who so energetically vaulted himself backwards once and landed on his head from 15 feet in the air.

When I plopped myself into the rubber zodiac-like tender that bounced around like French trapeze artists trying to outdo each other, it was completely slathered in a gray film. Now, I’m not one to exaggerate (although perhaps I’m overly-metaphorical), but it brought me completely back to my Jell-O wrestling days in college. One of the tanks had sprung a leak, spewed gasoline and oil all over the tender, and the seawater that got in spread the stinky gunk all along the floor, up the sides, in all the strapping we had in place, everywhere. It was the gray blobby version of what kills sea birds after tanker accidents, and felt like being in a bathtub smeared with massage oil.

I had been wearing my inflatable life vest since the previous day. With that double-checked, my uncle lowered the engine down to me. The tender bumped and bucked into the Liana-Jane, but I dropped that 8 horsepower down onto the tender’s floor and let out all the slack on the painter. There was plenty of distance from the boat. Darrell and Lowell had given me some scrubbers and a washcloth to wipe off the important grip zones for the upcoming move. Meanwhile, the passage was only a few hundred feet off. I scrubbed and gripped, then took a deep breath and heaved the engine up to mount it on the back. At that moment, the tender was lurched forward. I slipped over sideways in the oil and watched as the motor plunged tail first into the sea. At that precise moment, for reasons forever unbeknownst to me, my lifejacket instantly inflated, squeezing me into a (comfortable but poorly-timed) upper-body death grip – but I still had the engine! Some former Jell-O wrestler had remembered to tie the engine to the rail line! I swung half over the stern of the tender and manhandled the thing, literally throwing my body around to keep it from sinking further into the drink. I wedged it into place, wiggled some more in the muck, and wedged it further up until, several wedges later, I had it bolted down and safe. Whew – what a stroke of luck not to have, like, died or something.

For me, this was the total low point of the attempt to reach Anguilla.

We survived it, though. Dad steered us into the harbor, correcting himself with some embarrassment when Mom realized it was the wrong harbor. Of course, no one else noticed it either, especially me. When we finally emerged into Roadtown Harbor, around noon, Darrell and I manned the bow to grabble a mooring ball or drop anchor. We decided to drop anchor since it’s pretty hard to snag a mooring ball right near shore and other boats when you’re running on nothing but one partially-reefed sail. It was like my worst fears realized – coming into a harbor with no power, no electronics, and a tired-out crew. Guess what – we later learned that this run to Anguilla (or St. Martin, as they’re right next to each other) is the hardest run in the entire Caribbean, according to several captains interviewed later. Isn't that a kick?

So why didn’t the engine start? The electrician had wired Otto to the engine battery, not the cabin battery – on which everything but the engine is supposed to depend, and which is a monstrosity that should never, ever lose it’s charge. All we had to do was switch to the spare battery. If we’d thought of that – bearing in mind that hindsight is 20-20 and all that – we’d be in Anguilla right now, bobbing on the anchor in a beautiful empty harbor, away from everyone, not still finding oil blobs between the toes, and telling a very different story.

1/14/02

Today that whole experience seems pretty far off. The family has gathered to come up with a plan, and it looks like we have one. My parents are going to head over to St. Croix for my father’s law convention and meet me in 10 or so days somewhere down island. Darrell is going to head back to France to take care of his wife as she struggles with the great loss of losing a family member. And I’m going to continue on, maintaining the schedule to meet Robert in St. Lucia on February 5^th, as planned. That means sailing alone, which is OK for day sails but not something I’m comfortable with on overnights. Once again, my amazingly resourceful mother comes into play: she asked around and tracked down a captain who’s made the run about a 100 times (and hates it, apparently, as it really is the worst run in the whole Sea). When I met him last night, he talked about how it’s all against the wind, the seas are ridiculously high because of an unusual combination of strong westerly currents and shallow water.

It’s sort of encouraging to hear someone else say that our personal battle against the sea was a common one.

We spent the day working more on the boat: set up a temporary bow light, affixed the cushions below deck, installed a 12 volt plug in the cockpit for the backup GPS, rewired the battery electrical system, checked the VHF, stuff like that. My uncle and my dad worked feverishly on all these projects – I don’t think they even stopped to eat or drink anything. Such amazing people, my family. They’ve done so much for me all my life, and here they are totally ready to help, able to manage six zillion things at a time, so competent and resourceful. It’s funny how my father and uncle (retired lawyer and doctor, respectfully) have found totally different careers to throw their energies into. My dad moves rocks around with his backhoe and raises turkeys (plus a whole lot more, but you get the picture) and my uncle is building up a real estate business in Paris where he and his wife help outsiders find and buy apartments. Isn’t that amazing? My wonderful mother – who managed a complex law firm and building in Mercer Island, Washington – is now working as a volunteer guardian ad litum advocating for children. They all seem to have found their callings, doing things that are productive, different, and good.

It’s been wonderful seeing them.

Now, it’s time to upload this journal thus far and get some sleep. Tomorrow, the gang here waves me off and I steer the Liana-Jane to an anchorage across the bay where I pick up the captain from his ship. Then, if all goes well, I check us both out of the Virgin Islands (for the second and last time, I hope) and we make for Marigot, the French city on northern St. Martin, where I hope to be continuing the story.