LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 31:
Wednesday, March 08, 2000
0115 At approximately 5 NM from the row of islands between here and Tortola I heave to. I do this with reduced sail on the boat to make her lie relatively motionless without being buffeted in the 18 kts of wind. I roll the jib part way up on the headstay while the boat is still on the starboard tack and then double reef the mainsail. With the both sails sheeted in on the starboard tack I come about to put the wind on the port side leaving the jib still sheeted to port. With forward motion dead slow, I lock the rudder hard over to port. Now as the boat starts to move forward, the rudder steers her into the wind, spilling air out of the mainsail. But the jib, which is sheeted to port, stays filled and prevents the bow from coming into or through the wind. The boat remains in a state of balance riding gently atop the waves, heeling slightly to starboard with the relative wind about 60 degrees off the port bow. She drifts slowly downwind moving sideways with the keel acting like a sea anchor to retard the motion. I have positioned myself so that the boat will move slowly away from the islands until I am ready to get underway once again. I secure the tricolor light at the masthead and turn on the anchor light. I leave the spreader lights on to help illuminate
the boat. I shall now catch a few winks. I have set a radar guard zone doughnut around the boat with inner and outer radii 0.5 and 2 NM. If anything enters the zone, the radar alarm will awake me.  I will lie in this condition until about an hour before sunrise and then get underway to negotiate the passage between the islands in daylight conditions.
0157 My position: 18-20.90N 064-21.52W
0529 My Position: 18-18.82N 064-20.39W. Lord's Prayer is underway on the starboard tack bound for the passage between Ginger and Cooper Islands thence to Road Harbor. I pull the jib full out. I make an interesting discovery. At some point since leaving Sint Maarten my Northstar 951 GPS navigator switched steering from waypoint 2 to waypoint 3 without me being aware that this had happened. The leg between points 2 & 3 takes me through the island passage. It is less than 2 NM in length so the change in steering information was subtle enough that I did not recognize what had happened until this morning. It is normal for the navigation system to switch waypoints as the boat reaches the one it is steering to. This is the first time I can remember it switching before reaching a waypoint. Had I continued to attempt the unfamiliar passage through the islands in the darkness and not recognized what had happened, the results could have been quite unpleasant. In reflecting on the events of last night, it occurs to me that there was a point in the wee hours just before I heaved to that I found the radar information and the GPS steering
navigation information not matching the way I thought they should. That was a clue that I could have investigated. I didn't. I was too tired. I decided to sort it out in the daylight. There is elevated risk in attempting to enter a strange harbor at night. It is better to wait for daylight.
0630 Sunrise
0730 I clear through the passage between the islands and shake the reef out of the mainsail.
0830 I hoist the British "Red Duster" on the starboard spreader with the yellow "Q" (for quarantine) below it. Easing in under the lee of Hogs Valley Point at the entrance to Road Harbor I put the boat into the wind and get the sails off.
0900 Lord's Prayer is anchored off the customs pier at Road Harbor in 30 feet of water on 100' of chain. Position: 18-25N 064-37W. Holding seems quite good in sand. I hoist the dinghy over the side and make preparations for going ashore to do the customs thing.
1100 Ashore I find a ladder on the pier, which makes it easy to climb out of the dinghy. I clear customs and immigration. The fee is $20.00 US. Afterward I take a short walk around the waterfront to familiarize myself with it before returning aboard and hauling down the yellow quarantine flag.
1300 I take my laundry ashore and find a Laundromat. I read some from Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" while I wait for the machines to do their thing. "Silent Spring" and Farley Mowat's "Sea of Slaughter" are both watershed works - exhaustively researched and documented - that everyone ought to read, if he or she cares even a little about life on Planet Earth.
1430 Enroute back to the boat I find a barbershop and get a desperately needed haircut.
1530 After stowing my clean gear onboard, I go over the side for a quick swim and a salt-water shampoo. Onboard I rinse in fresh.
1600 I make a run to a grocery store to pick up some fresh bread, milk, fruits and vegetables. Tomorrow after completing the reprovisioning, I shall move the boat 8.5 NM east to a bay near the airport on Beef Island. Christine Majors will be arriving on a flight tomorrow evening and joining me on the boat until the 19th.  We will remain in the Virgins during that time and take things at a pretty relaxed pace.
1824 Sunset
END OF LORD'S PRAYER LOG, Part 31


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