We Sail Again!

Peter on the foredeck

Peter and I took the plunge and purchased another sailing yacht in March.  She is a boat designed by Steve Dashew, as was our beloved Epicurus.  Her name is Mantra of Glasgow, which explains this blog's name--in case you were thinking we were referring to a new interest in meditation.  Actually, sailing can be meditative under the right conditions.

These were not the conditions we experienced in late March, when we sailed her from Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia, to the U.S. Virgin Islands and then on to the Spanish Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  I had never been seasick before, so I was surprised when I began to feel nauseous after the first couple of hours at sea.  The waves were not high, but they were coming from two different directions.  I probably would have been fine if I had not gone below and spent too much time down there.  I should have come back on deck the moment I started to feel queasy, but there were things to do.  Unfortunately, once seasickness sets in, it takes quite a while--hours or days!--to feel better.  After my first rush to the leeward side, I slapped on a scopolamine patch, but it took almost a day before the drug completed eliminated the nausea.  The boat didn't need much tending, but I was unable to stay alert (or even awake) much for watches, so poor Peter slept very little on the 48-hour passage.

After that, the trip went smoothly.  After a brief stop at St. Croix, we continued on to Culebra, where the anchorage was calm, the snorkeling was good and the sunset was gorgeous.

Sunset at Culebra

We ended up in Puerto del Rey Marina in Fajardo, where we left Mantra after a few days.  We had to be back in California the first week of April because my dad, my sister Beth Ann and my niece Rachael were coming to visit.

My dad stayed with us for four weeks.  I flew back with him to the east coast and then spent a couple of days with a good friend in Washington, D.C. before jetting home again on Thursday of last week.  Meanwhile, the kids have arrived home for the summer from college.

Now it is late Tuesday evening, and Peter and I fly to San Juan in the morning.  Over the next couple of weeks, we will sail in the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas and, hopefully, get past the northern border of Florida by June 2, before the official start of hurricane begins, in order to avoid higher premiums on our boat insurance.  Our goal is to get her to the Chesapeake Bay before mid-June so that we can be home right before renovations on the swimming pool begin.  That will also give Peter a month and a half to finish his kayak training for the Great Eppie's Triathalon on July 21 and allow us to spend some time with Matthew before he flies to the UK in early July to visit relatives and then do a four-week course at the University of Glasgow.

We still have to pack our stuff in addition to books I have collected from neighbors to take back to Puerto Rico.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, because lack of electricity meant lack of air conditioning, many books in public and school libraries mildewed and had to be discarded.  I am hoping to contribute in a small way to rebuilding their collections.