Time marches on

As much as we have had fun in the Virgin Islands, time marches on and with it, so must we. At 3:00 PM today we plan to raise anchor and head south towards Saba and St. Kitts. Fuel has been purchased, boat bottom has been scrubbed and later this morning we’ll be visiting the customs and immigration office to clear out. After that, we’ll be good to go.

Saba, an island that we have mentioned numerous times but have yet to visit, lies approximately 84 nm ESE of here. St. Kitts is situated an additional 40 miles away in the same direction. Our plan is to sail overnight to arrive at Saba in the early morning. We’ll check out the sea state surrounding the island and if it appears suitable, we’ll stay. We’d really love to explore this gem of an island. There’s a very good chance that the conditions will not be good though and if that’s the case, we’ll sadly have to wave goodbye to it and continue on our way towards St. Kitts. It’s good to have a Plan B!

We’ll be way past the dangerous reefs before we lose all of our good light.

What should the passage be like? Well, we never know for sure but the weather forecast is for extremely light winds, a bit north of east with a long period NNW swell. As the full moon occurred last night, we should also have plenty of light for us to see our way. With those things working together, our hope is that we’ll have a nice, calm, drama-free (motor) sail all the way to our destination. The only kink in our plan is that we’ll be arriving to our destination on Good Friday. What are the chances of the customs and immigration offices being open on a holiday? Not so good. Our only hope is that, seeing as there will be a cruise ship in port at St. Kitts on Friday, perhaps their C&I office will be open. We’ll only know for sure when we get there.

Light ENE wind and long period NNW swell.

We’ll do our best to turn on and keep our Spot tracker running during the passage. If you’re really bored tonight you can stay up with us and watch a new marker being deposited on the map every 10 minutes or so. Fun, eh?

Also, as there’s a very good chance we’ll be underway tomorrow morning, a blog offering then is not too likely. So, in the absence of that, why not check out our new friends’ blog Mowzer. Catherine and Henry, a couple of fellow Canadians, anchored beside us yesterday and then came over to introduce themselves. They are currently working towards their goal of becoming full-time live-aboard cruisers but are going about it a bit differently than we did. Check out their story, perhaps it may give some of you an idea or two.