Two months ago I was sat on Dorade in Sausalito California; today I am sat on her in English Harbor Antigua. It certainly feels like the old girl and I have been on the move together a lot recently and I know that we are both grateful to be stationary for a while and able to call somewhere home for more than a couple of weeks.
The delivery from Newport was another blast and I can’t thank the crew enough for getting us all down to the West Indies safely and being a good laugh along the way. Fishing was a bit disappointing but when we did catch a huge Wahoo on the last day it was too rough to cook it so most of it went to waste which was a shame.
My main objective is always to get all the crew in one piece to the end of the delivery, secondly my objective is to break as little as possible as it’s me that has to fix it and it’s always nicer at the end to say we didn’t break anything. Well the only thing that got broken was my lee cloth fitting and the lamp shade next to it. I must have been dreaming that something was going wrong on deck and somebody was calling my name. All I remember was charging out of my bed straight through the lee cloth sending shards of glass flying along the way as I dived into the cockpit only to find Bush was happily steering the boat along in the moonlight with everything under control. He looked at me funny and I realized what had happened. I decided to stop drinking so much coffee before I go to bed.
So now we are here the plan is to give Dorade the love she has been crying out for so long and the busy schedule just hasn’t allowed. With no sailing planned for a month when we head up to the BVI for Christmas we are getting some good build up to all the varnish and stripping back several areas that had got beyond touching up. Along with varnishing I have plenty of servicing and maintenance to get done so she is in top condition as the racing season starts in the Caribbean next February. At the moment it’s a little hot for me down here so I hope I acclimatize quickly as work down below is unbearable, and they call this winter.
Ben