March 12 – Village Cay Marina, Wickham’s Cay,Tortola
One of the first things we did when we arrived at Village Cay Marina was to pick up some groceries at Bobby’s supermarket, just across the parking lot from the marina. We walked into the store, a bit bummed out over the grumpmeister in the slip next to us. He had a fit over our almost touching his dingy. Anyway, we bumped into Riley and Elayna from Sailing La vagabonde, whom Moss follows on YouTube, at the checkout counter. This amazing, crazy, fearless young Ozzy couple have just completed their first trans-Atlantic crossing. They came over the next evening for a beer and brought some fresh caught Mahi Mahi, which two nights later, proved to be our most delicious meal aboard Cedar to date. Thank you, guys!
March 14, Village Cay Marina, Wickham’s Cay, Tortola
Village Cay Marina is the sassy downtown cousin of the quiet, suburban Nanny Cay Marina. Village Cay is a bit rougher, but it is still clean and has most of what you might need (electricity, water, showers, laundry, restaurant, bar, pool and tradesmen aplenty. Village Cay is also better located if you’re doing repairs; you’re a 10- minute bike ride from Golden Hind chandlery, a rigging shop, sail makers and a hardware store.
We had to extend our stay here because we’re still not “seaworthy”. Every day we get up early and work all day on this boat, make meals, do home schooling and Moss’ devotes time to his paid job as well. With all this effort, it’s hard for me to understand why this boat is still not ready yet, except that it was a bare boat charter with nothing installed or in good working condition.
Even things like the heads and the fridge unit, which were supposed to have been repaired by The Moorings and functional, are not. Then there is the seaworthy boat stuff like sails, anchors, rigging, and lines. We’ve made good progress on this front: rigging is tuned, new sails are up, our new 125lb Mantas storm anchor is installed (yet to be tested) and so huge that even passersby seem to enjoy its advanced stature. Moss wants to write “Peace of Mind” on it in permanent marker.
We are realizing that sailing is hard work. Allow me to rephrase: boat ownership and living aboard is hard work, (we have yet to do much sailing). Hang on, I’ll rephrase again: passage prep on a bare bones boat while living aboard with homeschooled teenagers is hard work.
That’s the one.