Sailing to Jolly Harbour to test the sails and to buy an angle grinder

Rowan’s plan was we do a test sail round the island to Jolly Harbour, it also happened to have a hardware shop that had an angle grinder. We had our lady carpenter in France put in a partition in our front locker to keep the anchor chain contained. She did a brilliant job, just leaving a very small hole for access. Well it had to happen our chain got absolutely jammed in the windlass (sailing term for the anchor winch!). We had rather a horrible time leaving our berth in the marina, picking up our anchor and getting it jammed, in strong winds with a reef just in front of us. Luckily a salty, sea dog, kiwi and two local guys came to our rescue as we would never have managed our own. The two locals managed to just jump on board and helped Rowan lift the anchor chain to wiggle it loose. Anyhow we now can’t wait to grind a huge big hole so we can access the chain, so that it wont jam again!

Rowan’s friends from Virgin Money days have a few days relaxing after the cricket, so Rowan invited them to sail with us. Pete has sailed before a little, but a first for Tom. We started off motoring as the wind was howling and Rowan wisely didn’t want to put the sails up for the first time in strong winds as he had to get all the reefing lines secured back. All went to plan and we had a good trip up with a bit of sailing in calmer waters when we rounded the island. We anchored and thought about going in for lunch when the heavens opened once again, so we had lunch on board which our guests enjoyed.

Sailing past Rendezvous Bay

Impressive amount of coastline undeveloped

Being overtaken by a huge fancy racing boat with squalls around

Pete and Tom put to work

Sun’s out and the water is a brilliant colour

Heading for Jolly Harbour

Mega Gin Palace, called AHPO, we looked it up thinking it might be an oligarch’s, but turned out it belongs to someone Chinese by the sound of it. Built in 2021 for US$300 million!

We had a very wet trip to the dinghy dock, quite a long way in choppy waters, so we were soaked by the splashing waves. We said our goodbyes as Pete and Tom got a taxi back to English Harbour and head off to Barbados tomorrow to watch the next instalment of the cricket. Rowan went to buy his angle grinder and I went and shopped at the very nice supermarket. I have no idea why there is no supermarket like this in Falmouth Bay or English harbour. It felt a treat to be stocking up on a few tasty bits and pieces, including bacon, but sadly no fresh milk!

Back to PolePole for a quiet evening at anchor, we have not had many of these so far this trip.