Century Club: Cheryl Duvall

I rode a train to NY to join a friend on her boat in Southampton. She is fairly new to cruising and bought an Oceanis 30.1 last year, but had never anchored for an overnight. The purpose of my visit was to help her have some fun with cruising while imparting a few tips. We chose a protected anchorage about 4 hours away, but had to motor most of it due to low winds. She had just bought new ground tackle, so we christened her Rocna in Three Mile Harbor. But we also realized she didn't have a snubber so we improvised one. We also christened her stove/oven, head, refrigerator, and anchor light. She used Anchor Pro app for the first time. We had a blast! We had a sporty sail back the following day, and saw deer swimming! Neither of us had ever seen that! We went out for a third day to have a short haul done at a nearby boatyard for some touch up paint that was missed when her boat was on the hard over the winter.

We were able to put the sails up on an almost windless day, and were able to launch the dinghy with outboard attached on a different day. We were supposed to spend the first week of May somewhere on the Chesapeake, depending on wind direction. However, we discovered an error made by a mechanic over the winter and it took a couple of precious spring weeks to sort it out. And then we had weddings and other travel that delayed our spring sailing. Alas. Counting this entry as 6 of 10 days we are allowed to prep or close up our boat. 

I flew into St. Maarten to join my friend Julie on her 45-foot Leopard, At Ease. This is the second year that Julie invited me and one other crew member (Cordelia) to join her. After a few days in St. Maarten, where we happened to also meet SpinSheet writer Cindy Wallach, we did an overnight passage to the USVI. We spent the first night at Christmas Cove, with yummy dinner from Pizza Pi. Then we moved to a mooring in Great Lameshur Bay, part of the Virgin Isle National Park system. Sustained winds were in the 30s, with gusts 35, so we stayed a few days longer than intended. But we took daily dinghy rides to shore and hiked trails, found beautiful beaches, took a bus for provisions and dinner at Skinny Legs. Eventually the winds died down enough that we could move to Maho Bay, and then Caneel Bay where we watched the Ravens lose to the Chiefs on Jan 28 playoff game. The next day we moved to Charlotte Amalie to be close to the airport for departures on Jan 30.

After several days of preparing Belle Bateau for the winter (winterizing everything but our diesel engine), we motored from our slip on the South River to Port Annapolis who would be hauling our boat the following day. It's always good to sail past Thomas Point Lighthouse, even on the saddest day of the season.