More Time in the North Sound

We had hoped to leave the BVIs with Aurora headed for St. Martin on Tuesday, but we didn’t get the weather window that we needed. It has been quite some time since this has been an issue given that we have been traveling to islands in such close proximity to one another. Our only real concern as of late has been northerly swells coming in (which are frequent in the winter months) and being able to find an anchorage that would not have us rolling from side to side throughout the night…which is most uncomfortable and has made for many a sleepless nights. Well in this case, not only were the winds not favorable so that we would be beating into them the entire way – not to mention having to contend with wind driven waves – later in the week northerly swells were predicted up to 10 feet so alas, we cannot head out until Saturday or Sunday. We had planned to stage for the passage at the northern tip of Virgin Gorda so that is where we headed to wait out the swells. The North Sound has fantastic protection from northerly swells and though we have already spent some time at this end of Virgin Gorda, I suppose there is just more exploring that needs to be done. The plus is that with our delayed departure we can hope for a good deal of sailing on our passage. We have been doing so much sailing these days as opposed to all the motor sailing that we had to do to actually get to the Virgins, that we’re spoiled and are trying to avoid turning on the engine at all costs. In fact, the wind has been in our favor so much lately that we have been able to raise the sails and pull up the anchor and sail right out of the anchorage without any aid from the motor…that’s always fun.