"If we are not moving forward then we are going backwards!"

June 5^th 2013  

Position 18° 29.839’ N
                64° 21.603’ W  

Still at Bitter End Yacht Club, Virgin Gorda...I had a good conversation with FOJ (First Officer John) back in Sarasota last evening as I was sitting with the FM enjoying a beer and pizza at the Crawl pub. Conversation ensued as to whether we should scrub our plans to move south towards our originally planned destination of Trinidad, scrap our cruising all together and return to the US or just cruise around the Virgins for a while, we thought six months. So many choices! We left the pub and walked back to ‘Partners’ still mulling over a decision that must be made and quickly. We retired for the evening and after a restless night I rose at 05:00, made a cup of tea and started the thought process all over again. The prospect of going to sea and embarking on a trip of at least 130 nm, which would take us to St. Kitts, possibly 260 nm, if weather permits us to continue south to Dominica, all with an engine that thus far has been unpredictable and plain unreliable, is a frightening prospect and a very difficult decision for me to make. I am making decisions’ for Lavinia too and that is a huge responsibility. While drinking my morning cuppa these thoughts were being processed over and over again. I was miserable and emotional. No one wants to be perceived as a failure or quitter and above all, most importantly, we are really enjoying the cruising life, we are having the time of our lives seeing all these wonderful islands. However, common sense and good judgement must be displayed too, my nature is one of bravado so this emotion I must control. When HT surfaced and had her first cup of coffee in hand we started to talk once more. The conversation didn’t take long and Lavinia uttered the words “if we are not moving forward then we are going backwards”, so...the decision was quickly made, we are moving east and south to the Leeward’s and on to the Windward’s, in other words we are sticking to the original plan and are prepared to suffer the consequences if any. The right decision, we don’t know? I listened to Chris Parker, our weather guru, and he confirmed that an early departure tomorrow would be the best time and from there we should have three reasonable days to cruise south, seas are forecast to be 6' with a 7 second interval with a 4' - 6' wind chop on top, pretty good for these parts. Winds are forecast to be in the 15 - 18 knot range reducing to 10 - 15 on Saturday.