Little Island - We made it!

We made it! And quite naturally I’m now hungover whilst writing this. With every rum punch the achievement sunk in, and so we celebrated that moment with another rum punch; and so on...

The first sight of land yesterday was an amazing feeling, coming into view as the sun rose and lifted the cloak of mist and darkness that had covered the island. We knew it was there for a while, but could never be too sure until we got that all important visual. Thankfully it was the correct piece of land, which was a relief having had no chart plotter for the final 300 miles or so. Despite standing next to each other at the time, we gave it a bloody good “Land ho!” call to mark the occasion, and briefly thought of those early explorers that stumbled across this green gem among thousands of miles of ocean for the very first time. Although in reality our achievement is nothing close to the feats that those men achieved, in those moments it felt like we were equals of a sort.

We rounded pigeon island - a rocky outcrop of land just before our destination of Rodney Bay, and made for the final sprint to the finish, which was the first bit of upwind sailing we’d done in 2700 miles! The photographer came up to us, skilfully driving his tiny dinghy whilst standing and able to spare a hand for the camera. Cat and I had a brief tiff at this point. She wanted to smile for a nice picture but I was demanding she trim the genoa in. After all, we were racing, but more importantly I can absolutely not tolerate a picture with the sails flapping!

We crossed the finish and crossed our fingers, praying that the engine will start and that the solar and wind charger had done their work. Helped by the final upwind leg, which meant the wind charger was suddenly four times more effective, our little yellow workhorse gave out an almighty roar. A triumph! And a saving of $150 that we would have had to spend on a tow, which we later allocated to rum punches instead.

We came into the marina and were greeted by a crowd of friends from Las Palmas, which added some serious pressure to the hardest part of any voyage - parking the boat. Luckily, we did a decent job of it.

The boat now looks lovely. Sails are away and the mess of the crossing is all cleaned up. You’d struggle to find a single pubic hair on the floor now, which is a stark contrast to 24 hours ago. We’re so content in our new existence, unhampered by nappy rash, fear of constipation and stray pubes; and can’t wait to live the brochure and do all the great activities we signed up for.

We want to thank all of the people that helped us get this far with the boat prep, equipment stocking and the sailing. Special thanks to the two Mandys, mainly the real one.

Today I feel like we’re living the dream.