#GringoRicanSailing

She’s from Kansas City, MO. Not surprised she’s the one for us this adventure. It’s definitely a sign that the Midwest has followed us to the BVI’s. We lucked out and were able to pick her up about 5 hours early so we are sticking with our initial plan of making it to Cooper Island on day one which I’m excited about because it means we can get to Virgin Gorda sooner than later. 

The conditions challenged us right out the gates with 6-8 foot seas with winds at 18mph. Not bad but this is certainly not ideal vacation sailing conditions but then again there is no such thing as vacation sailing. Fortunately, Cooper Island was only 5.7 miles from Tortola so after reefing the main and getting caught in a rain storm we dropped our sails and motored for the last 2 miles.   We got to the mooring field with only 3 spots left so it was a good thing we motored (There are only 30 spots in Coopers Island). Of course by that time in typical Caribbean weather fashion the rain stopped,  we enjoyed our first drink of the day and admired our first BVI sunset. It was all around a great first day of sailing. Besides our dinghy outboard taking a dump on the way back to the boat from dinner ashore and then having to paddle back…while it poured on us…it was a great day one.