At 0515 Jim woke me with a start that Jerome was here!!!! We all literally scrambled out of our beds. We had JUST missed his grand entrance through the cut of Saba Rock and the Bitter End by literally only 30 minutes. We immediately hailed him on the radio and flashed our lights, he responded right away and promptly sailed the beautiful “Mighty Sparrow” back over our way to give a proper hello. Otherwise we would have bailed from the ball and gone to him. No way were we missing this!

I’m getting choked up as I write this. The emotions of seeing Jerome and the utter respect of what he is accomplishing and to hear his voice saying we are the first people he as seen since the Faulkland Islands, and at the same time seeing the devastation of the Bitter End was a big bundle of emotion to process. Tears of joy, admiration, sadness… very emotional morning. I know… but its hard to explain.

I was able to take a live video for Jerome’s “Sailing into Oblivion” group page of his journey that his Mom is managing. I’ll try and copy the links below. He has logged 28,000 miles as of yesterday, and is low on fuel and provisions.. he still has about 2 weeks left to make it back where he started last Oct. in Gloucester Mass. He is currently making repairs in the flat water of the sound and sailing in large slow circles. Many boats and friends are going by and giving their wishes, love and support. He’s doing this unassisted, solo and non stop.. old school to say the least. I’m not sure I can explain the feeling that we are all having seeing him and the sadness and desperation we feel to see him leave the sound. It’s like a home sickness I can’t explain that we all feel. So utterly pumped for his journey and wish big time safety and smooth sailing for the last legs. “Godspeed” Jerome.

Soon after our greetings and goodbyes, at approximately 0645 Sunchaser Scuba out of North Sound who has prevailed post storms, came over and personally picked up Savannah from our boat to take her on a dive charter. We’re the only boat moored in the Sound so everything is just sort of surreal right now. Including the epic personal pick up, just awesome!!

Most of the boats in the North Sound are moored in Leverick Bay at the west end of the sound, and rumor has it they are fully operational with bar/restaurant and water.. Last night in the dark we picked up a mooring outside of the channel near Saba Rock, not really knowing if it was the one we wanted (a special mooring out of the many in the Sound). We had planned to stay a night on our dear friends Sarah and Paul’s mooring but were not going to search for it in the dark in 20 knots of wind… just happens we picked it after all! This ball belongs the Poet Warrior, an Ocean 54?? sport fishing boat owned by Paul and Sarah, which took a bad hit in Maria. Paul’s crazy butt road the storm out in Leverick… not his first storm, but hopefully his last. Love you guys, we love being on your ball and hope this gets the mojo going!!~

Jim and I had a pleasant morning alone while Savannah was out on her diving adventure! Enjoying coffee, caught up the blog and of course tried installing the new part for the generator to no avail.  The alignment of the pump is different than the original pump and we don’t have enough tubing to make it work. But we are keeping house batteries charged by running engine twice a day.

Sunchaser Scuba dropped Savannah off in the same fashion as they picked her up. Smiles all around and S was pumped! Savannah had a phenomenal two tank dive that I will link video below. She was grinning ear to ear when returning and showed us some gorgeous video she took. So thrilled she got to go with Ben and Kay with Sunchaser Scuba.. they are the BEST dive company in the BVI hands down.

We had a quick bite for lunch and motored around Prickly Pear Island into Eustacia Sound and dropped the hook. Normally a flat anchorage.. but with the winds still howling from the East it was a bit choppy, but phenominal views.  We hopped in the dinghy for some snorkel and land exploring which ended up being a 4 hr excursion! We probably could have used a little more sun screen! lol Under water were mounds of harvested conch from years before and the reef looking a bit rough from the big swell we had back in March, one of the largest recorded swells in history. It was equivalent underwater to what the hurricanes did out of water.. We also found treasure. Near to the shore I spotted what looked like 4 or 5 inches of the stem of a small anchor barely visible as it was coated and covered in silt and growth. I grabbed to see if it moved and it only budged a little so I got Jim to take a look. After a few attempts of being an awesome underwater human windlass, he was finally able to unlodge a beautiful stainless Bruce 10kg anchor in perfect condition with about 5 feet of stainless steal chain! What a find!You should of seen us trying to get it in the dinghy!! Priceless. We then found what looked to be like a bar of gold. Still not sure what it is, but we will at least pretend it’s gold since the 3 of us went into instant PIRATE mode on a treasure hunt!! It’s summer afterall.. “pretending” is FUN!

After a while snorkeling we were all getting chilled a bit and decided to explore the north side of Prickly Pear. Normally habituated by pink flamingos and goats is now barren with the exception of a few trees trying to be green and beautiful, even the cactus was struggling. Literally parts of the hill that were just bare. Incredible. It was like walking on another planet with the tumble weed, uprooted trees that lined the beach along with the occasional roof top, tin and other odd finds. One thing for sure the sea shell hunting was off the charts. Never have we seen such a condensed area of beautiful shells. We only took what we could carry.. to re build our little island shrine back home.  We also picked up trash along the way and placed in areas others have done the same such to be picked up on clean up day by volunteers, including a torn and tattered LIFT foil bag of all things!  Also the goats made it! They were looking a little ragged and thin, but still spunky and curious.

Once back at the boat we admired our loot and took a quick rinse off the back deck and enjoyed a cold one. There were several other boats moored nearby, mostly very large cats with large groups of people on them.  The one to our port kept us entertained for the early evening along with a foiling kite boarder and the boat’s captain… we noticed the kiter would go by and high five the guests on the aft transom. Lots of giggles and woohoos.. (there might have been copious amounts of rum involved..) next thing I know the ladies were taking off their tops while being high fived- hilarious! THEN we are watching and Savannah said OMG .. a dude came out of “no wear” wearing a MONOKINI.. OMG is right. Yep.. he high fived the kiter who promptly crashed shortly there after from laughing so hard. This went on for an hour and we saw pretty much all of the guest naked. Meanwhile to our 12 oclock was a couple of stripper like bodies happily taking their showers, shaving and carrying on with not a care in the world. Jim decided he like having his drink on the bow! We told the kiter he should go to that boat but he said.. “yeah.. but they won’t high five me”!!! Anyway.. entertaining as hell. Savannah dinghied over to the boat next to us and got their email so I can send them photos.. some clothed some not.. they said send the non clothed ones but just don’t look!!! Great evening.

Dinner was curry chicken with frozen veggies over coconut/clove rice followed by chocolate brownies.

Oh.. weather is the same.. thick Sahara dust, air quality sucks. Air temps ranging high 86F. and lows 77F.  and water temp is 81F..

Click links below to see videos!

Savannah’s Dive adventure with Sunchaser Scuba

First siting of Jerome on the Mighty Sparrow

Jerome saying hello to Mum & Dad!

Sunchasher Scuba boat picking up Savannah for a dive!