Weather Conditions: East Wind 5-10 knots. Clear Skies.

We headed out of Nanny Cay Marina after a morning of anxiously re-installing the transmission’s heat exchanger (it blew an o-ring the night before) and testing all the other engine-related systems. As we motored through the narrow inlet bordered by the jetties that were so menacing just weeks before upon our crippled entry, and rounded the southern coast of Tortola in the benevolent ten-knot breeze, I put the most apprehensive crew at the helm, Tracy. I’m not sure why she was so tentative about piloting her home, but I pretty much had to order her to take the wheel, “and smile when you do it!” Besides, the seas were incredibly calm in the western end of the Sir Francis Drake Channel, and I thought it might be a long time since we saw sailing conditions so perfect.

As we approached the western end of Tortola and entered the pass between the Thatch Islands and Soper’s Hole, I took the wheel to weave our way in very light wind (in the lee of the island) north through the narrow pass and all the bottle-necked boat traffic going in every direction. But once we made it through the pass, we were unpleasantly surprised by 15 to 20 knots of northeast wind, the resulting seas and menacing clouds on the horizon. It was like a completely different day; definitely the “island effect” in full force. For the first time on Kai Ohana, we would be beating the rest of the way to Jost Van Dyke.

So I cheated. I fired up the engine, putting it through its first real test since the transmission refit, and we motor-sailed the five miles (about an hour) to our destination. But by the time we got to Great Harbour, she was overheating and we had to drop the anchor quick. As with pretty much every anchorage in the Virgins, the bay was full of boats so we had to anchor further out than any of the others in about thirty feet of water. Because of the northeast wind, the anchorage was surprisingly calm though it seemed very exposed to the Atlantic Ocean – any southeast blow would make the bay untenable at best.

As soon as the engine cooled down, we discovered the overheating problem was caused by an empty antifreeze reservoir because a hose had been reinstalled improperly, which produced a loop or air gap in the system giving the impression there was more fluid in the system than actually existed. The sensitivity, complexity and intricacy of the systems on a boat still amaze and befuddle me. It’s true what Tania Abei told one of the kids in an email: “Your learning curve is going to be steep for quite awhile.” It will be nice once this hill I’ve been peddling up for the last two years starts to level out.