It was a lot of fun having family staying with us over the holidays, but finally it was just the two of us. Jeremy had a meeting in Boulder and after having guests for 5 weeks I had chores to do! We came into a slip at Nanny Cay Marina on Tortola and caught up with fellow Marbleheader Todd Barbera who was here on Tramontana.

Jeremy took the ferry to St Thomas on Monday morning, then a flight to Miami and then on to Denver, finally arriving in Boulder around midnight local time. The cold weather was a shock, as was the altitude, since we’ve barely been a few feet above sea level for 6 weeks! The meeting was productive, his talk on “Torsional Oscillations in Jupiter’s Interior” was well received, and the photos of Boulder look wonderful.

Meanwhile I stayed on the boat and got on with jobs: cleaning everything, mountains of laundry, and sorting out provisions for the next couple of weeks. When it’s just two of us on board we have a tendency to spread out our stuff over the entire boat, so with guests here things had been crammed into odd spaces and needed to be dug out again! However I also took time to visit the beach and the pool here each day – the beach isn’t much but it’s so much more refreshing to dunk in the sea than in the swimming pool.

Jeremy arrived back on Friday afternoon after a long journey back. He was particularly incensed that the lounge wouldn’t let him in because the rules say you can only go in on day of travel – and his flight was at 00:15 a.m! One of the goodies he brought back with him was a new phone for me, which is very exciting, particularly as the camera is so much improved. I promise to take better care of this one!

We leave here tomorrow with no firm plans. The wind would be good for getting back east to the Leeward Islands, but we’d like to spend a bit more time in the Virgin Islands first, and in particular get to some of the anchorages in the USVI National Parks, where hopefully they’ll be fewer charter catamarans. So, for now, we will go where the wind takes us!