A vacation from our vacation

Back in November, we sailed down to the BVIs with the Salty Dawg Rally.  Lots of boats left on time heading out in front of a strong weather system off the US, but we were part of a pack that stayed behind a few days and followed the storm out.  It was great going south with a rally - we spoke with folks every morning on the SSB radio, and having a weather router knocked 2 days off of our expected time.  We arrived in Virgin Gorda 9 days after we left Hampton, VA.

We spent a couple of weeks in the BVIs, mostly hanging out with the Salty Dawgs, and then we headed over to St. Thomas in the USVI to leave the boat in Red Hook while we went to Austria for the holidays.  Our friends Kristi and Will got us to the airport for our vacation away from our vacation.

We were with family and friends in Austria and Switzerland for 6 weeks this year.  It is a long time to be away from Rockhopper, but it is always so wonderful spending all of that time with Reinhart’s Mom.  It doesn’t matter how long you stay, though, because there are always folks you don’t manage to see.   I expect we’ll be back next year. 

Now we are back in the Virgins.  We left Red Hook and came around the corner to spend a few days in Secret Harbor which we enjoyed so much back in March.  And once again, Kristi and Will have been so generous with their time and home.  We are heading over to St. John tomorrow to stay for a few days, and then we’ll be back to St. Thomas next week to pick up Lori!

We’ve got a few folks coming to visit over the next few weeks in the Virgins, and then we’ll be heading over to St. Martin towards mid-March and trying to decide whether we are going much further south.  We’ll be going back to Bermuda sometime in May and heading up to Canada in June.