The little boat that could.

We left Bitter End at midnight, and although we love Bitter End, not a minute too soon. On Friday night it seems to cater to all the noisy, drinking charterers - big groups in gigantic catamarans with very loud music! Our closest neighbours were eight men who looked like they jumped from their Harleys directly into the boat! When we woke up at 12 the parties were still in full swing. I am sure they thought we left because of them!
Night passages always make us a bit apprehensive, there was no moon so it was a very dark night. Not as calm as we expected but not bad. Our worst fear is the boat itself. We never know what will break next and this was an 80 mile long ocean passage.
Six and a half hours later when the sun came out in what should have been our midway point, the wind picked up as well as the waves and they were all coming against us. The waves were not too big but were close together breaking over our bow, they managed to stall the boat. So we had to start zig zagging to avoid them and to get some help from the wind, first with the jib and then just with the stay sail. Thus the second "half" of the trip became ten hours. We heard on the radio other cruisers complaining they were doing 3.5 or 4 knots. Also there is a strong current that apparently was helping us at night but which turned during the day and slowed us down. We could sail quite fast on the port tack but hardly moved on the starboard. Also it made for a very uncomfortable ride. Going down to the bathroom was always an adventure, you'd better not be in a hurry because you had to go slowly and carefully.
But by 4:30 we were anchored in Marigot Bay with our quarantine flag up. We were so tired that all we managed to do was clean up and organize a little, undo our abandon ship bag, open a can of soup and sleep!
As to the boat, three hours into the passage, once the batteries reached 14.2 volts it stopped charging. Juan had unplugged the temperature sensors thinking that could be the reason it stopped but it obviously wasn't. He managed to restart it and it worked for a couple more hours and then it stopped and there was no restarting it. We turned off the fridge (we had bought ice the day before just in case) and the batteries held. The wind and solar panels also helped. We turned the engine back on while I was getting our dinner ready and the alternator came back on. So we still don't know what the deal is. The engine on the other hand, worked uphill and overtime with no complaints.
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