We stopped in Ponce, Puerto Rico on Monday night, checked the weather forecast again, and decided to go for it yesterday as there was apparently lower winds and only 10 feet swells to consider, coming from the north east (guess which way we wanted to go?). Anyway we girded our loins and departed at 6am in the dark to catch some of the lee of Puerto Rico and make as much distance as possible before the winds picked up mid morning. We had to motor sail all but three hours of the trip as the winds were right on the nose and it qas very bouncy in the swells, but we persevered and arrived in the BVIs at 2am, found a spare mooring ball and tied up to it, staying the rest of the night for free.
We checked in with customs and immigration this morning and now we can relax in Sopers Hole for a few days and do the laundry (long overdue, but laundries are few and far between), some minor repairs and general maintenance.
Looking up at the masthead last night, I noticed that something was missing - the rough ride down had caused an aerial and attached wind direction indicator to go overboard. Fortunately, these are not essential and so we will replace them at some time in the future, but it is not urgent. There are a couple of other minor repairs to be done as a result of being thrown about so much, but in general terms we got off extremely lightly.
Looking at the wind forecasts, we are in for a bit of a battering for a few more days yet. We are so looking forward to business as usual with winds coming from the right direction!