In Brief…We had a great time in the states. I picked Pegasus up from John Lombardi's yard in late February and with Whig Neil and Neil Edwards set off down the intacoastal waterway headed for Charleston. I've got to say it was pretty cold, with ice on the inside of the cabin, but after 2 weeks the weather was warmer and we arrived in Charleston in early May ready for the
arrival of Amanda, Jean-Jaques and Louis. The lads left and Amanda and the boys arrived and we spent a pleasant week with my Cousin Emily and family enjoying Charleston. Sadly Amanda had a spot of food poisoning so didn't really see much of what is a beautiful city. We headed south and made our way to West Palm in Florida, ready to cross to the Bahamas. We had an early weather window and made our way to the Abacos, where my brother Edwin joined us for a week. Ed Left from Nassau and we headed south through the Exhuma chain enjoying island hoping and ended up in Georgetown. After a week on the beach it was time to go. Amanda had decided that she was ready and that she and the boys would do the crossing with me on Pegasus. I was delighted, as if all went well then we had a sustainable system and the rest of the world was only a sail away.
21 Days later we arrived in Sao Miguel in the Azores. Al was well. We had done our longest trip and everyone had enjoyed it. A week later and we were off again headed for the UK and home waters. 9 days later we came up the channel in force8 conditions headed for Christchurch where Amanda's parents had organised for us to go alongside the yacht club. We had a great reception and Pegasus looked really quite large up the river…we only just got in as there isn't much water there. We spent a long weekend there and then headed for Cowes our homeport. I had a jobs list as long as your arm and so set about a mini refit, repairing some planking which had cracked on
our transatlantic, installing a new wind generator, sail repair, rig tuning, changing the running rigging, new sail bags, and numerous other details to make the forthcoming trip easier. The summer proved wet and windy and the weather delayed repairs so that we didn't get as much done as we wanted.
However we had set a date and as the weather turned in our favour we were under the countdown. A last minute deal with a production company saw a cameraman and some production staff around the boat before we departed and we spent our last few days along side in Shepard's Wharf in Cowes where all at the harbour commission were extremely helpful and really made our stay as easy as possible for us…we are very thankful.
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