Virgin Island trip goes onto the back burner

"The Great Plan" stated that we would depart from NC and bring the boat down to the Virgin Islands. Frankly, we only went to Florida since we were short on time to make the passage... and because there are some interesting places to see down in the Bahamas, like Cay Sal Bank... and because I didn't really know how this boat would sail. But as we made our way to FL and found pretty significant leaks as well as weakness in the lower bobstay fitting, I lost some confidence in the boat... but regained it with good repairs.

Since then we've had the mainsail drop when the halyard wore through, then the replacement wore partly through twice, so I need to go up the mast AGAIN.... and (once the chafing is solved) will buy and install new line. We've found the water tank empty when the water line leaked, so I should run new water lines... and test them as I used to do when plumbing a home (although most homes never experience this sort of shaking!). We have run into a storm at night that left us only able to steer by compass and failed at doing so, finding ourselves running the engine and flopping in circles... with about ten termites landing on our faces as they flew to our headlamps!... (Solution: next time we will simply heave-to for the storm and let the natural stability lent by the sails and wind steady us. Not sure what to do about termites and have seen none since.). And the traveler for the main keeps locking itself into place for reasons too complex to detail, but that I solved yesterday. The jib sheets are too fat for the self-tailing winches (I looked up the specs yesterday and they are far outside spec). And I STILL have not replaced the fridge thermostat, turning it on and off with a switch instead.... although our main issue there is too little cooling rather than too much. And "improvements" by earlier owners have created issues. And the weather is so much more rough and unpredictable than we are used to having in the Virgins. And so much more... And poor Cynthia has to deal with THIS:

On the other hand, I just read this article to Cynthia (https://www.cruisingworld.com/good-times-and-smooth-sailing-while-crossing-atlantic) and it makes both of us far less hard on ourselves: it seems that a lot of stuff just happens. And we are really learning to become comfortable with the shallows, with the boat, and with the Bahamas weather: like a wild animal that has a very low survival rate when transplanted to a new location as they have not grown up there and learned all the details, we are finding learning all this new stuff to be uncomfortable, even painful, but are getting to the point where the joys outweigh the frustration, pain, and uncertainty. For example, Cynthia dove in a blue hole yesterday for the first time and really enjoyed it... and we have found some great reefs... and sunrises and sunsets always deserve attention.

So... we plan to continue sailing the Bahamas until we have ironed out the rough patches on our boat and our comfort level improves. Then we may sail south... or it may be time to sail north and away from hurricanes for the summer.

We shall see.

PS: does anyone want to come assist in sailing during the bits when Cynthia has to work? Drop me a line! We have room for at least five to sleep aboard...