This was the maiden voyage of Laughing Moon. She was purchases as "MacKenzie" out of the charter fleet of Catamaran Company in Tortola, BVI, and was now heading north. We budgeted two weeks for the trip, which began by trying to outrun then hide from Hurricane Alex. Doug and Deb Garcia met us at Crown Bay Marina in St. Thomas where we provisioned and headed out. After a quick evening and overnight sail, we tucked into the mangroves of Salinas, Puerto Rico. The storm diminished and passed well north, so we untangled ourselves and continued on to Boqueron to stage ourselves for the voyage north.

The weather looked good, so we took a double overnight passage to Provo, Turks & Caicos. The weather was lovely but things were beginning to break. The autopilot went but we found a suitable motor in Puerto Rico, installed it en route and all was fine. The refrigeration was the real problem. The crew became surly with warm sodas and beer. Cold drinks at Turtle Cove in Provo improved dispositions nicely.

Another overnight passage to Mayaguana, Bahamas, and morale was weak again. Not much there, but we had a nice dinner ashore, scrounged a tiny bit of ice from generous locals and pushed on to Rum Cay.