1/20-21-Weather’s great on Sunday, clear skies and nice breezes. Monday it’s very humid and it rains on and off for a good part of the day. I go to the Laundromat and the Pueblo supermarket, managing to do both when it’s not raining and otherwise just putter around the boat.
1/22-Kryss arrives by air around 5:00 pm.
1/23-Herman comes promptly and installs the new starter, saying old one is being rebuilt and that he’s working on sourcing replacement rudder/autopilot arm interface, reporting that the old one can’t be repaired. New starter’s in but engine won’t turn over-turns out starter battery collapses upon attempt to start even though initially showing ample voltage. Battery has to be replaced, so we drive to battery shop, return with new battery and engine fires right up. I discuss broken pencil zinc in generator with Herman and we come up with a plan to dislodge it next time he’s on the boat. It’s been blowing 20-25 from the East for the last two days and expected to keep doing so for the next three days or so with seas building to 8 feet or more. Kryss and I depart the marina at Noon and motor (wind’s on our nose) to Christmas Cove (around 10 a.m.). The anchorage, where we stayed many times on bareboats chartered from CYC in the ‘80's, is totally protected from the seas but it’s a small anchorage and all of the moorings are taken, so after trying to see if there was any suitable place to anchor (it’s quite deep until you get into the mooring field, so anchoring before the mooring field is not desirable). Anyway, I abandon the effort and we motor another 8 miles or so to Maho Bay where we pick up a mooring. We had been to Maho Bay many times previously as well. It’s very pretty and we’re protected from the winds, but the swells from the Northwest roll in and make it a pretty rocky anchorage. Fortunately or unfortunately it is protected from the real weather and it’s the only reasonable option so we stay. Kryss drives the boat from the marina to Christmas Cove and picks up the mooring on her first try. We have a nice dinner after Kryss’ stomach settles down and go to sleep. It rains intermittently all night so we’re up and down opening and closing hatches and it’s pretty bouncy, but we’re tied up securely with two lines forming a bridle to a well-maintained mooring so there’s no worry about our position.
1/24-Weather’s the same and Herman wants to know if we can meet him at Red Hook on Saturday to go over rudder/autopilot interface options with a friend of his. Don’t want to have to do that, but need to get interface replaced, so arrange to take a slip at American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook for Friday night so that Herman and his mechanic friend can analyze situation Saturday morning. We’ll also replace broken pencil zinc for generator at that time. Hang out for the day and catch our breath. While we’re cooking dinner generator conks out-certainly seems like there’s always something. It’s too late and I’m too tired to even think about why, so finish cooking dinner with Kenyon Butane Burners, eat and go to sleep.
1/25-Leave for Red Hook and marina in the morning-ride is short (about an hour) and uneventful, but slip they assign me to is a nightmare. I should have rejected it and asked for another, but didn’t realize quite how bad it was until I got into it. The wind is howling out of the East behind me and the slip is fully exposed to the wind and the swells and waves created by the wind. There’s no maneuvering room (big power cruiser on my port, no dock for me (just a small finger pier that is inaccessible), concrete ferry docks aft, etc., so one miscalculation in trying to turn around and back in and we’re toast. With the help of some of the other boaters hanging out and the dock hand I bring the boat in bow first without incident and we tie up with extreme caution to avoid staying off the dock on my bow (big winds and swells pushing me on) and otherwise centered between the pilings and the finger pier. Only way to get off the boat is to rig a foot sling to assist me climbing over the bow and anchor and slowly setting myself down on the main dock. Who says you don’t get any exercise cruising. Getting on an off the boat is a visit to the gym, old fashioned pullups, body twists and all. It’s dangerous enough that I ask Kryss not to attempt it even though I know she has the agility with which to do it. Someone suggests using the dinghy to get off the boat and on to the dock, so against my better judgment I put the dinghy in the water. It’s so rough (totally exposed to 15-22 knt. winds and windriven swells and waves) that the dingy is not a viable option and to avoid it being damaged I haul it up onto the finger pier. I try this again the next day and am equally unsuccesful. Would have been much better not to have attempted it. In the meantime I start thinking about what would cause the generator to stop working and I start it from the generator itself. It starts up and runs OK for a while but I know there has to be a reason why it stopped the night before. I access and examine the raw water supply sea strainer and find that the intake hose is clogged at its entry point into the strainer with Sargasso weed. “Aha”! That could certainly cause the generator to overheat and shut down. I clean it out and run it again. It starts and runs OK for a while, but the temperature begins to climb above its ordinary operating temp of 175 degrees and I shut it down. I’m thinking that the hose is still clogged with Sargasso weed further down the line, but it’s in a tough place to take off of the intake shut-off valve and I decide to wait until Herman gets there the next day with the other mechanic to take it off and examine it.
1/26-The next morning, as planned, Herman comes with Kevin the resident mechanic to assess what needs to be done to manufacture and install a new rudder post/autopilot actuator arm interface. Kevin is apparently a very, very talented mechanic. At the same time they take the cooling section of the generator apart, remove the stuck, broken off pencil zinc and we replace it with a new one. Herman’s friend also replaces the generator impeller (I have an extra and he says running the generator hot will often “fry” the impeller). He also removes and cleans the fresh water pump and “flushes” the raw water hose servicing the basket strainer. I learn another trick. He doesn’t remove it from the intake valve. He just takes it off the strainer assembly, opens the valve a bit and lets the inrushing water flush the rest of the Sargasso weed out. Any, “it’s a boat” so while all this is going on we find that there is fresh water entering the bilge. A little detective work discovers that Kryss had brushed her teeth and when I examine the hose from the sink to the aft sump I find that the fitting attaching it to the sump has failed. It was very old and apparently at some time someone glued it in place, because it could no longer be threaded. Anyway, after a trip to Home Depot Herman comes back with a new female fitting that can be screwed back into place and that plumbing problem is resolved.
Herman also brings back the rebuilt engine starter motor that had failed, so now I have a spare. It’s nice to know that even if the starter and the engine starter battery again that I can readily replace the starter motor and use the house batteries to start the engine. (“Live and learn”-I guess I come to this very late but clearly if we are going to be able to cruise the long distances we’re attempting I need to learn how to do these things and to be sure that I have the critical replacement parts.) The rest of the day is spent worrying about how to get off the dock safely the next morning and dreading the effort to return the dinghy to its davits in these ridiculous conditions. About 5:00 p.m. the winds go down and the swells become manageable and Kryss suggests that I take the dinghy off of the finger pier and that we put it back on the davits. It’s a good call by Kryss and working much better together than we ever did before, we get the dinghy back on the davits with minimum effort and no aggravation. I’m greatly relieved to have the task behind us and not to have to do it the next morning before departing. One additional bright spot is that the intermittent rain showers that we were experiencing since the boat got to St. Thomas have pretty much passed so we’re not constantly opening and closing hatches and the front Isenglas panel(Isenglas is the high-end clear vinyl material that the zip-in panels that enclose the cockpit from the hard dodger are made of). I know this sounds like purgatory, but Kryss and I have been sailing in the VI’s many times before and and we know that it’s actually the “portal to paradise”.
1/27-Up early to fill the water tanks, adjust the lines for leaving, get rid of the garbage and disconnect shore power. Wind and swells are down and I’m optimistic about being able to leave the dock safely and without incident. We get off the dock with alacrity and no mishaps in exactly the manner planned and we’re off again to Francis Bay (the larger bay incorporating Maho Bay) to catch our breath and then proceed on to Jost Van Dyke in the next few days. The sun is out, the skies are clear and it’s a beautiful morning. We hang out in Maho Bay and meet Steve and Eva [world cruisers on a boat named Foreva (get it)] in a volunteer position at the Bay as “Hosts”. They provide information about the rules that govern the use of the Bay, such as no glass bottles on the beach, and about mooring fees etc. I go to start the dinghy engine while it’s still on the aft rail because I’m concerned that it may not start after three years with no use (although I “winterized” it really well after its last use to minimize such a problem. As half-expected it won’t start, so I pull the spark plugs and clean them and spray a little starter fluid into the cylinders. She starts right up, but I notice that there is a significant gas leak coming from the carburetor manifold, so I have to shut it down. It’s a much more complicated engine than the 5 hp ones I have had before and worked on, and I’m afraid to start taking it apart, particularly while it’s mounted on the aft rail where parts can easily fall into the sea. I start to think about harbors where we might find an outboard mechanic to look at it.
1/28-It’s another beautiful day and the winds are down somewhat, but we need to catch our breath so we stay put and relax. Rob and Ellen from s/v Miclo3 moored right behind us come by in their dinghy and we invite them aboard. We talk for quite a while and later I invite them for rum punch and nibbles when the sun goes down. They come over and stay until quite late. We get along famously (they have roots in New Jersey) and have been cruising the Carribean for 6 seasons or so. Kryss and I don’t get to bed until Midnight, certainly a rarity for us.
1/29-Just another day in Paradise, but I’m bothered by the fact that I can’t use the dinghy engine. Steve comes by again and we talk about it for a while. He looks at it as well but is not interested in getting into it although he knows all about those things, which is certainly understandable. He does suggest however that I tighten further the bolts holding the carburetor housing. I had loosened one when I wanted to try to troubleshoot the problem, but thought that I had retightened it sufficiently. Anyway, later in the afternoon I take the cover off and really tighten down the two bolts. When I start the engine, there’s no fuel leak, so I guess Steve was right. Happy it was such an easy fix. Somehow we lost gas through evaporation or I don’t know what from the auxiliary tank on the way down, so we have very little gas left. That has never, ever, happened to me before. I check the caps and the vent on the tank, so I just don’t understand it. That being said I can’t run the engine for long and it’s running somewhat ragged, so I decide to wait until I can buy more gasoline before I will put the engine on the dinghy and really run it. I do however pull the plugs and clean them before putting the engine away, and plan to buy gasoline in Jost Van Dyke the next day.
1/30-In the morning we get ready to go to Great Harbor in Jost Van Dyke and there’s a warning beeping when I start the engine. Oil pressure is down and when I check the oil level it is very far down. Another lesson I guess I needed to learn. We ran the engine for more than 150 hours since I last put oil in and this engine does burn oil. Well, no harm done. Add oil, oil pressure is back up where it should be and we power over the less than 6 miles to Jost Van Dyke. It’s clear that I do need to get the oil changed, but didn’t take my oil change kit and no facilities for it in Jost Van Dyke, so that will have to wait a while. We get to Jost Van Dyke around 10:30 so there are lots of available moorings and we pick one up. Kryss is now 3 for 4 in her attempts (the first in Great Harbor fails, but it’s not her fault, there was no bobbin on the pickup line). After some organizing we head in to the Customs office in the dinghy, which I am rowing because we still need to get gas. The row is not bad and the Customs agents are very pleasant and efficient. Thought it would cost us $150 to enter BVIs, but only costs $40. We then row over to the gas dock to fill the auxiliary tank and then back to the boat. Now we have gas for the dinghy engine, so tomorrow I’ll put it on the dinghy and try to “work the kinks out”. Spend the rest of the afternoon puttering around the boat, including reattaching the GoPro gimbaled mount to the cockpit enclosure.
1/31-It’s a little more cloudy than it has been and all of the charter cats are busy leaving the mooring field and being replaced by others picking up mooring. Check batteries and add water as necessary and finally, after quite some number of years sitting in the V-berth, break out the dinghy all-around white light that I bought some while ago for night use and assemble it. If engine will run properly maybe we’ll go to Foxy’s for dinner tonight. Engine still misbehaving (won’t run without partial choke and won’t run at idle speed, so no dinner at Foxy’s tonight). Late in the day five boats, one smaller monohull and four charter cats, raft up right in front of us on a single mooring, even though the young man who collects mooring fees and generally “manages” the moorings tell them that only 2 are permitted on any single mooring. They’re chock full of Millenials. The situation is totally unsafe insofar as that single mooring would never hold all of them if an errant wind or other situation came up and they provide far too large a profile to swing safely in front of us. (All of the moorings are quite close to one another to maximize usage of the anchorage.) Of course they’re noisy as hell-one boat came in with a very large music speaker mounted on the foredeck-but we have no choice but to grin and bear it. As it’s later in the day there are no longer any free moorings and the holding ground in the anchorage is not good and the anchorage areas are pretty deep. The good news is that by 1:00 a.m. in the morning they turn off their music and we haven’t yet been hit by any of them swinging into us.
2/1-Well, I spoke too soon. At 6:00 a.m. I feel a thump on our stern that is clearly not a wake bouncing under the hull and get into the cockpit in time to see the stern of one of the pontoons of the rafted cats closest to us drifting away. The impact wasn’t too great and there isn’t much I can do - they’re all still asleep and clearly oblivious. After breakfast Kryss and I set off for Marina Cay. The winds are still brisk and pretty much on our nose so I don’t put up the main. I do try at one point to fly a bit of jib as an experiment and it fails, so I roll it back in again. In these conditions it is clear that having a functioning autopilot so that Kryss can help me with handling the sheets is really a must for safe sailing. Anyway, Kryss pilots the boat under power for most of the trip to Marina Cay in mostly moderate head seas and it’s nice to see that she’s really pretty comfortably doing so. We have one kind of close encounter with a charter sailboat. They don’t have AIS so they can’t be identified for VHF communications purposes. We’re on a collision course and the charter has the right of way since we’re under power. I wait until it’s clear that we really will pass too close to one another and I swing off to allow him to pass. Just as I do, he comes about to change course, so of course we’re on a different collision course. After a few more comparable mutual changes of course we figure it out and he passes astern of us. The remainder of the trip to Marina Cay is a little rocky but uneventful, although it blows up to 30 knts. as we pass through the narrow channels leading to Marina Cay and it’s blowing pretty good when we go to pick up a mooring. Kryss is superlative again picking the target mooring up at first try and we’re safely tied up for our stay at Marina Cay. We are of course limited by the inability to use our dinghy engine and I am troubled by the fact that I know I need to get the main engine’s oil changed. We were planning to go from Marina Cay to Gorda Sound, but it occurs to me that Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda is on the way from Marina Cay to Gorda Sound and that we should be able to get a mechanic to work on the dinghy engine and change the main engine’s oil in Spanish Town. We makes some calls, and sure enough we line up a company to do just that on Monday (it’s Saturday today). In order for that to happen we have to take a slip in the marina in Spanish Town, so we line that up as well and I feel better that we have solutions to those problems. Neither of us is up to putting the dinghy in the water and rowing to Marina Cay, so we stay on the boat. It just seems too cold for swimming with the wind blowing as it is and our “mature” ages. Maybe tomorrow.
2/2-Just an uneventful day on the mooring at Marina Cay. We talk about me rowing the dinghy in to look around the facility and have lunch but it’s blowing pretty strongly, it’s a little cool, and Kryss reconnoiters with our binoculars and realizes that the facility was really debased by last year’s hurricane, as was everything on Great Camanoe Island, that the lunch facility would probably be a tent by the beach. I guess we’re a little lazy, so we do nothing and hang out on the boat.
2/3-At about 10:00 a.m. it’s off to the marina at Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda (Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor) to hang out for the mechanics tomorrow. I was in this marina two times in the early 80's, once with my father, Susie and Laurie Ambrosino in 1984 or 1985, and once before that with the Plempers, probably in 1981 or 2. Nothing is as it was since Virgin Gorda and particularly Spanish Town were debased with last year’s hurricanes. What was a quaint little town is now totally busted up and not a destination you would choose, unless you were coming in to hook up with a mechanic. Nonetheless, the view across the top of Sir Francis Drake Channel to Tortola and the smaller islands, Ginger, Salt and Cooper is magnificent and having come into the dock bow first we have the benefit of the prevailing Easterly breeze. We take on water approximately 190 gallons for a period of seven 24hr. days (guess our water consumption is pretty profligate), but it’s important to know what we use to plan our water refills.
Kryss and I take a walk along the waterfront road towards The Baths, but there’s really nothing there in immediate proximity to the marina. There’s a very small superette with very little in it and a small but nice looking restaurant with the music up so loud inside that neither of us wants to venture in it. We walk back towards the marina and inquire at the office supermarkets and a laundromat. We learn that the laundromat is tough to find and that we should take a taxi to it, and that there are two good-sized supermarkets further down the road towards The Baths, but that they are far enough away that we should take a taxi there too. We are also directed to a dual restaurant facility (Bath & Turtle and Chez Bamboo) not far along the coast road in the opposite direction and we walk there for lunch. Lunch is very good and the breeze through the open-air dining room makes it very pleasant. We also make a dinner reservation at Coco Maya, a high-end waterfront restaurant which is supposed to be the best around. The recommendation is borne out when we go there. It’s a very cute beachfront restaurant. Cuisine is Asian based and format is tapas style. Food is good, but expensive and portions are not very large. All in all an enjoyable experience. It’s Superbowl Sunday but Kryss is the one facing the TV in the bar and I’m not that interested in the outcome, so we don’t hang out to watch the game and we go to sleep before the game is over, even though I had downloaded the CBS app that would have provided tv coverage at no cost.
2/4-Winds are down as predicted and I go to CRC, the marine engine service center just across from the marina to arrange to have the engine oil and oil filter changed and to have someone service the outboard. I also want to talk to the owner about fabricating a new interface for the autopilot/rudder stock as I still don’t have any feedback from Herman. CRC runs on “island time” and even though I’m at the office when it opens at 8:00 a tech doesn’t arrive at the boat until after 10:30. The oil is changed using an interesting hand pump that once it’s primed siphons the oil out of the tank. I like the idea but it’s slow as molasses, so maybe that’s not a good choice. Oil and oil filter are changed and it’s on to service the Yamaha outboard. They’re so disorganized that even though I filled out a work order at the office the tech doesn’t know he’s supposed to trouble shoot the outboard until I ask him about it. Anyway, we put the “ears” on so it can be run on its mount on the aft rail (tech didn’t have any but I had them) and he goes to work. Winds up taking the carburetor apart and cleaning it and the injection jets (the smaller one that I’ll call a needle valve was clogged and was probably the main culprit). Anyway, after the cleaning and a bunch of adjusting the engine starts easily and runs smoothly at idle as well as at higher rpms, so it seems to be “fixed”. The owner of CRC, Chris was supposed to come by in the morning to look at the steering issue, but doesn’t arrive until 1:30 or so. He looks it over, says he can make it work and that he will contact Edson, and we agree to meet tomorrow at around 10:00 to discuss what he has determined.
Kryss and I take a taxi to the laundromat (it’s not that far but hard to find ($10 each way), and when we get there most of the machines are broken. Kryss is fit to be tied, but we get some assistance from the cab driver who takes us around to the “office” where we can get change and where they refund the four quarters that we initially lost, and although we have to do two loads in a single washer the laundry gets done and we’re back at the boat before 5:00 feeling a lot better about things. Dinner on the boat ends the evening with Simon and Garfunkel singing in the background (on the CD player of course).
2/5-Spend the morning “pushing” Chris from CRC to look at the autopilot configuration again to confirm how he wants to address it and finally get him to do that. Later he sends one of his workers over to dismantle the actuator arm and take the mounting plate off to help Chris with his fabrication. Chris comes back to the boat later to report that he has found a replacement interface that’s in good condition but must be ground out to enlarge the collar to fit our rudder shaft. Am finally confident that a suitable “fix” is in the works. When Chris asks and I tell him that we’re off to North Sound tomorrow he reports that pretty much all of the facilities there, including the famous Bitter End Yacht Club that I had visited multiple times before were totally destroyed by the 2017 hurricanes and that only the facilities at Leverick Bay remain. Sad news, but helps to know it before we leave for there. Roast St. Louis style ribs marinated in Bone Suckin’ Sauce in the cast iron skillet for dinner and they came out really, really good. Easy to do, but hell on the skillet.
2/6-Wake to more light winds and sunny skies, top off our water, and leave for North Sound. We throw the anchor out in 12 ft. of water off of Prickly Pear Cay with good protection from the East and the North, and finally get to jump in the water. It’s pretty cool for me, but I get used to it after paddling around for a little while. Will definitely wear a wetsuit when snorkeling tomorrow. Water is that marvelous Caribbean turquoise and we can see the bottom. Spend the rest of the day lazing around. Hit the man overboard button on the plotter by mistake and had to call Raymarine to find out how to cancel the alarm, but tech services answered right away, knew what to tell me, and now their number is ensconced in my phone for when I need them again. See a large turtle near the boat. Not sure if a Hawksbill or a Loggerhead.
2/7-Not a breath of wind and not a cloud in the sky. Quite a day. After a late slow start we put the engine on the dinghy and take it for a ride towards what used to be the Bitter End and then to Leverick Bay where we have lunch (a delightful beef roti) accompanied by a Scotch Bonnet hot sauce, my favorite. Engine seems to be running fine, although I won’t trust it until it runs that way for another couple of days. Back at the boat Kryss takes a swim and then I take a snorkel to look at the anchor set and to see if there’s anything to see towards shore. Bottom is quite dead. There are two good sized fish hanging out at the aft end of the boat. Not sure what they are, but they look like they could be two feet long, keeping in mind that water magnifies how large things are underwater. Might be Tarpon or Dogfish. Kryss spends the rest of the afternoon learning and practicing her knots. She’s got the clove hitch, bowline and double half hitches down pat and she’s done a one-handed bowline, a trucker’s hitch and a fisherman’s knot. Multiple turtle sightings all day. Seems as though there is a “colony” that hangs out where we’re anchored. Also a bunch of goats on the hillside by where we are anchored. We hear them calling throughout the day but we don’t see them.
2/8-A bunch of squalls come through during the night dumping a bunch of rain (washes the topsides nicely, but puts enough water in the dinghy that we will need to empty it later) and lashing us with some high winds for a short period of time. When morning comes, all is as before. Clear sunny skies and light winds. Forecast is for it to get quite windy in a few days, but for now it’s quite calm. We take the dinghy to the beach to empty the rain water and to put some air in it, and in the process we trek a bunch of sand into the boat so we’re both a little out of sorts about that. Raise the main to dump accumulated rain and to make various line adjustments, so another task accomplished. Intended to snorkel the reef today but I’m a little tired from the morning’s activities and Kryss has taken a long swim, so I guess snorkeling is “manana”. Make Chimichurri chicken and rice and beans with Callaloo for dinner. Comes out really well.
2/9-We power over the short distance to Leverick Bay (still in North Sound Virgin Gorda) where there’s a functioning marina, two restaurants, laundry, nail spa, small supermaket, etc. Just as we get there a squall hits so we motor around until it passes before trying to pick up a mooring. When it passes we pick up a mooring with no difficulty (Kryss has it down pat) and we dinghy in for lunch and to check out the rest of the facilities. It’s supposed to start blowing quite a bit harder in the next few days and Leverick Bay is exposed to the East where the wind is supposed to be coming from but we’re on a mooring and feel the need to tread on dry land for a bit. Not very exciting but we’re really biding our time for the rudder/autopilot interface to be fabricated and installed just down the coast in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda. Plotter is acting up. Touchscreen and soft keys are not working. All functions have to be accomplished with the hard keys. Hope it fixes itself. That has happened in the past. We are moored in front of a beautiful Morris 51 named Homefree. We exchange shouted pleasantries with the couple who are on it. They come by later in their dinghy and we chat a little bit. Turns out Captain has rounded Cape Horn in it. I try to connect with him a bit but he’s polite but a little distant.
2/10-It’s more of the same. The wind is up a bit and there are strong rain squalls in the morning, but soon the sun is out again. There’s quite a bit of turbulence in the anchorage as it is exposed to the East and Kryss and I decide to move from the mooring where we are (quite a distance from the dinghy dock and other facilities) to one closer to minimize the distance we have to travel in the dinghy to get to shore. We pick up a mooring which is closest to where we want to be, only to have one of the marina “boys” come out in his tender to tell us that it is “reserved”. These white mooring balls are supposed to be first come first serve, but can’t argue with management. He directs us to one adjacent to it but it has a very heavy hawser and Kryss can’t pick it up with the boathook. The same fellow who told us we had to move comes over with his tender and helps her with it and we’re on a new mooring, in a much more desirable location. That was a bit of an effort in the strong breezes so we take a “rest” and then we motor in to do some laundry and some provisioning. Winds are a bit calmer later in the afternoon and after returning to the boat with the laundry and provisions we get ready to go to dinner in the high-end restaurant at the marina. Someone told Kryss that it’s the best restaurant on Virgin Gorda. Turns out we are not in the least disappointed. It’s expensive but the setting is beautiful looking out onto the harbor, the service is good, and the food is excellent and plentiful. We dinghy back to the boat in moderate conditions, but lots of squalls with heavy winds and rain come through during the rest of the night.
2/11-It’s squally when we wake up and it continues to be that way until we leave Leverick Bay for Biras Creek. Biras Creek is at the other end of North Sound and should be a calm anchorage even in these winds as it is narrow with mountains on the East/Northeast and lower land to the Southeast. It’s only open to the wind from the Northwest, and the winds will not come from there while we are here. The creek is too deep for comfortable anchoring, but there are moorings in it which are still being maintained even thought the Biras Creek Resort has closed. We pick up a mooring in the center of the creek, most of the way in and lo and behold, moored in front of us Homefree. There’s terrific protection in the anchorage from the wind’s chop and none of the wakes from boats transiting the Sound further out seem to reach us, so it’s a very relaxing day and comfortable anchorage. Also, very, very picturesque. The couple from Homefree come by on their dinghy again and this time provide us with their contact information and we agree to get together later in the day for adult beverages and talk. Their names are Bob and Mary Rubadeau. He is a writer and has written numerous articles for Cruising World. He’s also authoring a book about his trip around Cape Horn and the other passages that he and his partner made in Homefree during that same period. They live in Telluride in the winter and live on a vintage classic wooden boat in Booth Bay Maine during the summer. We visit them on Homefree for a tour and a drink and then they come to us for a tour and a drink. They are lovely, very laid-back people and we promise to keep in touch.
2/12-It’s another sunny clear day in paradise and we intend to stay put for another day in this gorgeous and well-protected anchorage. I spend the morning working, which under the circumstances I am happy to do. Turns out Kryss and I are both feeling lazy, and just hang out for the rest of the afternoon. We promise ourselves that tomorrow we’ll take a dinghy ride to shore and walk to the other side of the little spit that forms this anchorage to look at the open ocean.
2/13-It’s squally when we wake up but after a while the squalls depart and we take the much anticipated dinghy ride. Unfortunately the dock where we would have landed has a number of large signs on it prohibiting land on on the dock (I guess that’s because the resort that was at the end of the creek where the dock is was destroyed by Hurricanes Irma and Maria and what is left of the buildings is unsafe. We motor over to what was the Bitter End before it was destroyed in the same hurricanes and beach the dinghy to let the accumulated rainwater out. We then go over to Saba Rock, which was a resort built on what can only be described as a lonely rock perched in the channel between the “mainland” of Virgin Gorda and Prickly Pear Cay and leading to Eustatia Sound. It too was destroyed in the hurricanes and is in the process of being rebuilt. There’s good snorkeling on the reefs in Eustatia Sound but it continues to be too rough for that with almost a week of strong Easterly winds pounding the reef, so we take a look and return to the boat. Have another work project that came along this morning, so content to delve into that while Kryss does some cooking. Not as many turtles here as by Prickly Pear Cay, but some, and the hills certainly have as many goats. The juvenile goats sound like babies crying. It’s kind of eerie.
2/14-Blew hard all night and wind has shifted a bit to the South which means that given where we are moored, the land mass now in front of us is lower than before and therefore the winds affect us more. Kryss notes that it’s Valentine’s Day (obviously no Valentine’s Day Cards in the offing). We decide to go back to Leverick Bay because with the wind shift it will be more desirable, we want to buy some things in their market, and we’re ready to get off the boat and they are supposed to have some evening entertainment the next few nights. Short trip to Leverick is easy and we are able to get the mooring right in front of the facilty, which means more protection from the wind and an easier dinghy ride to shore. We do our marketing and it turns out that the entertainment we thought was going to be there this evening was the evening before, but there is a beach barbeque buffet with entertainment tomorrow, so we sign up for that and are content. I go back to land with my old Canon and take some pix of the boat. The wind really quiets down in the afternoon, totally contrary to predictions and it remains quite calm through dinner. Doesn’t seem to bear too much of a relationship to the weather report.
2/15-Whoops! Spoke too soon. Wind picks up in the middle of the night and howls all the rest of the night and into the early morning. Didn’t get up to put the anemometer on, but think it was the strongest it’s been since we’ve been here. Anyway, it stops howling around 8:00 a.m. but is still strong as we have breakfast and plan a hike up the mountain for our principal activity today (not counting the beach barbeque/party tonight).
We walk for over two hours up and down very steep terrain with constant switchbacks from Leverick Bay to Gun Creek. Some of the hills were so steep that you had to lean into them just to keep your balance and footing. Hoped there would be a restaurant in Gun Creek to take a break at, but no such luck. Pretty rigorous but we managed. Almost all the homes along the way were destroyed in last year’s hurricanes. Most are in the process of being repaired. A few have already been repaired and some have not yet had repairs started. Don’t think we saw more than two houses that hadn’t been seriously damaged. We’re pretty tired when we get back so we treat ourselves to lunch at the Hotel restaurant. Later we dinghy back to the hotel for the beach barbeque buffet. The food is very varied, plentiful, and really good. Much better than one might expect and the band is good as well. They seat us far enough away that we can hear the music but are not blasted by it, so that’s good too. The winds are pretty calm, so it’s an easy dinghy back to the boat. All in all, a very nice day and a great evening.
2/16-It was quite calm over night and remains so in the morning. I have not been able to reach Chris Cooke from CRC to see where he stands with the fabrication of the rudder stock/autopilot interface, which will govern what we do in the next week or so, but as it turns out, our BVI clearance expires on 2/20, so regardless of whether I can reach Chris or not we decide to go back to Spanish Town where there’s an immigration/customs office so that we can extend our time in the BVI’s. We decide to go to Spanish Town on Sunday so that we can go to Customs/Immigration in the morning on Monday and I can go to the CRC office to see what’s going on. In the meantime, we plan to anchor in a very small anchorage behind the entrance reef to North Sound on the Mosquito Cay side, which should allow us to snorkel the reef. Unfortunately when we get there there’s another boat anchored right in the middle of the tiny anchorage, and there really isn’t any other safe place to anchor. We would either be too close to the surrounding reefs or in too deep water, so we bite the bullet and decide to go back up to Biras Creek. The short journey is uneventful, the day is beautiful and we spend the rest of the day and evening in Biras creek. Oh, Kryss reminded me to add to the log, that from the inception we have had natural music on the boat. We have a stainless steel hoist for our dinghy engine on our stern, and it has a number of holes in it which make music when the wind whips up. It’s kind of eerie and kind of fun. It actually creates a “tune”. I guess by this time you’re thinking that the days on the boat have finally gotten to us, but I’m not hallucinating!
2/17-We are all “put away” from last night (dinghy on the davits, dinghy engine back of the aft rail, side ladder stowed), so there’s not much to do to get ready to leave our mooring in Biras Creek to go to Spanish Town. When we get close to Spanish Town I radio ahead to confirm, as I had been assured the day before, that there was a place for us on the face dock, only to be told that there was not and that we would have to use a slip. I’m not a happy camper, but I’m not surprised either. The wind freshens which doesn’t portend well, but as we approach the marina the lee of the Island takes over and the wind is manageable for maneuvering in close quarters. Mario is back on the dock and he assists me getting into the slip, which I accomplish without incident but with substantial reliance on his help. (I’ll do this one better next time!) Kryss is practicing the piano. If I didn’t tell you before, Kryss is a very accomplished classical pianist and we carry a full-sized 88 key high-end electric piano that we set up on a portable stand in the salon for her when she has a mind to practice-when we first bought the boat she said she wouldn’t go cruising without a piano, so there you go. This is a piano which we bought when Samantha was an adolescent and would remonstrate to no end when Kryss’ practicing on her regular piano wake her in the morning. With this one, when Kryss plugs in the earphones there is no external sound. Anyway we found a satisfactory way to store it behind a specially designed lee cloth on the quarter berth in the nav station, so Kryss has a piano on board. Also, I guess I have always taken this for granted, but if you haven’t been to the Islands, roosters and chickens are ubiquitous and for anyone who has not been around them, be divested of the idea that roosters only crow at daybreak. They crow all day long. Sometimes it’s very funny and sometimes it’s annoying, but it is what it is as they say.
2/18-Even though we’re in a slip and not facing the wind, the air at night is cool and dry and with our side windows open in the aft cabin and the head and we sleep comfortably without the air-conditioning. Morning brings increased winds (not predicted for today, but what else is new) and cooler dry air. I go to CRC to find out the status of our rudder/autopilot interface repair and why Chris has not answered my calls and learn that he has had the flu and that the shop did not deliver the part last week. He’s going to call this morning to get an update. Ah, “island time”. Anyway, there’s nothing to be done except be patient, which is not my strong suit. Well here we are. We’ll go to Customs/Immigration later today to extend our BVI stay after I hear from Chris and have a better idea about how much longer it will be for our repair. Ha! What an optimist I am. Finally tracked Chris down and he promised to update me when the ferry that was supposed to have the part came in at 10:40, but it’s now 1:30 with no update and no one in the office which is supposed to reopen after lunch at 1:00. Finally track him down at 2:30 and learn that the parts are back and that he’s got two boats to finish up and expects to start and finish our boat on Wednesday. It’s a “start”, and I’m reasonably hopeful that he can deliver. No reason to leave under the circumstances, so we’ll hang out and hope that this repair ordeal will finally end and end well. Funny. We talked about going out to eat tonight, but I’m tired and beg off. As soon as I start cooking and drinking my first “adult beverage” of the evening (the sun is over the yardarm, just like it’s “5:00 somewhere”) I get rejuvenated. Anyway, cook up meatballs with red sauce from scratch and pasta and Kryss makes the fresh baby bok choy we bought today, topped off with some fine sipping rum and moji for dessert. How bad can it be.
2/19-It’s cloudy this morning and we get a passing shower early. Can’t believe it took me all this time to do it, but new multifunction radio/CD player has bluetooth and now we’re listening to our favorite Punta Gorda (Tampa) classical music station via TuneInRadio on my iphone. Ah modern technology! Also, for all those of you who said to me, and for all those of you who thought it but did not say it to me, the idea that you are sedentary on a cruising sailboat and will put on weight has not held true for us, or at least certainly not for me-haven’t really polled Kryss. I’m on the move all day, up and down the companionway stairs seems like hundreds of time a day and my weight is down rather than up. Not seeing or feeling much indication of any body fat these days, which feels nice. Of course that exercise is not aerobic, so I’m sure I’d be sucking wind playing a couple of hours of tennis singles, but what the heck, you can’t have everything.
2/20-It’s blustery and rainy when we wake up but the skies clear by 9:00 a.m. or so. Kryss and I go to Immigration to extend our permitted stay in the BVIs and work begins on the autopilot/rudder interface repair. Turns out that we are only permitted to have the boat in the BVIs for 30 days or we have to pay an “importation fee” (didn’t ask what it would be because we wouldn’t do that, but I’m assuming it would be substantial). We weren’t told that when we checked in at Jost Van Dyke. In any event, we extend our permitted stay to March 2 and we should have no problem in clearing out of the BVIs before then. We then spend some time in the hardware store looking for a replacement for the aft cabin shower hot/cold mixing manifold as it is old and leaks, but they don’t have anything that would fit the bill. Back to boat to be available to the fellow who’s working on it. Boring, but no choice. Work on the rudder/autopilot interface goes on all day and it’s a “roller coaster”. Workman on the project starts pointing out all kinds of problems with design of new interface and grinding by fabrication shop and I’m getting really depressed and then boss comes and looks it over, shows workman some misconceptions that he had and pronounces that all is well and we should be finished tomorrow. “Oy vay” as my grandmother and Kryss would say. I thought I was done with those kinds of rapid ups and downs. Anyway, at the end of the day I feel much better about it and Kryss and I go to one of the local restaurants for a buffet dinner with entertainment. Food is really good, especially the grouper (if it really was grouper-can’t be too sure in a lot of places these days) and music was low-keyed and nice. We had asked to be seated far from the music because we were afraid of it being too loud, but our fears were not borne out. All in all, a very nice evening.
2/21-Mainly a day of waiting around for work to be done. Nothing very interesting except that large cruise ship anchors in harbor and launches bring its passengers in to “see” Spanish Town. The cruise company didn’t bother to tell them that the entire island was devastated and that there’s pretty much nothing here to see or do except visit The Baths. If I were one of the passengers I’d be royally annoyed. By end of day work is almost complete.
2/22-Just a boring day of working with mechanic to finish autopilot/rudder work, shopping for groceries, and getting ready to depart Spanish Town the next day. Work is completed and seems to have been done in a satisfactory manner. Invoice is reasonable (“yeah!”) and purchased a 3 gallon gas tank for dinghy to replace oversized 6 gallon one that was too big, too heavy and the vent cap of which has ceased working properly. Transferred the gas and good to go. Now all I have to do is back out of our slip tomorrow into the 15/20 knot winds that have been blowing into a narrow fairway to get out of the marina. Yes, I confess that it has been concerning me ever since I decided to go in bow first rather than backing in when we first got to the marina. This a heavy boat and it has a modest rudder angle radius, so it doesn’t turn like the lightweight charter boats that flit in and out of the marina, and it certainly doesn’t turn like the charter catamarans that have twin engines.
2/23-Wake up to the usual weather, but the wind seems to be down a little for the moment. Get the boat ready for leaving the dock; Mario, the talented dock hand is off today, so get some line handling assistance from Jim, a cruiser I met on a CSY that came in the other day named GirlFriday and we get out of the slip and the marina with no issues. Guess I worried too much, if there is such a thing. Sir Francis Drake Channel outside of Spanish Town is really “lumpy” and I’m kind of tired, so even though we said we would sail to the next anchorage, we motor instead. We employ the autopilot a good deal, and it appears to work well without incident. We intend to go into a small anchorage behind Buck Island on Tortola adjacent to Maya Cove where many of the charter companies maintain their fleets, but when we get there it doesn’t seem to provide that much of a lee, the entrance is narrow and the anchorage small (I’d never been there) and I abandon the idea out of caution and my belief that it would be a roily anchorage in these conditions. That being said, since I had plotted the course to the Bight at Norman Island as our next stop, and since that is a nvery large, well-protected anchorage with many moorings, we change course and head for Norman Island. Passage is uneventful and we pick up a mooring in the Bight for the rest of the day. I make the mistake of leaving a line that I want to secure to the mooring in the water while asking Kryss to engage the bowthruster and the bowthruster prop starts to pick up the line. Kryss stops it before the line can get tangled, and I’m hopeful that we did not damage it. Can’t believe that there are so many stupid mistakes I can still make after all of this time. Rest of the day is uneventful. We eat on the boat with the intention of eating in the restaurant on the beach tomorrow night.
2/24-Wake to a heavy weather warning from WRIX through the local weather station. Also find that the freezer is somewhat defrosted although the fan is running, so that’s worrisome, but not too much I can do about it. I’ll trouble shoot it as best as I can (which isn’t much) later in the day. We decide to move to a mooring closer to shore since it’s blowing so hard and it’s advantageous to have a short trip to the dinghy dock, both for comfort sake and for navigating back to the boat at night if we eat at the restaurant. When we do so I use the bowthruster, so I have confirmation that it is still working after the incident with the line in the water yesterday. Not to sound blasphemous, but I guess the good Lord giveth and the good Lord taketh away. Bow thruster worries are not borne out but now we seem to have a freezer problem. It will be manageable because we do not have nearly as much food as we did before in the freezer and we do have a small freezer capability in the middle refrigerator bin, and also because we’re just across the Sir Francis Drake Channel from Road Town Tortola, and if we have to find someone to trouble shoot it we should be able to find someone there. We put the dinghy in the water and take a tour around the Bight and out to Kelly’s Cove. We also go into the beach and make a reservation for dinner at Pirate’s Bight Beach Bar and Restaurant. Later I call Nanny Cay to reserve a slip for the next day as the freezer is clearly no longer working, and they recommend “Alfred” as the guy to call to service the freezer. I call and get voicemail which says that the message box is full, which is very much the norm around here. Dinner is not bad, but pricey, but we’ve gotton off the boat for a while so I guess you could say “mission accomplished”.
2/25-Promptly at 9 a.m. I call Alfred and reach him. We agree that he will come to the boat at 1:00 to check our the freezer problem and Kryss and I ready the boat to go to Nanny Cay. I have never been into Nanny Cay before, and they built an entirely new marina to the East of the old one after my plotter was last updated and after our charts were drawn. Our only key to how to get in is a small drawing in the cruising guide which shows a short path of red and green buoys “presumably” leading you into the entrance to the new breakwater. On the way I decide that it would be prudent to confirm our reservation and to get instructions on how to enter the marina. Nanny Cay is very bad today about answering on the VHF (they were good yesterday when I made the reservation), but I finally get them to learn that they have no record of my reservation and may not have a place for us according to what they say. I am insistent about having made the reservation and having an appointment with Alfred who they had recommended, and finally they get back to me to tell me that they have a slip for me in the new marina on the East side of the facility. The wind and seas are at our back and strong, and as we approach the location I am unable to see an easterly path through the breakwater or the entrance buoys and Nanny Cay is not answering the VHF radio to assist with instructions. Some cruisers in the marina do respond to try to help, but without seeing the buoys I’m facing a breakwater with substantial wind and seas almost at my back and I’m very uncomfortable. Finally Kryss sees the buoys (they’re quite small-not at all what I expected) and they’re laid out to be more visible if approaching from the East along the shore whereas I’m approaching from the South at a 90 degree angle. The entrance through the breakwater is quite small and you have to make a sharp turn to starboard to get in around the breakwater, but the seas are somewhat broken up as you get to the buoys and we make the entrance without difficulty, although I confess to have had “white knuckles”.
Once inside, because they are still not responding on the VHF it’s a “crapshoot” to find our slip. As tit turns out, they have us on the second dock after we come in and we see a dockhand at an open slip so I turn down the fairway to approach the slip. I know that it is not the one that we have been assigned, but the dockhand is there and there is not a lot of room in which to maneuver so I’m going to go into it and worry about the consequences later. We get into the slip without incident and learn that the slip we were assigned to is almost directly astern of us. There’s no swell or current and the wind is helping so I back the boat out of the slip we are in and into the one we were assigned. Probably the easiest time backing into a slip I’ve ever had. It’s almost 2:00 p.m. before Alfred arrives but he knows his stuff and determines that the electronic control module had failed. He doesn’t have the precise replacement part, but he does have something that he says will work and he installs it. I also have him top off the coolant in the system and the freezer starts to cool down. Cleave, the manufacturer of our freezer unit who I dealt with in the past says that the smaller unit will not work as well as the one it replaced, but Alfred assures me that it will. The rest of the day is uneventful and we eat dinner aboard.
2/26-We rent a car and go into Roadtown to do some food and appliance shopping, as well as to check out of the BVIs with Customs/Immigration. That turns out to be a good decision. Immigration/Customs is not busy when we get there, so check out is pretty easy. Next, at the “Clarence Thomas” (a huge general store much like a Home Depot)we buy a new coffee maker to replace the one I broke on the way down from Spanish Wells and the really junky one I bought to replace it in Spanish Wells, as well as some other stuff. After that it’s off to the Riteway, (which is huge) for food shopping. We don’t know exactly how to get back to the car rental place because it’s in kind of a back alley in Roadtown and he have no map that can help us, but by dumb luck I wind up on a road that goes past it; I see the sign for it on the left; and we turn into it like we knew where we were going.
2/27-Freezer seems to be working, although not icing up as before. Guess only time will tell whether Alfred or Cleave is right. Kryss washes the boat and I have a tech help me with a problem with the plotter touch screen. I also check the raw water strainers for the engine and generator and find almost nothing in the engine one, but considerable seaweed (probably Sargasso) in the generator one, which I clean out. Guess the generator strainer picks it up because we generally run it at anchor, while the engine one doesn’t because the boat is moving when it’s running. Anyway, after that we leave Nanny Cay in very blustery conditions. We initially intend to go to Salt Pond Bay on St. John, but the boat’s bouncing around quite a bit and Kryss is uncomfortable, so we decide to bail out on the way and go into the Norman Island Bight, although we’re supposed to be getting out of the BVIs today. It’s on the way so to speak. Anyway, as the trip progresses Kryss becomes accustomed to the conditions and they seem to stabilize a bit and we abandon our plan to diver to Norman Island and instead continue on to Salt Pond Bay. This was one of our favorite anchorages back in the 80's when we were bare boat chartering with CYC out of Compass Point, St. Thomas. As we get into the Bay we see the enormous damage that hurricane Irma did to the houses on the hills fringing the bay and on the vegetation around the bay itself. The cruising guide says that anchoring in the bay is prohibited but there are moorings. As it turns out there are only 5 moorings, but 3 are available, so we pick one up. Very limited cell phone reception for me with AT&T, but Kryss’ Verizon has much better reception, which bears out my thinking all along that having phone with two different service companies would come in handy some times. We spend most of the rest of the afternoon trying to declare our arrival back in the US using a Customs and Border Patrol App. It’s nightmarish but we finally complete the process only to be told that our entry has been denied and that we have to contact Immigration in Cruz Bay. Not at all what we wanted to hear, but it’s after hours now, so that will have to wait for tomorrow. We’re protected from the wind and wind driven waves, but there is a considerable swell that rolls in from the ocean, so it’s a roily anchorage at present.
2/28-Get up early and do some work. Then we focus on the fact that Customs has denied us entry back into the United States when we applied yesterday using the CBP Roam App and that the denial is a bigger problem than we wanted to admit yesterday. There’s a number to call Customs on at their office in Cruz Bay, St. John and I try a number of times to reach them, but of course each time I get voicemail. Finally about 10:30 a.m. I get a person on the line who says that they have had problems with the App and that we can try to reapply today, but that if we are required to appear in Cruz Bay, that’s what we’ll have to do. I explain how inconvenient that would be for us and the agent’s response is that it’s the convenience of Customs that is important, not our convenience and she reiterates that if we’re told to appear in person we must appear in person. There are many problems with that. We’re not close to Cruz Bay; Cruz Bay is not an easy place to get into or to anchor in; and we’re in a very remote place where there is no ready transportation to Cruz Bay. We try to find a cab company to no avail and are getting very frustrated.
Finally we try to reapply using the App, and after not too long receive approval to re-enter and Verified Traveler Status. That makes the day for us for sure and we spend the rest of the day relaxing. Kryss takes a long swim into the beach and I hang out. Was going to do some snorkeling, but wind’s blowing, water’s cool, and frankly I’ve snorkeled every inch of this Bay many times in the past, so I just chill.
3/1-All night and this morning the winds are up and the swells are rolling in making the anchorage less than comfortable. Condtions are supposed to subside later today and tomorrow. We finally get into the water to do some snorkeling and it is really disappointing. This bay used to be teeming with fish, coral and fans all along the shallows along the rocks by the shore and now it’s almost totally barren. It’s very clear that everything was killed by the sand that was blown over the it during the hurricane. Pecularly, the one vibrant species, many more than I remember in the past, are the sea turtles. I saw 6 alone (some grown and some juvenile) while I was snorkeling and Kryss saw quite a few as well. We had also seen a number of them by the boat from the boat in the past few days. Had a lot of fun just hanging out over one juvenile which was totally oblivious of my presence while it was feeding on the sea grass near the boat in the center of the bay. Notwithstanding that there wasn’t much to see, it was good to get into the water although even wearing a shorty wetsuit I was cold. What do they say, “getting old ain’t for sissys”! Had a nice rib dinner later (you can cook ribs in a cast iron skillet very nicely) and off to slumberland.
3/2-It’s rockier than ever here overnight and in the morning and I suggest going back to Norman Island, which wouldn’t be technically legal because we would have had to have first checked back into the BVIs somewhere, but Kryss nixes the idea. Freezer is working really well with less power consumption and I let Alfred know it. We row the dinghy into shore, take a walk around Salt Pond to the other side of the Ram Head headland facing Flanagan Island, see a whole bunch of very amusing coral “sculptures” that people have left on the rocks on the beach, take a swim and have a long talk with a young couple from Atlanta who want to know all about cruising and chartering, etc., take a swim, and head back to the boat. Nice day.
3/3-Up early for our trip to St. Croix. Day is clear and winds are brisk. I put a reef in the main and we only unfurl a part of our 130% Genoa jib because I am concerned about squalls and I want to make this first longer passage for Kryss as comfortable as possible. The reduced sail makes the passage a bit slow but comfortable although the winds are quite blustery. NOAA prediction is for 10-15 knts. We never saw anything less than 15 and we saw winds up to 22 knts. The autopilot is working fine and we come to anchor inside of Fort Louise Augusta Point in about 14 ft. of water. There isn’t a lot of anchoring room and I can’t put out the scope that I would like, so I’m not that happy with the location, but it’s sheltered from the prevailing winds. There’s no fetch so there’s no wind driven waves, but swells do roll in over the reef or through the channel entrance and make the anchorage somewhat roilly. Don’t want to stay here long term. It’s Sunday and we’re anchored right by a boat ramp with someone in a truck with external speakers cranked up to the max, so we’re bombarded with deafening island music until sundown whether we like it or not.
3/4-Call early and get a slip at Green Cay Marina, which is associated with a resort where there’s a pool, restaurant, gym, tennis courts, etc. It’s about midway between Christiansted and Buck Island. Entrance is very very narrow, with the channel silting in on the port side. Instructions from dockmaster are to stay to the center to the starboard of the channel, but wasn’t prepared for how narrow the entrance would be or that the breakwater rocks stick out a bit into the channel on the starboard as you enter. Anyway, Kryss thinks I’m going to strike the rocks as we come in but we have no problem, and once inside it’s totally calm so I’m able to back into the slip assigned to us. We get a lot of linehandling help from the dockmaster and a number of the other boaters in the marina, whom we meet later and speak with quite a bit. Apparently a lot of people live on their boats here or leave them here for extended periods of time. Everyone is very, very nice and some of the boats are exquisite. We get settled in, take a walk around, look into renting a car, and try to figure our how long we want to stay. Dockmaster says we can stay until the 15, and maybe after. We were scheduled to stay two days and leave for St. Barts or Martinique on the 7th, but I need to replace the holding tank vent filter and there are none available on the Island. We can have two shipped to the Marina, but not for delivery by the 6th. We decide that it’s a very nice place, that we would like to get the filter and some other things, and that we could do with a change of pace and time to explore the Island, so I contact my weather routing service and learn that the next weather window for leaving for St. Barts/St. Martin is likely to be the 13th, so we decide to stay until then at least, order the vent filter and start looking for other things that we might want to have delivered before we leave. Finally get to the restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner about 3:30 p.m. and are very pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food and the fact that the prices are reasonable. Have a terrific Mahi sandwich with side Ceasar salad. Big piece of juicy fish and one of the best Ceasar salads I’ve had shy of that found in high-end NYC steakhouses and the like. Rest of the day, which isn’t much is spent on the boat doing chores, reading and speaking with our neighbors. Many of the boats have these LED solar powered tiki lights that look like flames which come on at night and they look great mounted on lifeline stanchions or boat arches. We’re going to try to order some.
3/5-It’s overcast and blowing hard, but we’re off to play tennis. It drizzles on and off when we’re trying to play but we get about two hours in, including a set. Like playing in Boca when the wind is whipping in from the ocean, but we manage and it’s good to be hitting the ball. Kryss is serving really well, even with the wind and the long layoff. When we get back we call the car rental company and find that they have a car available for us, so we change and wait to be picked up to go into Christiansted to rent a car. It’s part necessity, part extravagance. Necessity to be able to shop and see the Island, extravagance in that we rent it for a week. We stop at a major market along the way back briefly, and mark it as our food shopping destination for later in the week. On return I put on bathing suit and go to the pool and Kryss stays on the boat. In the evening we spend a couple of hours shmoozing with the couple on the boat next to us. He’s a retired corporate lawyer from Kansas City, Missouri and was very helpful when we pulled into the slip. Kryss has a parallel long talk with his wife Cindy and we all seem to get along very well. It’s rum punch, rack of lamb and roasted small potatoes after that which is not a bad way to end the evening.
3/6-No tennis today. We help our slip neighbor cast off for a trip to St. Thomas, then we go food shopping since we have a car. It takes longer than we expected and our Googlemaps and other phone location software doesn’t work very well. We do find this one store recommended by one of our other neighbors where we can buy frozen duck breasts, merguez lamb sausage, and good steak, aleit the culotte cut which I had read about but had never bought. On the way back the AC in the car dies so I have to bring it back to the rental place for a relay to be replaced and without a working mapping program getting there and back driving on narrow roads on the left and avoiding ubiquitous potholes you could get lost in make it a challenge. Anyway, I take a swim when I get back at the resort pool and by gum it’s time for dinner. We make one of the culotte steaks and it’s very good and very tender. Guess old dogs can learn new tricks.
3/7-Wind is down and it’s quite humid. Also, it has stopped raining multiple times a day. Showered in the morning a little yesterday, but not at all today, and not on any of the other days we’ve been in St. Croix. There’s a dredge at work in the inlet, so that’s good news. We play some tennis and then take a drive around to the far East end of the Island which rises to a cliff dead end (dramatic views of Buck Island and the open ocean to the East) and then along a good part of the South side of the Island. Have dinner with Tom and Sharon and their friends at Castaways where the food is simple and good and the music, supplied by multiple local amateurs is equally good.
3/8-Drive to the West end of the Island (Sandy Cay area and Fredericksted). It’s totally calm as this end is protected from the prevailing Easterly trade winds and for the large part from lesser North swells. We then try to drive around to go to the rain forest at this end of the Island and it’s quite a disaster. Roads marked on the map don’t exist or are “goat paths” and those that do exist and have “pavement” are so fraught with potholes that it’s scary. Can’t go more than 5 miles an hour most of the time and finally we abandon the route we were going to take and double back. On our way back we do find the road that is supposed to go through the rain forest (big mistake) and start up the mountain. This road is eqally bad and at one point gets so narrow that two cars can’t pass. I stop to reconnoiter, because I don’t want to keep going to a point at which I can’t turn around. A taxi comes by and drops two Europeans off who want to hike around a waterfall and dam where we have stopped. I ask him about the width of the road going forward and he says it widens, so we continue. What he didn’t tell me was that in some places, it is pretty much impassable for anything other than a high bed SUV or truck. We’re in a compact Hyundai. Anyway, it’s a very nerve wracking trip the rest of the way (God help us if we got a flat tire trying to negotiate this terrain or broke down) but we finally get out of the mountains and onto a genuinely “improved” road which we take to the Island Botanical Gardens. They’re very well laid out and interesting and we enjoy walking through them and the ruins of the plantation which was where they are now. It’s almost 3:00 p.m. and we’re both pretty hungry, so we decide to drive into Christiansted to eat at the Bombay Club which has been recommended to us. When we get there we find they stop serving lunch at 3:00 (it’s 3:16) so we stop in a little very local place called Kim’s Restaurant that we passed when we walked from the car to the Bombay Club. The food is terrific, and we’re both glad that we were too late for the Bombay Club, which is more high end and probably not so “local”.
3/9-Hanging out today. Kryss takes the car in the morning to shop and I do chores like running fresh water through the dinghy engine, putting a bolt through one of the lifeline stanchions to keep it in place and stuff like that. We meet at the pool for a late lunch and a swim in the afternoon. Can’t seem to get St. Martin Marina to respond to our application and transmittal of deposit, which is really annoying. Need to know our reservation is confirmed.
3/10-Stayed around the marina doing boat chores and looking into passages from St. Martin further South while Kryss goes out to do laundry, etc. Not much more to say. Catching our breath for the push South.
3/11-12 -More hanging around stuff - not too interesting, but necessary to get the boat getting ready to leave tomorrow for St. Martin. Not much else to report.
3/13 - Played some tennis and generally hung around waiting to leave mid-afternoon for St. Martin. Left around 2:30 in light Easterly winds and light swells for the overnight to St. Martin.
We’re proceeding comfortably at a bit over 5 knts. with the engine running at around 2,000 rpm, which is what we want to be sure we don’t arrive in St. Martin before daylight. Wind is pretty much on our nose so can’t put up the jib and we are consistently debating with each other whether to put up the main. The plus is that it will give us added “stability” (less rolling in the swells) and the minus would be that the sail will beat itself and the running rigging up flogging when the wind is dead on our nose. Anyway, we finally decide to give it a try and we motor sail with the main up and giving us some stability. As night falls it seems like it was a good choice. Winds and seas remain moderate through the night but wind veers from where the main can help us to right on our nose where it’s banging away and beating itself up regardless of how tighly we sheet it in. The night is uneventful except for that. I’m worried for the sail and the rigging, but Kryss was uncomfortable with the passage as the night wore on and I was reluctant to go forward to drop the main under that circumstance. As daylight appears we’re right off St. Martin about when and where we are supposed to be. We lower the main and motor into Simpson Bay to get our lines and fenders ready to transit the swing bridge into the lagoon and Place De Plaisance marina.
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