A week in the Virgin Islands

(I'll add a picture or two by Sunday)

We spent the first couple of days in the British Virgin Islands attempting to desalt Maia, exploring Jost Van Dyke, and hanging out at Foxy’s. We had a wonderful buffet dinner of lots of meat and veggies at Foxy’s with Jack and Dave of Dionysis on Saturday night. The following day we took a vigorous walk from Great harbor to White Bay to visit our friend Bobbie who is camping there for a few weeks. Boy was she surprised when we waltzed up to her tent. She was reading a book in the shade of the palms right off the beach and I can completely understand why someone would want to spend a chunk of time here. The White Bay campground surrounds a very cool bar called Ivan’s Stress Free bar; and I have to agree that it was the most laid back stress- free environment we have encountered on our trip. Ivan pours a strong drink and accepts payment on the honor system. We knew we’d be leaving JVD on Monday, but we are pretty sure we’ll be returning to Ivan’s before our time in the BVIs is done.

After we dragged ourselves back over the hill to Great harbor we received a dinner invitation from Jack. We dinghied over to Dionysus where Jack grilled some delicious chicken and Dave made fresh broccoli and mashed potatoes! Dave has lots of plans with what to do with his 5 days in the BVIs and we decided just to follow them around for the week since Dave has been here several time in the past few years.

Monday morning we sailed a few miles over to the west end of Tortola, called Soper’s Hole. Soper’s Hole is quite deep and it is convenient to take one of the many moorings there for $25; however, all of the moorings were taken so we went to the back of the pack and threw out an anchor in 45 feet of water (N18 23.028 W64 42.407). We happened to do so near a curious float in the water which might designate a small mooring, but since it was a couple of old oil containers we decided it wouldn’t be too significant of a vessel so we felt we’d be fine. We were thrilled to find out we had an internet connection and started email and skyping to our heart’s content. We landed the dinghy that afternoon and did a little exploring in the tiny town. Once we came back from town we found a 55 foot sailboat retying up to their anchor that was marked by those couple of empty oil quarts. They were a little miffed with us for anchoring so close and we were a little miffed with them for attempting to hold their anchor space; we were the ones to move though, since they had claimed the spot first. We anchored nearby and found we had lousy protection from winds and waves and had lost our internet connection. Jack on Dionysus had a good connection up at his well protected mooring and could see a free mooring nearby so he dinghied over and held it as we made our way through the mooring field to a calmer spot and strong internet connection.

Tuesday we spent a little more time in the town of West End and then we had a wonderful 6 mile sail to Norman Island where we took a $25 mooring in The Bight (N18 18.974 W64 37.126). We watched the crowd over at Willy T’s for a while and then we went into land for a couple of Pain Killers. We wanted to go snorkeling, but the day was evaporating away and we put it off for tomorrow. We had the guys over for dinner and dined as the weather deteriorated; the wind gusts were so sudden and strong that we lost a wine glass. The gusts continued and made for an uncomfortable night.

We woke up and had a fun-filled Wednesday. Reinhart and I dinghied around to a nice snorkeling spot and spent an hour or so with the colorful fish and coral while the guys set off immediately for the next island. Once we got back to the boat we set sail for St. John in the US Virgin Islands, and had a great 2 hour sail. The Cruz Bay harbor was too crowded for us, so we picked up a $15 mooring in a neighboring cove, Caneel Bay (N18 20.800 W64 47.400). We still needed to clear customs & immigration, so we decided to beach the dinghy nearby and see if we could walk on the road rather than dinghy all the way to town in the windy and wavy conditions. We were very pleasantly surprised to find there was a National Park trail which took us to town through the shady woods rather than having to walk on the road. We got to town, cleared-in, went shopping for an over an hour and had ice cream on top of it all. What a day: snorkeling, sailing, changing countries, hiking, shopping, and ice cream! Once we hiked back to the dinghy, we found that the windy and wavy conditions were increasing and we got soaked on our short ride back to Maia. We had a nice dinner and turned in quite early after our busy day. Our mooring wasn’t very protected from the winds or the swell, but we were so beat we slept like babies.

On Thursday we woke up and tried to make up our minds what to do. The guys on Dionysus were going on over to Red Hook on St. Thomas. We have a berth reserved there for Friday and Saturday night so we can prepare the boat for Nicol’s Saturday arrival; we felt like spending Thursday night there might be a little too much Red Hook. We decided to spend one more night on St. John, but in the protected waters of Francis Bay rather than bouncy Caneel Bay. It only took an hour to motor over and pick up another $15 park mooring at N18 21.920 W64 44.840. We spent our time in Francis swimming, hiking the sugar plantation ruins, and toying with the idea of becoming St. John Bay Hosts for a few weeks, collecting mooring fees from overnight boaters.

We sailed over to Red Hook Bay on St. Thomas to spend a couple of nights at a dock for a change. Our roller furling decided to not furl at the last minute, so we entered the bay with our pants around our ankles. We brought the sail down and came into our slip at the American Yacht Harbor (N18 19.475 W64 51.105). Jack came over and helped us fix the furler and then Reinhart promptly started filling our water tanks and rinsing the boat and cushions…I’m looking forward to a couple of salt-free days. We found ourselves a wifi signal, hooked up to cable and found all of our American amenities! Lastly, we closed up the hatches, hooked up the power, and ramped up the AC to dry out the interior. You’d be surprised how much air-conditioning & heat help to keep your home nice and dry. All of our belongings will be clean and dry by the time Nicol arrives on Saturday, and we’ll leave Red Hook on Sunday morning to start our little week long Virgin cruise with her.