Nov 12, 2005 update St. Thomas, USVI
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2005
1
2
10
Trip End
Aug 15, 2006
St. Thomas, USVI,
Virgin Islands US
Saturday, November 12, 2005
We arrived at Nanny Cay Marina (Tortola, British Virgin Islands) on October 15 to find the yard at work scraping Free Spirit's bottom for her annual paint. After a thorough inspection and consultation with the surveyor, we made a list of all the things we wanted done before we left the marina. Al and I split the responsibilities and proceeded to line up both the labor and the parts for our substantial list. It was beastly humid (and quite warm) the first week and we were delighted to be in the air-conditioned hotel while Free Spirit was on the hard
Al and Free Spirit in the Yard
. Nanny Cay's lovely pool overlooking Drake Channel and Peter Island was a huge bonus at the end of each workday. We met the Brooks family from Santa Barbara, CA who had just arrived in the BVI to pick up the retired Moorings Beneteau 413 they had bought over the internet. The mother Christina and two children, Taylor 12 and Rebecca 9 had never sailed and dad Michael had owned an old Columbia 28 with an Atomic gas engine. Talk about a learning curve, they had never been to the Caribbean much less sailed here and had never had a diesel engine. We shared all we could as they baked in the marina with no air-conditioning. Thank goodness Free Spirit has dockside AC. We really miss Fawcetts and West Marine when we are on Tortola! Getting parts from the proper sized hose clamps to the right sized replacement fuse or bulb is an adventure that often involves every chandlery on the island and some yacht management companies which stock parts for their yachts and can be begged into selling that one part you can't find elsewhere. Our rental car was put through the paces that first week. But it was great to be back on island and to catch up with friends and get our fix of island food and libation.
Jolly Roger near the ferry terminal in Soper's Hole, West End has a new chef who has added outstanding gourmet fare to the traditional island menu
Dales with us at Peg Leg's
. What a treat! Since we can also pick up a cell phone signal from St. Thomas at Jolly Roger we enjoyed three great dinners there. Peg Legs at Nanny Cay and Pussers both at Sopers Hole and downtown also gave us good meals. There is a new watering hole at the entrance to Nanny Cay called Mulligans. What fun...a covered, waterfont bar with a great breeze, a golf driving range where you hit balls into the water, a jungle gym and play yard for the kids and an old Airstream trailer that serves a growing list of "pub fare" and lavish rest rooms by island standards make this spot rock every evening when the yard shuts down.We enjoyed several days in Nanny Cay with skipper Mike Kneafsey, owner of our sistership Aristocat II. As always Mike was a wealth of information and mechanical talent. Al and Mike installed our Seagull water filter so now we can drink tank water throughout our cruise. They also repaired our sliding glass door so that it locks...a most important item while cruising! Al took pages of notes during those work and drinking sessions. Thanks Mike! When Mike returned to Tulsa we began to get antsy and needed to get out of the marina. We put off some of our repair work for a week and set sail for White Bay on Jost van Dyke where we had a short visit with long-time Pennsylvania friend, Bob Tarlacky who owns a lovely home on the beach.
When unusual southerly swells overtook White Bay, we pulled anchor, checked out of the BVI at Great Harbor and headed for Cruz Bay on St
Guests at Hawksnest Bay
. John to sign into the US Virgin Islands. The National Park Service has moorings all along the Caneel Bay resort. Since Cruz Bay is small and awash with commercial traffic and anchored local yachts, it is far easier to pick up a Caneel mooring and dinghy around to the dinghy dock in Cruz Bay. Customs and immigration are a short walk to the north. We planned to spend a few lazy days on the St. John beaches before our shipment of personal gear arrived in St. Thomas. We had asked that it be stored for a week in Miami to coincide with our St. Thomas arrival. Alas, Wilma interfered with our plans as all cargo headed for the Caribbean was rushed out of the Miami warehouses and onto ships to get both the cargo and the ships safely out of her path. On Wednesday the 26th we received an email indicating that our shipment had arrived three days earlier and needed to be picked up at their airport warehouse by Friday when storage fees would commence. Oops...abandon "island time" and crank up to stateside mode. Out came the cellphone and the logistical challenge began. We located an available mooring at CYOA yacht charters at Frenchtown Marina in Charlotte Amalie. We arranged a rental of a car for Thursday and a panel van for Friday.
CYOA has great facilities and a most helpful staff. Their dock and moorings are at the west end of Charlotte Amalie just west of the ferry and seaplane docks
Horse training USVI Style
. Thursday we drove out to the warehouse picked up the customs paperwork, drove back into customs and waited patiently in line with those importing all nature of commercial goods and after visits to several different counters had all the approvals we needed. We then traversed the island to visit Home Depot and Kmart (not to be confused with those enterprises stateside for stock or service)! We did manage to find most of the items on our list and returned to the dock to plan our Friday strategy. The bay was pretty rough and though CYOA was willing to move some charter yachts and make space for us on the dock to load our gear it quickly became apparent that the logistics were not ideal. We drove over to Crown Point Marina at the old submarine base. What an upscale operation! The Marina has numerous shops, a well stocked chandlery, a restaurant and a fabulous gourmet market with the widest variety of goods I have seen in the islands.Wait a minute...we interrupt this writing...I just heard the strangest snorting sound, went into the cockpit and swimming by Free Spirit were three large horses with their trainers. We learned that these race horses are exercised by swimming the length of Muellers Bay several times daily with long beach walks in between swims. The trainer you see in the attached photo told us (as he swam by) that there is a major race in St. Croix at the end of the month and the horses are being conditioned
Joan and Gary VanHoven at Nanny Cay
.Back to the saga of our personal goods... It was instantly clear that Crown Point would be a better spot to move our gear aboard. Al could back the truck right up to the stern of Free Spirit. While Al went to the warehouse and loaded the truck I drove our liferaft out to the East end of St. Thomas to be serviced and repacked. We met back at the boat and began the unloading. Suddenly Christina and Rebecca Brooks appeared ready to help. They had come over to St. Thomas to pick up a new dinghy and happened to be in a slip at Crown Point. Their assistance was a great help! Of course once we unloaded the 19 boxes and bins we had shipped we had to stow everything. We must be honest. Since we are not expecting overnight guests until late December, we are taking our time with this process. We DO have a place selected for everything but at the moment much is in the "guest bunk".
On Saturday the 29th having made a final supply run to Ace Hardware, we returned out vehicles and walked downtown to do some people watching as two cruise ships were in port. I was craving a Diet Coke with ICE and when we climbed the stairs to Wendy's (now in the location that used to be the Hard Rock Café) coming off the elevator was Tony Belfiglio, a good friend of Al's from IKON in Philadelphia
Launching Free Spirit
. He happened to be at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef for vacation. We had a long visit over fast food and invited he and Dave to meet us in Red Hook on Sunday morning and we would sail them to St. John to snorkel. What fun we had on Sunday! It was a perfect day with light winds but good sailing and a fun visit to Trunk Bay for a long walk on the beach and snorkeling along the underwater trail established by the National Park Service. We motored around to a Caneel Bay mooring and Al dinghyed the guys into Cruz Bay to catch the ferry back to Red Hook. We spent a lazy day on Halloween and spent Tuesday morning in Cruz Bay shopping capped by a fabulous lunch at the Balcony where we had amazing fish tacos. They were so good we asked for the recipe but the chef was not forthcoming claiming he changes them daily. Disappointed but savoring the meal we headed back to the BVI late that afternoon planning to put into Great Harbor, Jost van Dyke. A huge squall formed to the east as it was nearing dusk. Since it was between us and Great Harbor we altered our route and headed for Sopers Hole. Darkness fell quickly and we navigated carefully around Johnson Reef and Big Thatch on a moonless night. Thank goodness for local knowledge and a great GPS. We picked up a mooring with a flashlight and had a great dinner aboard. The next morning we proceeded directly to customs and immigration and were confronted by the usual convoluted fee schedule for entering the BVI. Since we arrived after their office closed the previous day we were charged $5 overtime though no one worked after hours
Lunch at The Balcony Cruz Bay St. John
! However, we have learned over the years to smile nicely and pay the fees they request whether or not they appear logical to us. The fees are small and the BVI government can use all the tourist money they can get to maintain this sailing paradise.The 2nd found us back at Nanny Cay Marina to continue our boat modifications for our cruise and to meet friends Mark and Carolyn Dales who keep their Beneteau 461 there. We had Lincoln owner of Aquadoc finally install the new fuel pick-ups and forward fuel shutoffs we have been wanting and we did a major service to both heads in anticipation of using holding tanks in the USVI. Sadly, the BVI has not moved to holding tanks yet despite their increased ecological awareness. Mark generously offered to refinish our lovely cherry salon table which had become sticky with the use of marine varnish. A chemist, Mark has found the perfect blend of products to make a hard finish in the heat and humidity. Since this was a multi-step process. We met the Dales at several anchorages once we left the marina.
On the 4th I spent the day at the BVI Crewed Yacht Boat Show at Village Cay Marina. What a fabulous array of huge yachts with every bell and whistle. It was a busy day touring yachts and interviewing the crews of the boats Cays and Quays will offer our clients for charter
Mark at work on the table
. There are four types of charters we offer: bareboat, skippered, crewed with partial provisioning and fully crewed all inclusive. I have now identified several fully crewed all inclusive catamarans which I would enthusiastically recommend for families or groups. Each has large cabins with individually controlled AC (should it be needed), private heads, all inclusive food and beverages and a variety of water toys. Some provide diving and dive instruction and equipment aboard. Needless to say, these book up early so if you are interested please contact Carolyn as soon as possible to plan a spectacular, pampered holiday for much less than you would pay for a Caribbean hotel with all meals. If you prefer to do some or all of the sailing, a bareboat or skippered yacht may be your preference. For those of you interested in Christmas-New Years 2005-6 it is never too early to reserve. Most of the best yachts are booked for that period a full year in advance.Back to our cruise ... we left Nanny Cay on Saturday the 5th confident that all that remained was for us to pick up the windshield being made by Quantum when they notified us it was done. We headed for Leverick Bay in North Sound on Virgin Gorda for Mark's next table work that evening. On Sunday morning I did all of our laundry at the Leverick Bay laundromat and enjoyed reading under an umbrella in a delightful breeze during my wait time
Rebecca
. Once done with the chores, the Dales and their guests joined us on Free Spirit for a sail around Mosquito Island to a superb snorkeling spot in Long Bay. We returned to Leverick via the very narrow and shallow cut between Mosquito and Anguilla Point on Virgin Gorda that the Dales had never been able to traverse in their monohull. The Dales picked up Fantasea and we all moved to the Bitter End for the evening and more table work. After cocktails aboard Fantasea, Al and I headed to Saba Rock for one of their traditionally great pub meals.On Monday the 7th we had a delightful sail south to Cooper Island where we snorkeled and then Mark checked his handiwork. Since the table finish needed to harden before the next step and Mark and Carolyn were headed into Sunsail to consider a new yacht, on Tuesday Al and I headed for the Indians. We were lucky to find a mooring being vacated at lunch time. Though storm clouds threatened we were able to snorkel the wall with good visibility even when the rain began. From the Indians we motored through the very empty Bight, around the Willy T (floating "pirate ship" bar and restaurant) and out past the Caves. Mike Kneafsey had recommended an anchorage on the south side of Norman (Money Bay) so we motored around to check it out. The conditions weren't good for Money Bay on this trip but we will certainly try it another time. Instead we anchored in one of our favorites Benures Bay
Susan and Mike on FS
. There were only four boats anchored in this lovely bay with good snorkeling, excellent swimming and a beautiful shoreline vista. We were sailing wing on wing toward Sopers Hole to replenish the frig and freezer when Carolyn radioed us to invite us to join them at Cane Garden Bay. Mark thought that with the weather the table should be ready for its final finishing steps. After our supply stop and our eventless BVI check-out for the next day, we headed around Steele Point and up the northwest coast of Tortola to Cane Garden Bay. We took a detour out toward Jost van Dyle just far enough to pick up a cellphone signal from St. Thomas and touch base with Al's folks. All over the BVI moorings have been added in areas in which we used to anchor. I guess this is good for charterers who are not accustomed to anchoring in BVI conditions and it brings more revenue BUT for the cruiser it gets expensive at $25 a pop. Cane Garden Bay is now a mass of moorings with only one viable anchoring spot in northerly swells and that was already taken. We picked up a mooring and withstood the onslaught of waverunners. These are now outlawed for import but one watersport vendor in Cane Garden had a license prior to the new law and he is allowed to maintain and replenish his fleet. As far as I know this is the only location in the BVI where one will encounter these watercraft. Mark and Carolyn came aboard and did their magic to our table which is now lovely again
Susan at work at Nanny Cay
. After a delightful farewell cocktail hour we each had dinner on our own yachts and said our final farewells in the AM as the Dales headed back to Nanny Cay and a flight home and we headed back to the USVI. After checking back into the US at Cruz Bay we moved to Hawksnest Bay. The National Park Service has a requirement that yachts under 60 feet use moorings whenever they are available. Moorings on St. John are $15 per night. The beaches on St. John are so spectacular and with the holding tank requirements and the buoyed dinghy beach access points protecting the swimming areas, we are more than willing to pay $15 for the excellent facilities. We could stay on St. John for weeks but other ports are calling. Yesterday (the 11th) was my birthday and Al and I headed back to Muellers Bay at Red Hook for computer access, haircuts, to launder our sheets and for birthday dining. We had lunch at one of our favorites, Molly Malones and an outstanding seafood dinner at the waterfront Off the Hook at the end of American Yacht Harbour next to the St. John ferry dock. Today we have to do a major reprovisioning at the Marina Market, pick up our repacked liferaft, top up water and fuel, and wash Free Spirit with fresh water (after all of her salt water & soap washes). We plan to go to Christmas Cove on Great St. James Island tonight and then over to Water Island on Sunday. Monday we will head for Culebra, Vieques, Puerto Rico and then on to St. Croix before returning to the BVI. All of this will be weather permitting of course. We will try to post an update from Puerto Rico.
