After swinging wildly at anchor for the past 24 hours while the wind howled in the rigging (small craft advisories in effect), we set sail from Christmas Cove with the theme song from Gilligan’s Island whispering in our ears (“…the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the “Island Bear” would be lost….”).
As we got out into the open water, we decided that a day in the shelter of Charlotte Amalie Harbor was a GREAT idea! We’re trading the uncertainty of the open ocean for the uncertainty of the crime infested harbor…
The navigation has been pretty easy with good charts and the GPS. The biggest set back is the charger for my laptop died so I haven’t been able to use the electronic charts and write blog postings ahead of time. When we got to Charlotte Amalie, however, we found a Radio Shack and got a universal charger that seems to work so we’re very excited!
However, let’s recap…
When we left the Sunsail base in Maya Cove, we headed toward the West End of Tortola to process out of the BVI. While underway in fairly stiff winds on a broad run (the wind behind us), we learned about “rounding up.” This is a sailing term for having everything in the cabin (including the captain) tossed wildly about while the boat decides if it will remain upright. Lessons Learned: Lara learned not to trust the autopilot. Jim learned not to trust Lara…
The outprocessing in the BVI was easy. The inprocessing into the USVI was a bit more stressful. There really was not good place to anchor and at one point while waiting for the Customs Officer to SLOWLY inspect our paperwork, Lara asked me “Is our boat going to hit that other boat?” NOT a good question to hear…. It all turned out ok but the other boat captain gave us a dirty look…
After getting all of our paperwork in order, we had only a few hours until dark so we headed across to Greater Saint James Island to the Christmas Cove anchorage. It was a very nice little bay and it had a number of full-time liveaboard boats on permanent anchorages. We found a nice spot that looked like we could manage to avoid smashing other boats. One of the boats was a young Finnish couple with a toddler and a safety net all around the edge of the boat. Kind of like a pool safety net with a REALLY big pool.
The boat right next to us was an elderly British couple who really believed in outdoor showers… There was also a very makeshift looking boat that looked like it would sink if it got hit by a 6” wave. We never saw the owners. While snorkeling in that area we saw a sunken boat. Maybe the makeshift boat was its replacement?
The fishing continues to be…well…dismal. I finally caught a small bait fish on the fly rod and used that to try and catch the 5 foot barracuda that had been lurking around our boat (and GREATLY hampering our swimming enjoyment). Instead I caught some sort of weird prehistoric looking needle fish thing. It didn’t make swimming any less stressful.