We
last left you in Culebra, where we had just hand filled the water
tanks. We shook the figurative dust off our feet (literally: snorkeled
the hull with a scrub brush to remove a green beard and barnacles
attached to the hull) while anchored just at the entrance of the
harbor behind a protecting reef. The winds got quite lively and
we slept to the sound of singing rigging. Tito and Roberta took
off in the morning for St. Croix where they expected to pick up
mail at Tito's sister's home there. We exchanged what we expected
to be our final goodbyes by VHF and got prepared to go. During
the day, the winds dropped so most of the trip back to the USVI
took place as a slow procession followed by a 3 hr motor sail.
The winds continue to blow when and where they choose and don't
seem to do what we wish.
A 36 mile beat (it is normally down wind)
got us to our favorite haven: Christmas Cove where we spotted
the familiar red hull of Alleluja, Tito and Roberta's boat. It’s
a large ocean but a small community. Later, after a rainy day
in Maho Bay, we had glorious winds and lovely scudding clouds
in the sky. A spur of the moment sail took us up the Narrows
towards Drakes Passage tacking into boisterous winds and considerable
chop. We started calling on the radio for Krazy Kat, skippered
by Tom on a charter out of Soper's Hole hoping to blunder into
him somewhere in the BVI. We met Tom on our club trip to Catalina
Island and he had let us know that he was chartering here via
email. By pure luck he happened by the locker where the only
working radio had been stowed and heard the name of his boat.
He informed us that he was at Green Cay over by Jost Van Dyke.
We did a quick turn and flew down the same channel we had just
painfully worked our way up. We shot over to JVD and poked around
in Green Cay examining the sterns of the many catamarans anchored
there. No Krazy Kat. He had mentioned going to Cane Garden after
lunch. Off we go beating back to Tortola and into Cane Garden.
There we found the boat but no dinghy. We dinghy ashore and walk
the length of the beach checking out the beach bars for Tom.
We decide to walk back along the road just inland from the beach
and there he is with his wife and friends strolling in the opposite
direction. Great fun was had by all. We had to leave after chatting
for a while, as we still had to get back to Maho Bay before it
was too dark. We did probably 30 miles just for fun. It is just
the thing to offset the cabin fever brought on by rain. Unfortunately,
this was the beginning of annual invasion by the "Puerto
Rican Navy" which occurs during Easter vacation. The PRN
is a collection of huge sport fishing boats with very tall towers
on top which can be ascended for spotting the giant marlin that
one is ostensibly going for. The main activity seems to be washing
and polishing the boats and arranging and re-arranging very impressive
rafts of multiple boats. They moor them backwards with the aft
facing the mooring ball so that the cavernous cabins catch the
breeze and many are equipped with impressive lights and stereos.
Everyone seems to have a great time but the mix of lively Latins
and stiffer Anglos combined with the competition for moorings
seems to cause some small friction. Having just enjoyed the warmth
of the Puerto Rican welcome in Culebra, we could only feel that
the bright fishing light left shining into our cabin all night
was the boorishness of stink potters, and in no way a characteristic
of those sharing the national origin of its skipper.
We have a
visitor. Jim, one of our boat partners from home, arrived for
a taste of warm water sailing. I think he is hooked.
We cleaned out the second cabin and provisioned in Red Hook
at American Yacht Harbor. It’s a well run harbor with
chandlery and US priced grocery store within grocery cart pushing
distance of the boat slips. We did yet another traumatic entrance
to our slip after running the gauntlet of ferries, water taxi's
and dinghys. Our always enthusiastic Portuguese dock hand secured
the lines in the order and manner he feels is most appropriate
and offers many positive suggestions regarding securing the
lines he cannot reach. As there is a cross wind blowing us
off the half finger pier and nothing but a large, unpadded
phone pole planted in the mud to leeward, the skipper was considerably
less interested in exploring possible alternatives docking
schemes for getting safely secured than getting him to CLEAT
THE %$#$$$ LINE, (please) NOW!. Opinion aboard Eaux Vives remains
evenly divided on whether his skill matches his enthusiasm
and how appropriate the skipper's deep terror is. No plastic
or barnacles have been harmed during dockings at AYH and the
skipper has usually recovered by Happy Hour.
Jim got the grand
tour around St. John and BVI. We whisked him out of the marina
over to Christmas Cove and had him snorkeling
about a very impressive eagle ray within two hours of landing.
After a tropical sunset and stunning dinner, he felt like he
had "dropped down the rabbit hole" and was already
thinking that losing his job might not be a bad thing. We had
a great sail up south side of St. John to Lameshur Bay where
the absence of bars (or any other man made things for that
matter) insures the absence of party boats. Rolly times in
Lameshur had us moving around the corner to Hurricane Hole
where rains of biblical proportions kept us spending the days
sopping up drips with towels and bailing the dinghy. We did
get a chance to snorkel the mangroves |
ringing the anchorage where the fish make up in numbers what they
lack in size. The roots of the mangroves are the nursery for all
the reef fish and covered with clams and soft corals. Clouds of small
fry swim amongst the still waters and tiny versions of all the reef
fish prowl the shallows without having to worry about their predators
penetrating the forest of roots.
After
the rains passed, we got a boisterous sail from Hurricane Hole all
the way up to the top of the BVI. The
winds were strong and from an unusually favorable direction and we
got all the way to the Bitter End by 2:30 including beating our way
in the narrow channel. We hung out among the great and near great
patrons sipping tropical drinks on the veranda under palms and still
had time to blow back down North Sound to anchor in Drake's Anchorage.
Our anchoring was highlighted by some careful soundings of the exact
depth of a sandy shoal with which our skipper was not previously
conversant. He determined that the water covering at low tide is
just a wee bit less than Eaux Vives draws. No star fish or sea slugs
were harmed during this process. Examinations undertaken in the mornings
determined we had not even cleaned the bottom of the bulb at the
end of the keel of barnacles and/or bottom paint. We invented a wonderful
Easter Cake for breakfast -- Lance chopped an apple, and then mixed
the crumb topping, and Jim pretended to be a mixer at medium speed
for 4 minutes. It was superb. Then we went ashore and looked for
Easter eggs, but apparently, the Easter bunny had not been on Mosquito
Island, although the rains had left many wild flowers.
The next day’s stately march back down Virgin Gorda had
to be accelerated when calculated arrival time at the next stop
was moving past midnight. Ever fickle winds. We motored into Little
Harbor on Jost Van Dyke and were on the safely on the mooring ball
in time to grill tuna before bedtime due primarily to Jim's outstanding
flashlight handling. The next day, we set off in search of the
rumored "Bubbling Pool". The man we bought our dinghy
davits from had told us that he sometimes took his guests there.
He gave very vague instructions on how to find it. Other cruisers
also described its joys but were equally unclear on exactly where
it was. It is unmentioned in the cruising guides and the tourist
pamphlets. We headed back up to the narrow shoals separating Jost
Van Dyke and Little Jost Van Dyke and had lunch while examining
the lay of the land. We decided that a dinghy ride to the beach
on the JVD side and a hike out to the Atlantic side of the Island
would put us in the right general area. After we landed we spotted
some people hiking back from that general area and were given an
elaborate and enthusiastic description of how to reach the fabled
Bubbling Pool. This involved much pantomiming of bending over as
you duck under the sea grape skirting the salt pond; high stepping
as you climb the rocks and a vivid description of the little red
dog who would attempt to lead you astray when you approached. Unfortunately,
it was somewhat unclear on how to find the place. Sure enough,
it all worked (except for the dog - he showed up as advertised
but we did not fall for his tricks). What we found was a 40 foot
diameter half circle of steep sand beach facing a jumbled wall
of volcanic rock. Behind the rock crashed the northern swells coming
down from storms in the Atlantic periodically filling the basin
with foam and bubbles. Voila, "Eaux Vives".
We came down
to Great Harbor and caught Foxy's show. I gave Foxy the Latitude
38 which had a picture of him in it (actually, a picture
of a mask carved of him) and Susie gave him some new jokes. The
heavy rains had washed out much of the beach road and the harbor
turned almost entirely brown from run off from the steep hills
around it. We motored out the next morning into a haze of mist
and rain. Unable to see our goal, we set our course and made a
wet but not blowing approach to the mooring in Maho Bay. It was
Susie who discovered that the dinghy had once again tried to run
away just as we made the final turn to pick up a mooring. Fortunately,
recovering our wayward dinghy in the still bay was a snap. Had
it decided to make a break while underway, we might have faced
sterner challenges finding a grey dinghy in the grey seas and grey
skies of the crossing.
We put on our rain jackets and took a damp
dinghy ride to Maho Bay Camp, and had happy hour and dinner at
the restaurant with
it's spectacular view, 164 stair steps up from the beach. The next
day we took Jim to Trunk Bay and Cruz Bay and finally, to American
Yacht Harbor in Red Hook on St. Thomas, where we showed him how
many bars are within walking distance. In the morning, we had Jim
in a cab at 7am, sleepy from a night of listening to all the noise
on land. Then we went to the laundromat and washed all the towels
which had developed a musty odor after being used to sop up leaks,
without a sunny day to dry them out. We got ourselves out of the
marina and back to Maho Bay. Today, I hung cloths up to give shade
in the cockpit, as it is hot, muggy and not breezy. The boat turned
completely around, so that my shade was in the wrong place, so
I moved it. The boat turned around again in light breezes. I was
too lazy to move my shade, so I moved around in bits of shade,
until, the boat moved around again, in reversed breezes so that
the shade was again correct. Susie goes "Island". |
