A view of the BVIs

It’s an interesting thing, sailing these Virgin Islands. You longingly look forward to getting here…you arrive…they’re wonderful…gorgeous…magnificent …and fun…but now what? We sort of feel like we’re partied out! LOVE the snorkeling. I could do that all day every day…well maybe not ‘all day every day’ but a lot. But not every place has that available. We are staying in and around the USVIs and the BVIs in anticipation of our youngest son and his wife coming to visit. Skip and Kim. We can’t wait to see them and are planning our route for their short stay with us. And we are anxious to show them some of our favorite spots in the short time they’re here.

But in the meantime…we’ve decided these BVI islands are pretty much just tourist islands. That’s not a bad thing but…it’s interesting for us, as full time cruisers who live on their boat all the time. We like to find places to explore on the islands and so far it seems these are mostly resorts/shops/restaurants/bars. They are so beautiful, but there are so many charter boats. And all the islands seemed to be geared to charter boats or big cruise ships. I would venture to say there are 8 charter boats for every 2 privately owned boats. Or more. And that’s fun. I don’t mean to sound negative but it’s sort of an invasive thing. In a way. We are tourists, too, so that’s kind of an odd observation but what I’m getting at is when we go to a new island here, it’s about grabbing a mooring ball or an anchor spot before the next guy gets it! Parking lot activity! Then it’s party city. And I love that…as most of you know I would, but when we are here all the time it gets a little much. I don’t want to sound like I’m whining and I actually feel really odd making these statements, but I guess I never realized how MANY charters there would be and how many people on each charter boat. But, then again, I would recommend people to do just that, as this is so great and fun and beautiful! I’m just a little worried about the space all these boats take up…particularly the catamarans. And trust me…I’m not what you might call an environmentalist, I just think we need to take care of what we have as best we can and I guess the number of people startles me a bit. When you snorkel some of these places you actually run into people! They’ve just come in on a big fat catamaran and there are 25 or 30 of them all at once trying to snorkel in a relatively small area. Then that boat calls their people back and a new boat comes in with the same thing. Interesting.

I’m all for people enjoying seeing all of this and having fun, and that’s exactly what we’re doing so I shouldn’t be worried about it, but I’m wondering what it will be like in a few more years? It feels like you’re in line at Disneyland sometimes out here. I don’t know the solution…or even if it’s a problem, it’s just my observation. I guess I didn’t expect this. And we can move on…to different islands south and we will. I think it just caught me by surprise as I have never been here before.

We’ve noticed in the BVIs… particularly since we have just reentered the USVIs where the anchorages are run by the parks dept… they cram the mooring buoys into their anchorages. Then they charge you $25/night. Here at Watermelon Bay on St John, USVI, where we are this day as I write, the moorings are far apart. You aren’t allowed to anchor here unless there are no moorings at all. So it seems more peaceful. They only charge you $15 here or $7.50 if you’re over 62 like us! At this spot there isn’t a noisy,‘I’m having too much fun’ restaurant/bar thing going. Trust me, I like those too, but I think this peacefulness is what it’s all about.

OK…enough of my pontificating and on to what we’ve been up to. Mostly seeing the beautiful BVIs and taking advantage of all I was just worrying about! Being tourists! =)

As we last left you we were in Sopers Hole. We ended up weathered in at Sopers Hole, BVIs for 3 days. It's a good protective harbor for not so great weather conditions. In the meantime we got lots of internet work done at the Jolly Roger where they have a good signal and great pizza and beer. Good combination for us. Finally, the weather turned gorgeous and we were ready to leave. Our next destination will be Norman Island. We filled up with water and provisions and tried to get our propane tank filled but failed to do so. Something about our little propane tank is not compatible with a lot of propane places. Well, that’s a pain in the rear. We had trouble in Puerto Rico, too, but they finally figured out how to fill it. We need propane to cook so it’s kind of an essential product. Though I guess we could eat out all the time. I’m not much for cooking anyway. =) But that wouldn’t be good. As much as I like having people cook and wait on me, those home cooked meals can’t be beat. So we will try to get it filled when we get to another marina area. After a bit of a George and Gracie morning, we’re off.

Our first stop will be The Indians, just off Pelican Island on the way to Norman Island. I believe it was named so because it looks like the feathers on the Indian’s headdress. It’s a wonderful snorkel spot. The jutting rocks make cliffs of sort on which the coral has grown. Unfortunately it’s very popular, too. We are still traveling with our friends on Sans Clés and they were able to find a mooring ball right away. We had to drive around and around and wait for one of the other boats to finish before we could snag a mooring. [Cue my whining rant at the beginning of this post about finding a parking spot.] There are only a few moorings available here, and that’s a good thing. That way there are not so many people snorkeling about at one time. So we patiently waited. We noticed a boat making preparations as if to leave so we stationed ourselves near in a position that said…”this is our spot…just TRY to take it from us!” There were other boats waiting as well. Finally we can jump in and enjoy. Snorkeling is such a peaceful thing. You are floating and all you hear is your breathing. I like it. And I love seeing the different fish. The coral is interesting, but the fish are what I love. Just watching them.

Now to our final destination, Norman Island in the Sir Francis Drake Channel. To the Bight, which is a well protected anchorage there. We grab a mooring ball after checking to see if there were places to anchor…and settle in. Norman Island is referred to as Treasure Island. It’s beautiful here. Apparently legend has it that there is sunken treasure about. Perhaps I shall dive and recover doubloons! We jump in the dinghy and go into the Pirates Bight restaurant for lunch. It’s fun to see people at these restaurants as everyone is in a great ‘I’m on vacation!’ mood… in their swim wear or shorts and flip flops. My kinda place, 98% of the time. We watched some folks play a game of stacking blocks of wood. Often there are silly games of this sort to challenge you at these places, particularly the more casual spots like this.

Gorgeous day, the next one! I relaxed in the morning on the bow of the boat with my book and watched the goings on in the little harbor. So nice. In the afternoon we dinghied over to Treasure Point and snorkeled and explored the caves which were fabulous. We snorkeled a long time. Loved it. A charter company dumped off about 20 people and that was annoying as it stirred up the water too much, but it was still fun. We dinghied back and had a beer at the Willy T, aka the William Thornton, a floating restaurant/bar named for the architect of the US Capital building. Our guide book said the vessel is a replica of a topsail lumber schooner and measures 93 feet long. Stories of raucous fun and abandon run rampant about the Willy T. It’s all pretty much validated by the x-rated slide show that continually plays at the bar showing the antics of past patrons. =) We decided to come back for dinner later so we made reservations just in case. Dinner was fun. Not the greatest but it didn’t matter. People start piling on the Willy T as the night goes on. WHAT A GREAT DAY!

Here at the Bight and also at Cooper and Peter Islands, the supply vessel Deliverance makes rounds about 5pm to see if you need anything. They have just about everything you might be lacking. And they take your garbage! For a fee of course. But sometimes that’s a great service. Looking for places to take your garbage can be a challenge. Some places are free…some charge you a small fee. Also if you need anything special you just hail Deliverance on the VHF and they will bring it to you. Pretty neat little business. Randy likes it best when the cute girls in their bikinis deliver. Yeah, yeah, yeah…

We decided to move closer to the inside of the bay and try to anchor, saving us $25/day. Not sure why they have to charge so much. We did find a good spot as did Sans Clés. Excellent. Then it started to rain. We set up our rain catcher, which I made for days such as this. Kinda funky but it works pretty well! It blows around when empty and the wind is going crazy so not sure if that’s a good thing. But what a concept, yeah? Catching your own fresh water? We did catch some water in our bucket and in our rain catcher. Pretty cool. Our boat holds 160 gallons of fresh water, which is pretty good. We figure we average maybe 10 gallons of water per day, give or take. So we are good for a long time, but it would be so fun to top off the tank with rain water.

The night was busy! Pirates Bight had music…sort of reggae…wannabe reggae. They weren’t very good but they were loud! I had to put earplugs in when we went to bed. They didn’t last long. Willy T had music, too, but we were far enough away from them to not hear it much. The harbor was busy with dinghies zipping here and there. When you looked out…there was a ‘sea’ of anchor lights from all the boats. Pretty cool. Wish I could have captured that on film. We had an early dinner and watched more episodes of Deadwood. We bought all 3 seasons in Puerto Rico. We started watching the series when we lived in Virginia, but then we stopped HBO and never finished it. Love that show. Hate when it will be over. We don’t watch TV as we have no antenna or cable, so movies it is…or books. We do tons of reading, too. And… Sudoku. And…play cards, dominoes, etc. And…I beat Randy at Scrabble. The wind and rains came up again that night. We caught more water in our bucket and in our rain catcher.

Next day was nice. We piled in our dinghies and went in to the Pirates Bight to have lunch and work on our computers. That is we tried to work on computers. We can get a small signal from the boat but we wanted to go in and get a strong signal. We were working great when their system went down. Ugh! Finally Terri asked them to try to reboot it and it was fine. They just aren’t tuned into computers like we are. =) They could care less if the system is working right or not. Made me miss my tech guys from work! Terri and I played Scrabble. She won. Crap. I need to tune up my brain. There was more music that night from the Pirates Bight, but this time the band sounded 100% better and not as LOUD! Holy Cow. I just read what I wrote and I sound OLD! There was a time when I would have been there, where the music is, dancing my brains out! I still do that now and then, but not every night. Thank heaven. But it does make me sound old writing that. Goodness. We watched more Deadwood and I finished my book, and started another. Saw a topless lady on a Swedish boat today. Randy got all excited until he zoomed in on her with the binoculars. Guess she was older than he was expecting. She piled in a dinghy with 3 other guys…that also looked older…and off they went! Somewhere! Maybe to snorkel? We weren’t sure. Hmmmmm….

The next day we departed the Bight on Norman Island. Just as we got outside, our engine overheated. Oops! “Good eye, Randy.” Part of our routine when motoring is watching the engine rpms, the oil pressure and the temperature. Ran caught it right away. “Stop the engine, El, while I put up the sails!!” We were heading to Cooper Island and at this point were just off Pelican Island where the Indians snorkel area was. We stopped the engine, Randy pulled up the mainsail and went below to see what was wrong while I manned the helm. It was a fan belt. Randy scrambled around and found the new belt in his spare parts duffel and proceeded to change it. I was monitoring the boat, at sail, in very light winds and felt we were getting too close to Pelican Island. “Uh…Ran. I’m going to tack. I don’t like the direction we’re going and that we’re getting so close to Pelican Island.” “Roger that”, Randy mumbled with his head inside the engine compartment. I tacked through the wind to point the boat away from the island. It was a good move. I had to reach through the dodger opening and muscle the boom over to allow the wind to catch the mainsail as there was virtually no wind. It all went well. Randy got the belt changed, we started up the engine and she worked perfectly. Excellent. Love that smart husband of mine that knows how to change fan belts. He’s my hero!

We were headed to Salt Bay to snorkel on the ship wreck of the Rhone before proceeding on to Cooper Island. According to Wikipedia, the RMS Rhone was a British packet ship owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. She was wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands on 29 October 1867 during a hurricane. We grabbed a mooring ball at the wreck site. The seas were pretty busy but it was fine. It was an interesting snorkel experience. Ran and I swam from the boat to the wreck. Terri and Lyman anchored farther out so they took their dinghy. From there we motored to Cooper’s Island at Manchioneel Bay. We grabbed a mooring and relaxed. We missed our first grab which is the first time that happened. I didn’t have the boat facing into the wind and the wind pushed us past the pennant grabbing spot. No problem, I turned the boat and we tried again. We relaxed and had lunch and then dinghied over to snorkel at Cistern Point. Now this is quite a feat for me. Dinghying over to snorkel. The dinghy over…I can do. The jumping in the water from the dinghy…I can do. Getting back into the dinghy from the water…not easy for Ellen. Randy rigged up a stirrup on a line across the bow of the dinghy so I can get a leg up. Not an attractive site but it works. =) While snorkeling I saw a barracuda so I quickly swam back to the boat hoping that guy wasn’t following me. They do like to follow you. And they won’t harm you if you leave them alone but they look imposing. I didn’t want to look back at him because I didn’t know if he saw me and I didn’t want to know if he was still there!

After a great day of snorkeling we went back to the boat and waited for our dinner reservations while watching everyone come into the anchorage and try to grab mooring balls. It can be very interesting watching other boats. Sometimes Randy and I are really catty and rate them on how well they are doing. We’re so perfect, you know. =) We gussied up and went in for dinner with Lyman and Terri. It was very good. We toasted with Bushwackers and my Painkiller! Randy is letting his hair grow long and he looked extra handsome that night. Very suavé and captain-of-the-boat-like. It was another really good evening with Terri and Lyman.

We had a Tania Aebi siting at Cooper Island. Tania Aebi completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 26 foot sailboat between the ages of 18 and 21. Most of us cruisers have read her book Maiden Voyage about her trip. Quite a feat. Today there are two 16 year old girls trying to do the same thing but they’ve got a lot more equipment they can use now. Still, quite a feat. Tania now, apparently, does training on sailboats and there were 2 charter boats full of women moored there at Cooper Island that she was in charge of. Kind of neat for us to see her.

Next day we left Cooper Island to try to catch a mooring at The Baths on Virgin Gorda. We didn’t leave early enough, darn it. There were only yellow buoys left and Randy and I thought they were designated commercial use only. We later found out this was not true at this spot. Terri and Lyman took one and asked about it when they went ashore. Apparently it is ok to grab one of those for the day. We went on in to Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor where we had reservations for 2 nights. We can visit The Baths another day. We have time. We easily got into the marina. Nice place, but small. We had lunch and a beer and watched all the Sunsails charter people bring their charter boats back, again rating how they did. We are so tacky! We also watched some apparently wealthy people have lunch on the back of their large yacht. It was odd to us why they had their yacht facing the shore restaurant instead of facing the ocean? As we are sitting there having our burger and beer, they are being served by several crew quite a fancy meal with wine. Ahhh…the life of the rich and famous. In the marina we got on the internet…so nice to have it on the boat. YAY. I need to get my fix on the internet. We relaxed and at happy hour took our cocktails down to Sans Clés, who had since arrived, and sat there for hours analyzing life. Another great day.

Busy day, the next. Had the laundry done. It cost too much, but it was nice having someone else wash/dry/fold while I worked on other chores. I finally mended the dodger. It's like wrestling with a crocodile trying to get that thing in the sewing machine. Stupid dodger/bimini hasn’t lasted worth a darn. I keep having to mend it. The threads have rotted out and the canvas, supposedly good quality Sunbrella, has faded terribly. This is about the only thing I’m unhappy with on our boat. I love the style of the dodger/bimini, but for the amount of money we spent it sure hasn’t lasted.

Randy worked on a bridal for the dinghy so we can tow it if we want. We went to the little store to get provisions. Spent too much money on lousy coffee. I miss my Starbucks French Roast! For the life of me I can’t figure out why Starbucks hasn’t invaded this area yet. The Pottses (Terri and Lyman) came over for happy hour and we again solved the problems of life and reminded ourselves of our favorite movies. Later Ran and I finished watching Deadwood. Darn it. I wish they made more seasons. I’m going to miss it. Slept really good. Not always the case.

Off to Gorda Sound today. We sailed a tiny bit, then motored in. It’s still really windy. You might say that’s good for a sailor, but too much wind in the wrong direction doesn’t make for good travel. This area has lots to see: Saba Rock, the Bitter End Yacht Club, Leverick Bay and some other anchorages. We toured around and found a good spot to anchor off of Prickly Pear Island. We can dinghy in to Saba Rock and the Bitter End and to Leverick Bay from here. This is the last of the BVIs after which we will go on to the Leeward Islands when we're ready. The water doesn’t seem as clear at our anchorage but maybe that’s because of the winds and currents. But it’s a beautiful blue. We watched a gorgeous tall ship come in and another multi masted cruise ship come in. It’s nice to have a good anchorage that’s close to all we need to see. It’s still very windy but not rocky too much. Tonight we watched a Die Hard movie. We’re running out of movies! There is lots of book trading as we go along but not so much with movies. We trade back and forth with Sans Clés but I think we’ve about seen all of our inventory.

Today we went in to Saba Rock for lunch, taking our computers to catch up on stuff. It’s a beautiful day but it’s kind of a choppy ride in the dinghy. And our dinghy engine hasn’t been working well…STILL! I’m so sick of that stupid Yamaha 9.9 four stroke piece of crap! =) Just venting. The lunch was ok and VERY expensive. Beers were $5.50. Too much! It was almost $70 for the 2 of us for lunch including drinks. Nice place though. Since we are anchored off of Prickly Pear Island which is a ways out the trip in with the dinghy got Randy VERY wet. The water always splashes on the side he needs to sit on to run the engine. Should have bought a hard bottom dinghy.

It was a really windy night so Ran and I were up and down all night, making sure things were ok. We both dove on the anchor this morning just to check and it hadn’t budged at all. Love our Rocna anchor! We went into the Bitter End Yacht Club today. Another wet dinghy ride and our engine was really acting up today. The Bitter End is not really a yacht club, but a resort. It’s beautiful, but we were a little disappointed in the place. It’s very expensive. I guess that’s to be expected. They only had a buffet to offer at the main restaurant for $28 per person. Didn’t look like what we wanted. We ate lunch at their pub instead. We had quesadillas that we shared. They were pretty good but, again, it’s not enough for the price. But the place is just gorgeous. Terri and I found some lounge chairs overlooking the beach and sat and talked all afternoon while Lyman and Randy did the hike of the island. That was fun. Now we’ve decided to dinghy across to Leverick Bay thinking we would hit their happy hour and therefore cheaper drinks! But when we got there, their happy hour didn’t start until 5! Ugh! It was only 4:00! At the Bitter End and Saba Rock the happy hours started at 4:00. Doggoneit! Well…we’re here…we need to order drinks. What the heck. Bushwackers and my Painkiller ordered up. $8 each. And they’re too small for that price. Ugh. Oh well! We still had a lovely time with a lovely view. Tomorrow off to Trellis Island.

Off we go to Trellis Bay on Tortola. We sailed but it was hard. The wind was behind us and the seas were following but choppy. It’s hard to hold the boat steady and keep from accidentally jibing. To explain the jibe, here is a blurb from the web: A jibe or gybe is a sailing maneuver where a sailing vessel turns its stern through the wind, such that the wind direction changes from one side of the boat to the other. Because of the inherent dangers in jibing (uncontrolled, the boom can travel almost 180° with great speed and lethal force), communication with the crew is important. It’s also important for the helmsman (me) to pay attention! We did an accidental jibe once. I wasn’t paying attention. Damn. But it was ok. I concentrated much harder the rest of the journey. We are finding our auto helm, aka Max Headroom, doesn’t seem to be holding right. But then with the wind behind us and following seas it’s more of a challenge for Max, too. We will have that checked when we get to the marina in Redhook at the end of February.

We made our way into Trellis Bay and we see out friend Marc on Opal! Yay! Fun to see him here. It was very busy in there with several boats trying to find a mooring, though there were plenty to be had at this time of day. It gets a little more crazy toward the end of the day when people try to find moorings that are no longer available. I avoided banging into a couple of boats milling around the mooring, but it was ok. This weekend is the Full Moon Party here. Saturday night. That should be fun! Marc dinghied over when we were settled and we visited with him and then made plans with Marc, Terri and Lyman for dinner at the Last Resort, the restaurant that sits on the little island at the head of Trellis Bay. We got to the Last Resort by Happy Hour and had Painkillers…two for one. Yay! Really cute place. Had a wonderful dinner and conversations. First really great meal I can say we have had around here…particularly for the prices they charge in the BVIs. We had a cute little waitress from South Africa that Marc had already befriended. Of course.

Then the entertainment started setting up. We thought we might not stay…probably will be too loud and the same old reggae songs. The guy started playing. He was unbelievable! So good! He was not only an excellent musician but quite the personality. They were to have name-that-tune contests where the winners got to go on stage and have a shot of tequila and help sing the song. Oh great…this sounds a little corny. When he started playing Dock of the Bay, he asked us all to whistle with him. OK…been there, done that. But it was good! And Randy got to go up and have a shot because he’s such a good whistler. That Randy is so talented, you know. Then the entertainer guy...it would be nice if I could remember his name...started the name-that-tune stuff. OK…we may want to go now. But …again…it was good! The songs he chose were great. And the renditions he and a key board player did were OUTSTANDING. By now, I know I can do this. I know I can guess at least one of these songs. Five notes in…I’ve got it! “Come Together by the Beatles!” YAY! I won! Lyman guessed it, too, but he let me win. I go up, get my shot of tequila, entertainer guy says, “This is going to be the upbeat version.” Ohhh kayyyy. I stand there and they begin. And they’re playing fast. This is not normally a fast song. I can’t even think of the words at that speed so I mostly just dance around and sing the chorus when I hear it. They played an 8… minute… long version of that song. I stood up there for 8… …minutes making a fool of myself! But they are such good musicians, it was so fun. (The reason I know it was 8 minutes was because Terri video’d the whole frickin’ thing!) Goodness! What a fun, fun, fun night.

Next day the weather was kind of a crummy. We dinghied to shore and had burger at da Loose Mongoose. Good burger. We planned on going back over for the Full Moon Party that night but the weather was awful. Rainy, windy, so we stayed in. We would have been sopped by the time we made it to shore from riding in the dinghies. I hated to miss this once a month traditional party. Marc, of course, did manage to go and said it was great! This was his second Full Moon Party. The first one he attended was on New Years Eve. Marc KNOWS where the parties are. It’s ok…we had such a great time the night before that made up for missing this one. Randy and I ended up watching the movie Serenity…the ending movie of the Firefly series we had borrowed from Terri and Lyman. We liked the series but not really the movie.

The next day was STILL windy but now at least the sun was out. We all decided to stay another day at Trellis. I had wanted to visit Marina Cay just across the bay but the weather wasn’t great to take the boats over. So Terri got us all together and we took a ferry to Marina Cay. And it was free! Amazing. We just had to call for them to pick us up. We figured that out after we stood and waited for awhile. Duh. It was really pretty over there. We walked around, had lunch, and I got another cup for my collection from the Pussers Restaurant. Of course it was filled with a Painkiller. =) Fun day.

A rainy, windy, ugly morning. What’s the deal? We paid for sunshine…always! We left Trellis Bay and put the sails up. We are headed back to Norman Island. Terri and Lyman needed to get back to the USVIs as Terri’s mom and son were coming to visit. We also need to get back as we’ve been in the BVIs for most of the 30 days we are allowed and we are also expecting company the end of the month. So we’re working our way back to the USVIs together. It ended up being a nice peaceful sail. The rain went away and the winds died down a little. We again anchored in the Bight, about where we were before. And what should we see but Opal! Marc decided to head that way, too. Yay!

I always want to get in the water when we reach spots so I immediately donned my attractive snorkel paraphernalia and snorkeled on the anchor to check it and then around the edge of the bay. It felt good to be back in the water. Trellis Bay wasn’t conducive for snorkeling. After a bit we decided to move our anchor. We felt we were too close to the cement dock that was there… if the boat were to turn and swing that way. That’s better. The new spot is better. Marc stops by and he’s headed to the Willy T for drinks about 5-ish.

“OK…sounds good, but just drinks. We’ll have dinner when we get back.” Off we dinghy. Five hours later…. Holy Cow! I must have had a zillion painkillers! We met so many fun people and they were buying us drinks and we were talking and laughing and dancing and….whoa! It’s time to go! And the place hadn’t even really started to rock and roll! We were taking our dinghy back to the boat as many others were dinghying on to the Willy T. Holy Cow! I can’t keep up with that bunch. Marc, of course, stayed. He's younger, you know. =) It was sooooo fun. But we hadn’t eaten…ugh. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the evening. Memorable, though! It was memorable! We did the tourist/party thing that night. Yes...we...did.

Ugh…slept in. I’m sure you were expecting me to say that! Headache/stomach ache. Can’t do that anymore! But it was such fun. It’s a windy day (windy all night, too) but the sun is out. Everyone just sort of hunkered down on their boats today. We read books…played Soduko. I made spaghetti and found out I can get online from the boat. Good. We had a nice quiet night and the wind was quiet too.

Up and at ‘em, we left Norman Island to check out of the BVIs at Sopers Hole. Marc's engine was overheating...again...so he headed out to Roadtown where he had mechanics work on his engine before. Randy started to check the engine oil, as is routine, and there was oil all on bottom of engine compartment. Oops! Not sure what that was. Randy mopped it up and checked the oil. It looked ok but needed a little more. Then he tightened the oil filter. We’ll just keep an eye on that. She started fine and was ok all the way to Sopers. We had an early dinner with Terri and Lyman at the Jolly Roger. Pizza and beer. I had them put anchovies on my half of the pizza. =) As long as they don’t touch Randy’s half. Nice evening. Nice sunset.

Checked out of BVIs the next morning…easily. The guys were nice, and efficient, for a change. We said goodbye to the Pottses as they were heading into Redhook to get their new cockpit cushions they were having made. They then were headed to Christmas Cove in anticipation of their family coming on Saturday. We are kinda having separation anxiety! We’ve been together with Sans Clés most of the time for the last 2 months. We decided to head to Watermelon Bay. One of our favorite spots on St John. That’s where we spent Christmas Eve. It’s so nice here. Very peaceful. And very close to Sopers Hole so it was an easy motor over. Got a mooring no problem. Went snorkeling. Relaxed. Met the couple that are volunteers for this little bay for the parks dept. So nice. Ran into another couple we met through Terri and Lyman at Ocean World. Connie and Keith. They spent hurricane season at Luperon. They are both now working in Charlotte Amalie to build up their coffers. We had a very nice quiet evening. But didn’t sleep well! Maybe it was too quiet and still.

It’s so peaceful here. This is a very protected area with tall mountains all around. The area reminds Randy of the Pacific Northwest. With the green hills. The next day Randy worked hard on waxing the transom and the port side of Kwanesum. I worked on the blog out in the cockpit. Lots of fish around. We saw an iguana swimming across the anchorage. Not sure what he was doing! I guess just swimming from the tiny island to shore. Silly iguana. There is lots of fish activity, jumping all around and little fish swarming. We saw a shark, too. A nurse shark. Randy saw it later sitting under our boat. Nurse sharks aren’t known to be aggressive. But I didn’t jump in that day…just in case it was the shark’s day to go against that rule.Our mooring neighbors on a boat called Hanco stopped by and chatted from their dinghy and invited us over for cocktails at 4:30. They also invited us to ride with them into Cruz Bay in their large tender for lunch but we declined. We’re trying to save some money and we had work we were in the middle of. We did take them up on the cocktails on their boat. I made some tortilla chips and a dip and we took our drinks over. Very fun. Very nice people. From Ohio. Of course when we left their boat we had trouble starting the damn Yamaha! Finally… got it started. Ugh. YAMAHA FOR SALE!!!

Woke up and decided to move on. We left Watermelon Bay and motor sailed to Christmas Cove. Found a good spot to anchor. It is more rolly over here but so nice. The weather was good. We did have to ask a boat to move as they anchored too close for an overnight anchorage. You never know which way you will swing during the night and they were too close. They were very nice and moved. They seemed to have trouble anchoring. They were on an Island Packet that was chartered out of Redhook. We snorkeled for an hour or so on the reefs near our boat. Love it! Randy decided he was going to work on the dinghy engine. OK. Good idea! When we were in Sopers Hole Lyman and Randy took off the cowling and did a lot of cleaning and checking. (Terri and I played Scrabble. She beat me again, dammit.) So today…Ran decided to take apart the carburetor. Not an easy job! He checked everything and cleaned it out with gasoline. And he got it all back together! First time he’s done that. Where’s Al on Painkiller when you need him! =)

OK…the engine seems to run well now, according to his test run. Yay. Hope it stays that way. We had dinner of hash and salad and we sat in the cockpit until dark. Saw some neato phosphorescence in the water from fish. We weren’t expecting to see that here. Loved it. Nice evening. Breeze started coming in from the West which is different. Turned our boat the opposite way. Hope the anchor knows that. Randy slept in the cockpit, which he loves to do when there are no mosquitos or noseeums. I got online! Someone in the anchorage had wifi. Perfect.

The next day we decided we are not comfortable at this anchorage. The boat turned almost completely around during the night which meant the anchor twisted around, too. It looks ok, Randy dove on it, but we aren’t comfortable with it. And it’s rolly here. I think we’re going to leave. We wanted to stay and wait for Sans Clés and meet Terri’s mom and son, but we’re not sure when they’ll be here. We decided to just head over to Caneel Bay. We found a mooring just to the left of the entrance to the Caneel Bay Resort. It’s a perfect spot. And…tah dahhh…I have GREAT internet! Three bars! The weather turned out to be great this day. We are making lots of power with this sunshine. Now that we have that 3rd solar panel our power has been excellent at anchor. So nice not to have to worry about that. Ran and I decided to dinghy over to the resort for a fancy drink and share a quesadilla. They were having a super bowl party that evening but it was going to be $30/person and then …you buy your drinks on top of that. Cheap beer was offered, but it still seemed too expensive. Last year we were in Lucaya and watched the super bowl there with our friends from New Zealand, Robin and Peter. But this year we weren’t sure we wanted to spend the money. We walked around the resort, it’s beautiful, and then went back to the boat and had our own drinks in the cockpit. Cheaper! We will probably stay here a few days. It’s nice.

Another nice, relaxing day. The weather was beautiful. The water was calm. We had a nice late breakfast and I put the computer in the cockpit and started back on this blog. That is exactly what I had pictured myself doing before we left on this adventure. It was so nice. Sometimes people look at us funny when we lug our computers in…specially in the BVIs where there are a lot of charter people on vacation. They’re wondering why these people bring their computers on vacation. Terri got an odd look one day from a guy. The deal is…this is our life, so we have to get our internet where we can…to check our banking, to check email, to check the weather, to search websites for various things we’re looking for or need information on, or to Skype our families. It just happens that most places that offer internet are bars/restaurants. Oh well. They can just think either we’re very busy business people…or we’re weird. =) Steaks for dinner tonight, with my son-in-law Greg’s rice recipe that I love and tomatoes and avocados drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, feta cheese and walnuts sprinkled on top. Yummo! Dinner in the cockpit with an ocean view. Doesn’t get much better than that.

We will probably stay at this location another night or so. It’s a good spot. We are waiting until the21st when Skip and Kim will arrive on St Thomas, which is just right across the bay from here. I’ve got cleaning and provisioning to do prior to their arrival and we’ve already visited just about all the spots in this area so we’re just enjoying being at anchor…or on a mooring.
I’ve written this post off of a journal I’ve started to keep nightly. Not sure it’s the same rhythm as my other posts but it was certainly easier for me to put together. I’m not sure it reads as well, but you’re still getting the gist of our days on the boat. Cheers everyone. Stay tuned for another episode soon.

The blog returns!

Back by popular demand…well, perhaps not, but it sounds good…are the adventures of Randy and Ellen and their faithful boat Kwanesum, with sidekick dinghy Bob and chief auto helm Max Headroom. And now with additional characters on board: Hank…our Honda 2000 generator; Sunny3, our third solar panel; and Blue our new stereo (named because it lights up blue).

OK…my bad. I knew I was behind on my posting but now I’m realizing how FAR behind I am as I checked to see what I wrote in the last post! Which was the end of August. It’s now the middle of January. Hello??? Ellen??? Not sure if I’m getting lazy or having too much fun. I need to be in the ‘zone’ when I write and it appears the ‘zone’ has been long in coming. But I also haven’t been targeting the ‘zone.’ So it looks like it falls under the lazy category. If you don’t just sit down and write…the ‘zone’ doesn’t happen. I tend to post the pictures on Facebook, when I can get internet, and then carry on with my playing and not think about the blog. I must remedy this thinking. Have I said this before? Probably. Will I say it again? Probably.

With such a delay in posting, I have to go back over my notes of the past months. We have had so much fun…but for hurricane season we were a long time in one place.

LEAVING THE D.R.

Ending our stay in the Dominican Republic was bitter sweet. We were ready to go but hated leaving new friends behind. We packed in whatever we could in those last weeks. I failed to mention before, that while I was visiting family in California, Randy spent a few days in the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. Our friend Marc, on s/v Opal, had taken an apartment in Santo Domingo for a few months while waiting out hurricane season with his boat anchored in Luperón. Randy decided to take advantage of Marc’s stay in Santo Domingo and see the city Columbus frequented, the Zona Colonial. Taking a pretty decent bus and traveling for 3 hours or so, he arrived and proceeded to partake in festivities Marc lined up and tours of the city. I regret that I didn’t get down there to see the sites, but Randy said it was magnificent and so poignant walking the grounds that Columbus walked on.

Because of our lengthy stay in the D.R., the people we met became dear to us. I’m afraid it was a teary day for both Randy and I when we left Playa Cofresi, the neighborhood beach area where Ocean World is located. We said our goodbyes to all our new friends, which was very hard. As it turned out, we had to wait an extra week because the weather turned bad. So we had to say our goodbyes again. I hurried through them the second time because it was just too sad! We both hope to get back to the D.R. to see these wonderful people again. They have made a mark on our hearts.

And a cast of characters they were:

Our marina family:

James, the stoic, British Marina Operations Manager

Roberto (with blue sunglasses in pics), one of the greatest of Harbor Masters that have touched our lives

Always smiling, always appreciative, always there to help. So hard to leave Roberto.

Bernardo (in the black hat in pics), one of the dock workers
“¿Qué pasa?!” he would shout every time we saw him, often driving around in the dock cart. Always smiling, always teasing me. Always ready to get us anything we needed, even if he had to drive into town for it. He didn’t always find the right thing but, oh, how we loved him for trying. He would help us with our Spanish. How we cried when we hugged him goodbye.

Jose, one of the guards

“¡No ducha!” he would say, teasing us as we sat in the pool every afternoon, Randy with his Orange Julius (Randy’s concoction of orange juice and rum) and me with my tropical drink of whatever my mood was that day, splashing him while he pretended he would jump in. “No ducha… for 20 days!” he would tease, waving his finger back and forth. “Pew!” we would answer back, pinching our noses. So fun. He was so touched by our tears when we hugged him goodbye that he wrote down his name and phone number in case we needed anything. Many of the guards became good friends, but Jose was special.

DANNY & FLORENCIO, the pool dining area waiters

Always smiling, always helpful and friendly. When you stay in one place for 5 months you get to know everyone. I loved saying Florencio’s name. Flllooorrrennnciiioooo! It would always make him smile.

EDY, my laundry guy

LOVED having my laundry done, returned perfectly folded and smelling wonderfully clean. I do miss Edy. =)

IGOR AND CAROLYN, they took over the Conch Pearl (you will remember from Rum Cay) when Neil brought her in to Ocean World and then went back home. They were great. They worked so hard on the Conch Pearl to get her all ship shape to charter. Hoping to see them down island.

Our Playa Cofresí family:

JUAN, from the mini mercardoA quiet, gentle, handsome man. Always helping us with our Spanish. Supplied Randy with orange juice and rum for his Orange Julius drink and had the Snickers bars cold in the refrigerator for Randy’s sweet tooth.

CHRIS & MADY’S RESTAURANT, our home away from the boat

Chris, Mady, Jennifer, Jason, Christal, Johnny, little Ally and Denise…all family we learned to love. Sweet Shereen and Carlitos, family, too, and always getting us what we needed. Hard to leave these people.

JOHN DOBBS…our VERY special friend. With his perfect Atlanta southern drawl. So hard to leave John. He and Randy became very close friends. John would cook BBQ chicken every Sunday. Soooo gooood. We watched sports and drank Presidentes with John. Love him.

JOE & ANNE … (Picture coming J & E!) became VERY special friends and hailed from Canada. In charge of fun and frivolity and Tuesday night movies! They were so fun and helpful to us. Picking Randy up from the airport. Taking us to la ferretería. Going above and beyond. They have since moved back to Canada and we hope to do the Calgary Stampede with them some day. Joe and Anne had Canadian ‘drawls.’ =) Eh?

PHILLIP, who spent days wrangling with our sewing machine and helping us so much by repairing our dodger and bimini and making new awnings for us. In turn we gave him a stipend, enjoyed lunches with him and drinking Cuba Libres and Bloody Caesars. Phillip had a Tennessee drawl.

MARIANNE AND EDUOARD, from Germany…and their 3 scottie dogs. A fun, interesting couple that we were privileged to see often at the restaurant. We drank their German beer. Eduoardo always on the computer, trading stocks. Marianne…so fun to talk to with her German accent.

Always a grand time, and good quiet moments, with the gang at Chris & Mady’s. We miss them all… a lot.

DESPERADOs restaurant

KAREN & RANDY JOHNSON, fun, friendly, very generous. Loved the calamari they made there along with their burritos and queso dip. YUM! And the Johnson Java! Wonderful, chocolaty, coffee martini. They had the best margaritas in the neighborhood, too.

LAS CHURROS restaurant

Tim and his wonderful family that put on quite the show on a Sunday night with traditional dancing, serving us mouth watering mango margaritas and tapas.

AHORA restaurant...Saheel and Charley and Jenny. Eating good burgers at the beach bar with Presidente beer. Randy is growing his hair like Saheel’s ponytail. What a smile Saheel has. Charley, a charming, handsome young Dominicana whom we had good talks with… left before we did to visit his girlfriend in Germany. Never saw him again. He was worried about living in Germany, learning German when we met him, and concerned that her parents might not like him! Hope he’s doing well.

We had such fun in the D.R. at Playa Cofresi, partaking in a beach party for Phillip’s birthday, Christal’s birthday party at the new pool behind the restaurant, Sunday BBQ chicken made by John complete with corn on the cob and football, Tuesday night movies, Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, music put on by Chris which prompted much singing and dancing…. Staying in the D.R. meeting all these wonderful people was truly one of the highlights of our lives. They made us feel so at home. Randy took a brief week to fly to Oregon and visit his mom. Our new friends in the D.R. took great care of me while he was gone. Not that I needed that but it was nice knowing they were there if I needed them. Very nice.

Because we were delayed a week longer in Playa Cofresi due to weather, we were able to partake in one of the best parties ever! Halloween! Ocean World Marina went all out for Halloween…moving their disco downstairs in the dining room and preparing a cool haunted house that you had to enter to get in. The costumes were unbelievable. Ran and I scrambled around the boat trying to figure out a costume without making complete fools of ourselves. “Ran…what’s new with that? We are always making fools of ourselves.” :::smile::: Not sure he appreciated my humor.

But 1^st we started at Chris & Mady’s restaurant. Festivities began there with great costumes, good beverages, cigars and dancing. So fun. Then we moved down to Ocean World to check out the haunted house and the great costumes. In the meantime, while we were drinking and dancing and carryon, what turned out to be new friends were entering the harbor. They pulled in Halloween night to all the party festivities in their wonderful sailboat Allegro. Camilla and Peter.

We met Camilla and Peter the next day and became fast friends. After a couple more days of weather-waiting, it was time to go. Camilla and Peter decided to leave in the morning. We were going to leave that night, but waiting for night proved to be too frustrating for us. We were already a week overdue. So off we went…waving goodbye to the marina office, turning right and heading into the Mona Passage for Puerto Rico.

¡Vaya con Dios, Republica Dominicana!

THE MONA PASSAGE

It was uneventful for us! We had read and read about the trip across the Mona Passage…when to go, when not to go, what time of day to go, what time not to go, which course to take, which course not to take…. It was sort of a daunting trip hanging in front of us. One of the longer trips and the passage could have its quirks. Sometimes I think we read too much. We like to be über-prepared for our crossings, but after reading and reading you start to worry and worry. And it turned out to be just another day and a half on the water.

Originally we planned to leave with Fernando, a fellow from Uruguay who had his boat next to ours in Ocean World. He left his boat there for the hurricane season. Randy and I wanted almost perfect weather when we tackled the Mona Passage. We wanted plenty of days to get there and have 2 or 3 places to duck in should we need to. Fernando agreed. We checked all our weather sources and thought we were ready to go. We contacted customs and the navy who have to see us before we leave. All set.

Then a fishing boat came in with his tuna tower banged up. Randy walked over to talk to them. “Don’t go out there!” the fisherman said. “The waves are huge and we got banged up.” Allll…rightythen!! We shall wait.

Fernando was getting impatient. He wanted to leave soon and he wanted us to go with him. We explained to him, through a little bit of a language barrier, that we weren’t going unless the weather met all of our criteria. And it still wasn’t matching our specifications. Fernando went ahead. We weren’t ready. He made it fine and so did we, about a week later. By then Fernando had moved on as he was meeting his family in Trinidad. He was on a schedule. We were not.

The Mona Passage turned out to be very easy for us. It took us 1.5 days. Allegro being a much longer and therefore much faster boat made it in less than a day. We met up in Boquerón, Puerto Rico!

¡Hola Puerto Rico!

PUERTO RICO!

Boquerón! Marc on Opal was there, too! YAY! So fun to find the people we have met along the way when we pull into a new port, or when they pull into the port we’re in. We’re all headed in the same direction, give or take.

We chose Boquerón as our port of entry to Puerto Rico. It was recommended by the ‘guides’ and it proved to be a good decision. Now we have to check in. We called a phone number or two to see the best way to check into the country. One of the calls we made was to Raul Santiago. Though we can sometimes get worried silly reading so much in our cruising guides, they more times than not, become invaluable with their information. Obviously these guides are written by those who have gone before us, so they are tried and true bits of information. To call Raul proved to be one our best guide-following decisions.

Raul met us in front of one of the restaurants near the dinghy dock. Fun place, Boquerón. Lots of neat restaurants near the dinghy dock. (Lots of mosquitoes though!) Raul pulled up in his very used looking van with his daughter riding in the back. OK. Let’s do this. Off we go to Mayagüez where the ferries dock. We timed it perfectly to avoid the crowd coming off the ferries. We are met by a nice looking trim, cute, immigration senorita. She led us through all the paperwork and customs. Raul told us he was no longer able to take people to help them through customs and immigration, but he took us anyway. And the immigration gal said for him to call her anytime. That she would help. So nice, these people are.

It was a huge help having Raul take us there. We told him we were in need of a Yamaha outboard engine repairman and a marine store. He found both for us on the way back to the dinghy. Eric, the Yamaha repair guy followed us back to the dock and we immediately arranged for him to take our engine to be repaired. It needed maintenance and the carburetor needed cleaning. Remember our prior frustrations with our dinghy? This was one…now fixed. Perfecto!

Boquerón was quite the happening place…toward the end of the week. Beginning of the week proved to be very quiet. But by Wednesday or so, it got shaking…bands, singing, traffic driving through the little narrow streets, families and friends walking up and down, all hours of the day and night…mounds of fresh oysters and clams piled high at road side stands. With lemons and hot sauce, waiting for you to buy. We hesitantly shied away from them because they were not on ice or being kept cold in any way. It killed us to let these piles of savory goodness go past, but our instincts said no. Instead we found a neat tapas bar with Camilla and Peter. So good! And the music was so LOUD! Got to the point where you could not carry on a conversation anymore. But was fun while it lasted.

Days were spent at Galloways drinking beer and sitting on the computers trying to connect with home. I guess I shouldn’t say ‘home’ as home is our boat, but in this sense ‘home’ being our family and friends. One of my frustrations, as a computer/internet fan, is finding good sources of internet reception. It usually can be done, but can be frustrating. I know…not one of my best traits, but it’s my connection to friends and family. An instant pick-me-up for me, and an instant way for me to share our pictures and thus our adventures…right away. From the moment I figured out about computers I have loved them, explored them, ruined them, and hollered at them, but it’s something I really enjoy. From the games to uploading pictures to email to searching for information to reading the news to trying to watch Project Runway and American Idol, to Skyping the family….it’s my thing. Sometimes I get cranky, even though I’m in Paradise, if I can’t be in touch. Not sure if it’s good, bad, ok or not ok, it’s what I like. Therefore…finding sources of internet connection are part of my program. That and finding great cheeseburgers, great beer….and Painkillers! =)

We spent 10 days in Boquerón during which we rented a car and explored Puerto Rico. One of our plans for Puerto Rico was to be hauled out of the water and new bottom paint put on. While in Boquerón we contacted a fellow name Jose Becerros in Ponce. It was suggested that he was an excellent source for our bottom paint job so we called him and arranged to be pulled out of the water. While we had a rental car we decided to drive to San Juan by way of Ponce so we could talk to Ho Chi, as he is called, in person. We found the place in Ponce, stopped had lunch and talked with Ho Chi and the person in the office to arrange our haul out. Excellent! All is on the books.

From Ponce we drove into Old San Juan and explored this wonderful old town. It was a gorgeous drive. Puerto Rico is just beautiful. And Old San Juan is just as you’d expect. Though it was raining we had a nice day walking around the cobblestone streets. While there…we had to find West Marine! A sailor can’t go too long without West Marine. We knew there was one in San Juan, but we weren’t exactly sure how to get there. And when we called…the message was all in Spanish. Shoot.

While wandering around Old San Juan we of course mosey into a neat little bar and have a beer. While there we ask the bartender to please call West Marine for us so we could understand how to get help on the phone. As it turns out, the bartender knew where West Marine was! YAY! She gave us directions, we finished our beers, and we were on our way. A few hundred dollars later we were on our way back to Boquerón …with all the things we needed, and some that we didn’t… but I wanted anyway.

Now it’s time to head on to Ponce and getting our boat hauled out. We leave Boquerón early on a beautiful November morning. We decided we also want to put on another solar panel to boost our power when at anchor while we are in Ponce. We called Ho Chi about that and he thought he could do that no problem. Excellent. On our way to Ponce we stop at La Parguera, a little anchorage we can duck into. Another Island Packet, Marilou, whom we briefly met before we left Boquerón, also anchored in this little area. It was fun getting to know Ann and Jay on Marilou. La Parguera is a sweet little area. We swim a little and take a cocktail cruise in our dinghy to see the neat houses all along the shore. It’s like a Caribbean Venice.

We spend one night at La Parguera and are then up early to head to Ponce. “If we get there before noon, maybe they will pull us out today.” Randy was hopeful that this would be the case. Particularly since we had it all arranged and they were expecting us. We were scheduled to be pulled out the next morning.

We arrive in Ponce and try to find a place to anchor. The area is full of private mooring balls which makes anchoring a chore. We drive slowly around trying to find a good spot and drop the anchor out near the yellow midchannel marker. There is a malacón (boardwalk) nearby and the Ponce Yacht Club. We aren’t feeling great about where we are anchored but know that it will just be for one night. “Let’s call Ho Chi and see if they can pull us out soon.” Randy makes the call to let them know we’re here and ready to go when they are. They’ll call us back. We wait. Not much to see from this anchorage and we feel we’re close to the public dock where a large party-type boat is docked. We wait. No call. Randy calls again. “Oh, let me check and I’ll call you back.” Ok. Seems as though he forgot about us. We wait. It’s now late in the afternoon and obviously they aren’t going to pull us out today. That’s ok. We should be scheduled for the morning. We can see the travelift sitting there unused. Oh well. We wait. Finally Ho Chi returns our call. “It looks like we won’t be able to pull you out until Thursday or Friday. (Today is Tuesday.) The yacht club regatta is this weekend and they need to pull out the committee boat to work on it.” “Uh….Ho Chi…we made a special trip over here to schedule the haul out with you and the marina and they said tomorrow morning. We asked you if there was anything going on at the time or any problem with getting hauled out on time and you had said there wasn’t. Have you checked on ordering the solar panel?” “Uh…no…I’ll have to find out about the solar panel. I….” “Ho Chi…forget it! Obviously you aren’t worried about accommodating us, we do not like waiting in this very crowded uncomfortable, noisy anchorage, so we’ll just weigh anchor in the morning and go. Thanks anyway.” Well…so much for prearranged planning! We just didn’t have a good feeling about the whole thing. Other cruisers have enjoyed this anchorage and working with the boatyard, but apparently it was not to be for us. We will figure something else out.

Off we go, early the next morning, to Salinas, Puerto Rico. What a great anchorage this is! Lots of room, nice and calm, lots of boats around. We drive around looking for a good spot to drop the anchor and do so. Not sure it’s a good spot though…we seem too close to one of the boats. We sit and wait to see what we think. In the meantime, in comes Marc on Opal! Yay! As it turns out there are several other boats there that Marc knows from Luperón. They call themselves the Luperón ex-pats as they all stayed there for hurricane season. Nice people.

We visit briefly with Marc and then decide we do NOT like where we are anchored. Up comes the anchor and we drive around and around testing the best spots. Like a dog that circles and circles before he finally lays down. There… we choose a spot that has plenty of room around it and is sort of away from the madding crowd. Sometimes being farther away is quieter and you know you have plenty of room around you. The more we anchor, the more we are getting used to picking good spots and trusting what we do.

Now I get on the phone. We knew that we could also be hauled out in Puerto del Rey marina in Fajardo. It’s a well recommended boat yard area. I call them and ask for companies that can haul us out and do the work we need. I am given two options and I pick Ken at Island Marine. I call, he answers, I tell him what we want done, he asks me to email him the information and he’ll get us a quote. I email him, he immediately sends a quote back. Now this is more like it! I like to see everything in writing and know exactly what’s going to happen. The good news is the price is right and he can order the solar panel we need. The bad news is…we have to wait until the first part of December. But this time that is no problem for us. We like where we are anchored, we like Ken and his prompt and diligent responses to us, we can wait. Having good communication is such a key element in reducing stress when you’re spending money and having work done such as this. We are feeling good about Ken, his assistant Jenifer and Island Marine boat yard at Puerto del Rey. Excellent. We settle back to enjoy Salinas. We will be here 2 weeks.

At Salinas we enjoy meeting and getting to know the Luperón ex-pats as well as Paul and Lynn on s/v Kiana and Sue and Rick on s/v Orion. We glean much appreciated information from Paul and Linn who have been living the cruising lifestyle for 10 years. They have a wonderful big Wauquiez, which is the kind of boat we had in the San Francisco Bay before we moved east and bought Kwanesum. We learn a lot about our travels ahead, while enjoying gin and tonics in the cockpit. We learn what to expect, what to see, where to leave our boat during the next hurricane season down in Trinidad the latitude where we must be to accommodate our insurance restrictions. Randy and I just love this part of our cruising life, meeting new people. Not only do we get to see new countries, but we have the privilege of meeting wonderful, new, interesting people. At least 99% of them are. You know there are always a few that aren’t quite as wonderful. =)

Sue and Rick (insert picture of Sue & Rick, Ellen!) have their boat in the marina at Salinas and are planning to retire and go cruising soon. They are so great and Sue is quite the entertainer on her boat. As is Lynn. Many gin and tonics and Sue’s famous rum drink she likes, produce wonderful cockpit conversations while the sun sets. I highly recommend this life.

Through Paul and Lynn we were invited to a nice Thanksgiving Day feast at Drakes, a little bar/restaurant near the marina owned by Luis and Nancy. Luis smoked a turkey and we all brought side dishes. Since we couldn’t be with our own families this was the next best thing. You just have to remember to bring your mosquito spray with you everywhere you go.

We had GREAT burritos at Barkita topped with Franks Hot Sauce, which I HIGHLY recommend and have purchased since, every time I see it in the store. We sauntered down every other day or so to Cruisers Galley to get on the internet and have lunch and a beer. Always meeting colorful characters along the way. Some more colorful than we need.

And now we are ready to head to Puerto del Rey. It’s located a ways around the east end of Puerto Rico so we decided to stop at Puerto Patillas along the way. That will break it up into shorter trips. Besides it’s fun stopping in these little anchorages. We are up early, which is the best time to leave. And it’s always so beautiful in the morning. “Should be a short trip, El. It’s not far at all.” Love that.

The seas are kind of tumbly but because it’s a short trip it shouldn’t be bad. We are going along quite nicely when Randy notices a small fishing boat off to starboard, waving a red flag in distress. One of the codes of being a good sailor is to always stop to help those in need. Randy slows Kwanesum and hails the coast guard. “United States Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum, over.” “This is the United States Coast Guard, go ahead.” “Roger, Coast Guard, we are spotting a small fishing boat in distress at…” Randy

gives our latitude and longitude at the time. “Roger, Captain. We request you stand by the vessel until we can be of assistance. We had received notice of flares in this area that we are investigating. Can you get close enough to the vessel to ask if they had released the flares? Over.” “Roger, Coast Guard, will do.”

We maneuver Kwanesum closer to the little fishing boat. The seas are no help. It’s like a washing machine out there. Up, down, up, down, sideways, up, down…. I am hanging on to the stern rail on the starboard side so I can talk to the fishermen, hoping they speak English, and trying to practice my PPM (proactive puking management for those just joining us.) Randy steers the boat close as possible and I try to holler to find their status. I, however, don’t hear worth a damn anymore, and I don’t wear my hearing aids when I’m on the water, so that’s kind of a useless tactic. We switch places. Randy is able to communicate with them, and, yes, they speak English. Their engine quit. They did not send up flares. We relay the information back to the Coast Guard. In the meantime a Coast Guard helicopter has come hovering over. Oh good. They can take care of things. But as it turns out, the helicopter was out only to see why flares were sent up the past early morning. So the helicopter left. Helloooo??? Now what?

“Uh….United States Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum standing by the distressed vessel waiting for further instructions.” We did not want to bring these people onboard unless absolutely necessary. First of all the seas would be very difficult to manage to get near enough to bring them aboard. Second of all, we have heard of situations such as this where it is a setup to get aboard and rob you. Third of all we don’t have a ladder available for boarding the side of our boat anyway. “Coast Guard…still standing by…” “Uh roger Captain.” “Randy…now what are they doing? They are holding up their oar and it’s cracked in half!” They had started to row to shore making hardly any headway at all as the seas were so high and the shore was a long ways away. We watch them maneuver their little boat close to a fishing buoy and tie off to that. Well at least they have that available to cling to.

“Uh, Coast Guard, two of the people on the boat donned snorkel gear and jumped over the side.” Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? What the heck are they doing?? Keep in mind, that while all of this is going on we are circling and going back and forth slowly to stay near them….slowly…Kwanesum bobbing and weaving through the big seas…Ellen practicing her PPM. “Uh, Captain, can you get close enough and ask them what they are doing?” We circle around and try again to get close enough to talk to them. Randy hollers, “What are you doing??!!” “Oh! We’re cleaning the bottom of the boat. We figured as long as we’re out here waiting we might as well be doing something useful.” Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me???? “United States Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum.” “Go ahead Captain.” “Uh, roger, we spoke to the vessel in distress and they have attached themselves to a fishing trap buoy and are in the water cleaning the bottom of their boat.” Silence. “Roger, captain. Don’t they know it’s against regulations to tie themselves to a fishing trap buoy?” Huh? Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? The US Coast Guard is worried about them breaking the regulation for tying to a fishing trap buoy? This is getting weirder by the minute.

The coast guard had indicated when we first talked to them that they were sending someone out. No one was coming. Oh great…now what are we supposed to do? We kept standing by to be sure they were ok, by circling and driving back and forth. Well this puts our travel to Puerto Patillas a lot longer than we anticipated! We notice out of nowhere, another little fishing boat come up and throw the distressed vessel a line. Yay! Where did they come from? They are going to tow them to shore. Perfect. Now we can get on our way. “United States Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum.” “Go ahead Captain.” “Uh, roger. Another fishing vessel has come along side and is towing the distressed vessel to shore. Requesting permission to go ahead with our plans to Puerto Patillas.” “Roger, Kwanesum. Can you continue standing by the vessel for another 20 minutes or so to be sure they will make it to shore?” Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? “Uh, roger. Kwanesum standing by.” Oh well….good Samaritan and all, it’s the right thing to do to stand by for a while. We will eventually get to our destination. We slowly drive alongside the two fishing vessels. The guys on the distressed vessel wave at us signaling thanks for standing by them. That made us feel good. We stood by for the additional 20 minutes or so and requested permission again with the coast guard to be on our way. Permission granted. We can now continue on to Puerto Patillas in time for sunset.

Puerto Patillas is a quaint, calm small anchorage. We arrived in the late afternoon. We poured ourselves a nice drink and watched the sunset in our cockpit. Nice. The area is very charming and I take my usual tons of pictures. We are just there for the night so enjoy a nice meal I rustled up and some wine. I’m telling ya people…you gotta try this!

All in all it was a good day.

Up early and on to Puerto del Rey marina. We are ready to be in a marina. It’s a nice change of pace having tons of power and tons of water available. Long, hot showers. Excellent. We have arranged to go in to the marina a couple of days earlier than our haul out time. We arrive on a Friday. They will pull us out Monday. We have a good trip around the east end of Puerto Rico and pull on in. And what to our wondering eyes should appear but GravyBoat!! Hooray! Our friends Jack and Marianne who we were berthed next to in Deltaville when we started all this craziness. We knew they had kept their boat on the hard at Puerto del Rey during hurricane season and we knew they had arrived back to Puerto Rico but we weren’t sure where they were. And now we find them only 3 berths down from us. How fun. Break out the beer! Oh, wait…Jack is having a serious conversation with a rigger. Beer later. In the meantime Randy is able to hire the rigger to go up our mast and check all our rigging, too. A good thing to do now and then. All is well. Excellent. Now, bring out the beer.

While in Puerto del Rey we also found our friends on Archipelago that we met in Ocean World. They had stopped by O.W. on their way to P.R. Donna and David. They used to work at Puerto del Rey and now are back here working for the owner…designing the new island he bought. Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? =)

Donna is an architect. What a great job, eh? She confirmed our excellent decision to use Ken at Island Marine for our haul out. That made us feel really good about our choice.

We had a good experience with our stop at the marina. We were able to enjoy time with Jack and Marianne. We found a perfect Mexican restaurant per their tour guiding one day as we rented a car. Great margaritas and food! Yummo! Our haul out went great. We ordered our new Honda generator, from Camping World of all places and it was delivered, after a little fiasco with the shipping, as we were to get it in Salinas originally. Our new Rocna anchor was delivered and put on. Ken’s crew did an excellent job of attaching our new solar panel. They were superb with the bottom paint job. We were so glad we made the decision to have the work done by Island Marine.

We drove through the hills one Sunday to find the best pig BBQ ever in the southern rain forest of Puerto Rico; the area Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, the chef’s extraordinaire from the travel channel, recommended. What a beautiful drive that was. We didn’t make it to the big rain forest, El Yunque, but our drive through the other little rain forest area was perfect. At the BBQ we had the best food and pina coladas and Heinekens and watched everyone dance. It was a great day. All come out on a Sunday for dancing and fun at the BBQ.

We drove up the coast to Best Buy and bought Blue, our new Sony stereo for the cockpit. We were disappointed to not find good Bose speakers for down below but we will keep looking. They only had big speaker packages for a whole theater type set up. We just need 2 small speakers. That can come later. In the meantime we have a stereo we can hook our iPods too while watching the sun set. All these years….and I do love my music….we have not had music in the cockpit. Just with my standalone Bose docking station for my iPod and that takes electricity. Now we are all set. Happy me! Happy me!

We drug out the Sailrite sewing machine as we AGAIN had to repair our dodger. The StrataGlass had torn on the side panel. Ugh…I thought we had re-enforced it all. Apparently not. In the meantime I also got the name of a fabulous fabric store in Fajardo that had all the outdoor type material I could ever imagine! I was looking for screening type material to make shade panels for the cockpit. The sun can get very hot out there and we want to be able to put up panels to diffuse the light and keep it cool. This store I could have spent a fortune in. It’s called ONE, or something like that. Unfortunately I didn’t have a fortune or the time to look at everything. I found the Textaline I needed for my screening and some other things. We repaired the dodger and I made my screens. They work just great. We just need to figure out how we want to fasten them to our bimini so they will be easy to put on and off. We will live with them awhile to see what might work best.

OK…are we ready to hit the Spanish Virgins? Bottom paint done? Check. New solar panel? Check. Honda generator? Check. Rocna anchor? Check. New stereo? Check. Dodger repaired? Check. Screens made? Check. Spent a fortune at West Marine? Check.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

THE SPANISH VIRGINS

Ok, Captain Ran, we are heading into the beginning of the Virgin Islands. Technically the Spanish Virgins belong to Puerto Rico, but they are part of the Virgin Islands to our thinking. We head out of Puerto del Rey and into some great winds for sailing. Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? You mean we can finally sail? You betcha. Randy has all 3 sails up: the jib, the staysail, and the mainsail. We are on a beam reach and we are haulin’! Love it! Our plan is to sail over to Vieques to Green Beach and spend the night. We are heading that direction. “Kwanesum, Kwanesum, this is Sans Clés. Over.” Sans Clés!!! These are our friends we buddy boated with from Hotel Rum Cay, you will remember, to Ocean World. They left their boat in Ocean World to travel back to Oregon for hurricane season. We departed Ocean World before they returned. It was sooo good to hear from them!

Our plans quickly changed. We wanted to catch up with Sans Clés. The plan is to rendezvous in Puerto Ferro on Vieques. Roger that, we are on our way. Now we’re even more excited. It’s so fun to catch up with people we have met along the way but particularly those we have enjoyed traveling with. We are very compatible with Sans Clés as far as destination choices and daily activity choices. And we don’t have a need to be with them all the time…which can be stifling if some folks want to spend all hours of the day with you. It’s just a real pleasure traveling with Sans Clés. And we have learned so much from them. We can’t wait to see them again.

We round the corner of Vieques and go down to Puerto Ferro. Puerto Ferro is one of the bioluminescent areas that we wanted to experience. Like on the Pacific Coast, phosphorescence appears at night when the water is disturbed…as when your hand travels through it, or the dinghy travels through it. We will experience that tonight when we get to Puerto Ferro. We travel down the coast and turn into the little harbor. Lyman travels out on his dinghy to greet us and help guide us into the harbor. It’s so good to see him. We immediately drop anchor, get settled and dinghy over to Sans Clés for happy hour and appetizers Terri has so thoughtfully prepared! Hooray! We weathered Rum Cay with them, sailed for 3 days with them to Ocean World in the D.R., did the 27 Charcos with them, drove around the island of D.R with them, then parted in July when they flew back to Oregon. Now we’re together again…on the beautiful island of Vieques! Cheers!

Later that night we waited until it was pitch dark and headed out in our dinghies to find the bioluminescence. Going back into some of the coves, we thought the water would be more ‘rich’ with the plankton that cause this spectacular event. As we drove the dinghies I could see it in the wake the boats made. Like little sparklers going off. We were hoping to see some caused by fish, but we did not. It was still pretty cool and kinda fun running around in the dinghies at night. We spotted a large sailboat back there in the mangroves just sitting, waiting for hurricane season to end. Everything taken off of it, anchored back there all by itself. Someone had obviously trusted that all would be ok when they returned. I don’t know how they do that. I couldn’t leave my very expensive boat sitting at anchor with no one to watch it. To each their own.

We stayed 2 nights at Puerto Ferro. Terri spotted a great place on the charts for our next destination, Bahía Icacos, a little spot on the North side of Vieques so off we go on a beautiful December morning. We round the east coast of Vieques and we can see islands off in the distance. “Randy…is that St Thomas?” “By golly, I think it is!” Randy radios Sans Clés to confirm our siting. Terri confirmed by saying, “I think this may be heaven’s gate.” From there we could see Puerto Rico, Culebra (the other Spanish Virgin island), St Thomas and St John. We have made it! It was a milestone for us. This is what we had imagined for many, many years and now here we were, at heaven’s gate.

We carefully picked our way into Icacos between the corals. The water was like the Bahamas, wonderfully clear and spectacularly azure. Mother nature never fails to impress me with the colors she chooses to paint things. I loved this anchorage. We swam and snorkeled and visited the tiny island of Isla Yallis where I picked up shells for Abby, our son Kevin’s little step daughter. She has a shell collection going.

We had fresh lobster! A fisherman came by and sold us 3 fresh caught lobsters. Oh my.... Randy put them on the barbecue and it was THE BEST lobster I have ever had.

US and NATO navies have used the east end of Vieques for land, air and sea based war games and that was evident everywhere ashore. There were signs prohibiting us from going ashore at Icacos. We could, however, go onto the little island of Yallis. At night we could see lights ashore, and black vehicles, sometimes with police type lights glowing, driving around. We were sure they were spying on us. As you know, we do have a former CIA agent aboard. Perhaps they know this and are afraid. They should be very afraid. We were indeed quite curious what they were up to though. Interesting.

We stayed and relaxed and swam and snorkeled and hunted shells at Icacos for 2 nights. Then on to Culebra, a very short trip. It’s still very exciting seeing St Thomas and St John out in the distance. Beckoning to us. So cool. We went into the little harbor of the town of Dewey. While here Terri can do some laundry and we can get on the internet again to catch up and upload pictures. It’s a cute little town. We find a great grocery store that has wonderful produce and meats. It’s fun finding these quirky little stores in the oddest places that are almost gourmet. We picked up quite a bit of things we needed and some that we didn’t need but really wanted, like more rum and orange juice. I’m always on the lookout for fresh tomatoes and avocados, onions and potatoes, and good breads. We need to fill our water tanks while we’re here so Lyman and Randy schlep water containers from dock to boat. We gather with Terri and Lyman at Mamacitas for mucho gin and tonics. They met up with friends from other boats they knew previously. Fun night had by all. Randy felt a little ‘scratchy’ the next morning, as our Australian friend Peter likes to say.

And now…into the United States Virgin Islands!

THE USVI

Anxiously, we get up early, weigh anchor and depart for St John, USVI. We decided to go directly there first….bypassing St Thomas. We will go there later. St John is where Terri and Lyman got married so they are very excited to return. We head for Caneel Bay, which is adjacent to Cruz Bay. It’s now December 23 so we are planning ahead for where we should have our Christmas dinner.

It takes awhile to motor sail past St Thomas, but its interesting watching the cruise ships come in to Charlotte Amalie, the capital. Looks like a busy place. We continue to motor sail, as the direction is still with the wind on our nose. But that’s ok. We put our mainsail up and our staysail and it makes for really smooth motor sailing and powers us up a bit more.

A milestone has happened here. All along our trip, since Virginia, we have used cruising guides. They are wonderful. As I said previously, they are written by those who have gone before and they give you charts and routes and places to see and places to eat and what to avoid…they’ve proven invaluable. We have now closed one of the most useful books, The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South. We had previously read and re-read this book in anticipation of traveling the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It’s sort of the Bible of cruising this area. And now we have done it! We have traveled down the Intracoastal Waterway, we crossed the Gulf Stream into the Bahamas, we crossed from the Bahamas into the Dominican Republic, we crossed the Mona Passage into Puerto Rico, went through the Spanish Virgins and now into the Virgin Islands themselves! We close the The Gentleman’s Guide and open the guide to the Virgin Islands. Holy cow. We are here!

We enter Caneel Bay on the island of St John… and there are mooring balls. This is our first mooring ball experience! They are everywhere in the Virgin Islands so we must learn to deal with them. No problemo. I head straight for the mooring ball we have picked and go very slowly. Randy stands on to the side of the bow with the boat hook ready to snag the pennant that’s attached to the mooring ball. Ran snags the pennant, I stop the boat, Ran pulls our bow line through the pennant and attaches all to the bow and we’re all set! That was easy! We are now mooring ball qualified.

We settle ourselves, clean up and dinghy over to the Caneel Bay Resort. Very fancy place, I guess. We are ready for our fancy Virgin Island drinks. Everyone orders Bushwackers, except me. I order a Pina Colada. $10 a pop. OK. But we are celebrating so it is ok. Bushwackers are too ice-creamy-chocolaty for me. Lol picky, picky. We toast our arrival and order some appetizers, which are excellent. This is a top notch resort, after all. It is now December 23.

We buzz over to Cruz Bay the next day which is just a dinghy ride around the corner. Neat area. We go to the National Parks office to get our senior discount for the mooring balls in the USVI. SENIOR DISCOUNT!! Ellen is thinking …Are you kidding me??? Are we that old already? Well, Randy is. ;) You get half off the mooring price if you’re 62 and over. We were advised of this by our friends Paul and Linn and we are glad! So instead of paying $15/night it’s only $7.50. Every little bit helps. While we are here Terri makes reservations for Christmas dinner at Morgan’s Mango. They had eaten there before and it sounds perfect.

It’s rocky and roly here at Caneel. There are a lot of ferries that go by lickety split and their wakes make for much rolling. We decide to move for the night. We leave that afternoon for Maho Bay, around the other corner of St John. Also mooring balls. We are prepared…we get half off the price and we are now mooring ball experts! So pretty here. We spend Christmas Eve and we have carolers! A wonderful little family from one of the boats came by in their dinghy with their Santa hats on and serenaded us. It was too perfect and made missing our family a little easier to deal with.

It’s December 25. Merry Christmas! We spent a leisurely Christmas morning at Maho Bay, then head back to Caneel Bay to prepare for our Christmas dinner at Cruz Bay. Again, roly, but it’s ok. It’s Christmas! We dinghy’d over to Cruz Bay, had drinks and bought some neato wine glasses at a little kiosk bar in Mongoose Junction before dinner, had a wonderful dinner and toasted everyone. Missed our family terribly, but was glad to be able to share Christmas Day with Terri and Lyman. I love this life, our travels, the friends we meet, but I miss our family. I had a bad day early on in December knowing that I would miss the fun Christmas stuff and making cookies and pies with our grandbabies. It’s very hard to be away. I allowed myself that one bad day and then I carried on. Facebook has been so helpful in that the kids can put pictures on there immediately, as well as videos, and when I get to an internet source I can see everyone. From Puerto Rico it was easy and cheap to call. But from the rest of the areas it’s very expensive. We do use Skype, but we need a good internet source for it to work right. We will get back to the West coast next hurricane season which will be July. We plan to leave the boat this year in Trinidad, which is below the hurricane zone, and we will stay 3 months or so in California and Oregon and Washington visiting family and friends. That will be wonderful!

Again we pick up and go around the corner of St John, past Maho Bay to Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay…or Watermelon Cay. We have seen it written both ways in the guide books and charts and we’re not sure which is right! Doesn’t matter…it’s spectacular. We stay there for 3 days, swimming, snorkeling, hiking to the sugar plantation ruins. It was a beautiful place. We meet up with Opal there! Marc! And he has Amber with him, whom we had met in Nassau. So fun. We have dinner together on Sans Clés. It’s just so darned fun doing all of this and then to top it off meet up with people we have gotten to know along the way. Marc and Amber are headed to Jost Van Dyke, BVI for New Years. There’s a huge party at Foxy’s. It’s the place to be…unless you don’t want to deal with a zillion people all in the dinghies. We opt to wait for the Foxy experience. But we so love Marc and Amber. It’s good to see them. Amber is a school teacher from Delaware, so she’s just out for the holiday. Her goal is to buy her own boat one day. I love that about her!

Lyman and Terri leave a day early, as they had some things they needed to do back on St Thomas at Redhook at American Yacht Harbor. We spend the extra day at Waterlemon Cay and then go back to Caneel. I want to see more of Cruz Bay and we have things we need to pick up at the hardware store there. There are some nice upscale grocery stores and shopping areas there. We do lots of walking around and have a great lunch overlooking the bay.

The next day we decide to take the ferry across to Redhook in St Thomas and go to the marine store there and have lunch. It’s a rainy day. We find Terri and Lyman at the marina and decide we’ll all go to Christmas Cove for New Years Eve. The weather is super lousy…raining all day…and we want a nice calm anchorage. Terri and Lyman leave for Christmas Cove and we do our chores there, head back to our boat at Caneel and proceed to Christmas Cove. We wanted to see fireworks somewhere but the weather was so bad we just decided to go to this neat cove on St James Island across from St Thomas. It was a perfect decision. I LOVED Christmas Cove.

In my opinion Christmas Cove has the best snorkeling so far. We are well protected from the seas and winds there. It’s New Years Eve! I cook turkey legs and wings in my pressure cooker, Terri makes a great potato salad, I make a cabbage salad, too and we toast in the new year…early…about 8:00 or so. Cheers! Happy New Year to everyone.

We just enjoy the heck out of Christmas Cove…swimming, snorkeling, having happy hours watching the sunset. We dinghy across to St Thomas to the St Thomas Yacht Club one day where we can get online. Neat club. We have lunch, do all our internet stuff and dinghy back making plans to return the next day and hike down to the main road, catch a safari taxi for $1/person and go into Charlotte Amalie, the capital of St Thomas and the USVI. Randy and I were looking for new computers and we thought we might find some down where the cruise ships come in at the duty free shops. We walked and walked and walked until we found the main road. Whew! Good exercise. But not attractive when you get all sweaty. We grab a safari taxi and head into Charlotte Amalie. We peruse the shops all along the harbor but they have no computers. Only every other thing you can possibly imagine. We walk along the bay back toward the Yacht Harbor looking for a Radio Shack. Might be a computer possibility. We find it, but no computers. But we find a good place for lunch and Bushwackers…and for me…a Painkiller. I have a wonderful Caesar Salad with calamari. That hit the spot! Charlotte Amalie from the vantage point that we had that day is not worth the trip. Not our kind of spot. But I’m glad we went.

No computers there but we do know where Office Max is in Redhook. So we jump on the safari taxi back and stop off and buy 2 new computers. Coolness! We safari taxi from there and then walk and walk and walk back to the St Thomas Yacht Club where our dinghies are. This time carrying a bag with computers. Ugh. We definitely got our exercise that day!

The weather is starting to turn again, we are starting to rock a lot, so we decide to move across the bay to a better location to anchor. We choose Great Bay on St Thomas. This is where the Ritz Carlton is. Nice little bay and we find a spot along the shore that keeps us turned the right direction for the winds and seas. Much more comfortable. In the meantime we watch the patrons of the Ritz enjoy the toys they have: Hobie Cats, kite surfing, canoes. They’re all having fun. Too bad the weather isn’t better.

It is decided that we all need to go into the marina at Redhook the next day. Everyone needs to get supplies, do laundry, get on the internet and get mail. We call American Yacht Harbor and make arrangements to be in there for two days. We head in there after spending one night at Great Bay. Again…nice to have lots of power and lots of water to take long showers! Internet isn’t what it should be but we at least have it. I do 7 loads of laundry….with HOT water. Yay! Puerto Rico didn’t have hot water. I like to do sheets and towels in hot water. Everything came out smelling so nice and fresh and clean. Edy wasn’t there to fold my clothes for me, but that’s ok. They were so nice in the Laundromat. They were watching the Price is Right and I told them my son and daughter-in-law were due to be at the Price is Right! So exciting! They thought that was great. I later learned that Skip and Kim never got called up to play but they were on TV because the people next to them did. Cool! It was a fun Christmas gift to Skip from his dad. I think their episode is due to be aired February 12. I hope someone is Tevo-ing it!

We get all our chores done there…water, fuel, laundry, mail received, new snorkel fins purchased (I LOVE my new snorkel fins), Mexican food fix….done deal. Terri and Lyman left the day before to anchor out. Now we are ready to go. Let’s hit it!

THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

We are departing American Yacht Harbor, Redhook, St Thomas, USVI at 0945 on January 8, 2010. WE ARE HEADED TO THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS!! Woohoo! This is big. This is the dream. USVI…yes. But BVI??!! That’s the beginning of the rest of our trip down island. This is very cool.

We talk to Sans Clés on the VHF and decide we are all heading to Jost Van Dyke (named after a Dutch pirate)…to Great Harbor, where Foxy’s is! We can go through customs there. It’s a perfect day.

Foxy is a legend in the Virgin Islands. We have read in all of our sailing magazines about him for years. To get to Jost Van Dyke and then to Foxy’s is huge for Randy and I. I know…it doesn’t seem like much in the scheme of things, but it has been part of the dream! And Jost Van Dyke is the island Kenny Chesney sings about…No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem. To semi-quote from Peter Farrell who wrote about him, Foxy is a delightful very Colorful Caribbean Character who has created a unique island paradise. Foxy is an entertainer, entrepreneur, philosopher, community activist, world traveler, conservationist, musician, storyteller, cultural historian, fisherman, comedian, sailor – a true West Indian Renaissance Man. Just this past year Foxy received a medal as a member of the Order of the British Empire for his exemplary contributions to tourism and preservation of the Territory’s culture. Quite the guy. Gotta find Foxy.

We set our anchor and wait for the rain. Seems like it’s raining a lot here! It’s still paradise. The rain finally subsides and we dinghy in to check into customs. Island customs people are their usual not-friendly-we-don’t-smile, surly selves. Not sure why, but they all seem to be like that on these islands. Particularly the women with power. We finish our forms and get it all done with no problem. They charged us 20 cents for the forms. But surly customs people are not the best welcome to a new country. What’s so hard about smiling and saying hi? Perhaps, as Terri suggested, if they are friendly they will not command as powerful a presence as their position requires. Perhaps.

We’re hungry so we hunt out a spot along the beach. We find Corsairs…and Vinnie. It looks like our kind of place from the outside. We walk in and are immediately greeted with folks having fun and Vinnie with a big smile. THAT is what we are looking for! We order Red Stripe beers…they’re Jamaican, but why not? We haven’t had those yet. We ask for a menu as we haven’t had lunch. He’s sent the chef home. Shoot! But…he says…just walk next door and order something from them. They will bring it down. I do that, at the little shack-like place next door…order chicken and fries, what they said they had…to share with Ran…then back to my beer. No Shoes…No Shirt….No Problem. A great way to start our BVI entrance. Terri and Lyman join us and we mosey on down to Foxy’s! Excellent.

It’s just plain a neat area…Great Harbor. I like it a lot. Not sure what I’m expecting at Foxy’s but it’s about what I thought. Lots of beach, cruiser, island, laid back, tag-we’ve-been-here kind of place. I like it. We check out the bar and order our drinks, talking with Hedrick, the bartender. As we stand there drinking and talking another tourist type rushes in very important like and orders a beer. It’s for Foxy, he says, very self-important and rushed like. All red in the face. Whoa! Cool! Foxy’s out back, Hedrick says. Go back and say hi! We grab our drinks and head back there. There is a huge stage area out back and Foxy is sitting in a chair with all this weird stuff lined up on the lawn below the stage. Lines with tree branches and poofed out black stuff. Foxy is busy poofing out some of the black stuff and there are 2 tourists hanging all over him for pictures, one being the self important tourist that came in and got the beer for him. We stand back and watch…while they make fools of themselves. Finally they’re done and we go up and introduce ourselves and he asks where we’re from. We tell him and he immediately goes into poetry about the Bay area of California and the Portland area of Oregon. It’s so cool! He mentions in his sing/song poetry way all the spots we frequent. He’s quite the showman, obviously. We had no idea we would get to see/meet him. That was quite a treat. There is a large wooden ship back there up on stanchions that apparently Foxy has arranged so students can work on it and learn the trade of building boats. How great is that?

Right now we’re cruising here and there with Sans Clés around the islands…the British Virgin Islands. From Great Harbor we did a day anchorage right on the beach at White Bay, still on Jost Van Dyke, in front of the Soggy Dollar Bar, so named because you must swim ashore from your boat and your dollars get wet. They invented the Painkiller drink. My favorite. But I must say I’m partial to the Pussers Rum version that I got accustomed to at the Annapolis Boat Shows. Not that I’m picky, mind you. A beautiful beach here. We swam ashore with Terri and Lyman, had chicken roti for lunch, painkillers for Terri and I and beer for Randy and Lyman…played the cruisers beach game of trying to get the ring on the hook…we got good at this on Rum Cay….Lyman is the champ….and just relaxed. Until a small party boat bringing guests to swim and snorkel decided to park WAY too close to our boat. So close they put a fender out. Ellen is thinking …Are you kidding me??? Randy swam out and told them what a BAD idea that was. “It’s ok”, the guy said. “We have a fender out.” “Look bub…if you have to put a fender out you’re too damn close! Move!” Ahhhh…the joys of boating.

Since that’s just a day anchorage we go around the corner to Little Harbor for the night. Small, quiet place…with mooring balls. $25/night. Ugh. Cynthia comes around in her little boat to collect our fee. She’s delightful. Gives us coupons to eat/drink ashore but we’re all eat/drinked out so we will save the coupons for another time.

From Little Harbor we go to Green Bay where Sandy Spit is on Little Jost Van Dyke. Terri and Lyman know of this place as a great snorkeling area. It’s also near Diamond Cay which has Foxy’s Taboo, another one of his establishments. It’s beautiful here! Randy and I sit on our boat just thinking about how we’ve dreamed of getting to places like this. And now we’re here. We swam and snorkeled…had a great day. A boat is coming toward us…and now their honking….it’s Allegro! Camilla and Peter, our Australian friends we met at Ocean World right before we left. How fun! I had been in touch via email with Camilla so they knew kind of where we would be…and that we wanted to find Sandy Spit because it reminds us of the screensaver we have all had on our computers one time or another. They have 2 of their kids with them, Simon, who’s 19 and Lauren, who’s 18, I believe. So fun to see them. We all decide to dinghy over to Foxy’s Taboo that evening for drinks and dinner. Another great evening.

It started getting really rocky at Sandy Spit so we decide with Sans Clés to go to Soper’s Hole on Tortola, right across the bay. We bid Allegro farewell and we will see them again. Soper’s Hole is a great sheltered harbor but has mooring balls, so again $25/night. No senior discount on the BVIs. Pooh. It’s just so much cheaper when you can anchor. Saving here and there helps a lot! But it’s fun to be at Soper’s Hole and see my first Pusser’s Landing in the BVIs and have painkillers. Sounds like my life revolves around my drinks but it really doesn’t. It’s just that these fun drinks are…so….fun! It’s like going to Hawaii and having a Mai Tai. You know you’ve arrived.

We stayed at Soper’s Hole one night. Got online at the Jolly Roger restaurant there so we could upload pictures and check our mail. Then we went back to Little Jost Van Dyke, this time anchoring at East End Harbor which is a little more sheltered. The weather is still pretty brisk and rainy. We anchored ourselves good and solidly in there, also putting out stern anchors to keep us facing the direction that was most comfortable for the weather we were having. Anchored there 2 nights. Mostly just staying down below out of the weather and working on my blog. Sorely needed, I’d say! But it was still really rocky and in checking the weather it sounds like its going to last a few more days. We decide to go back into Soper’s Hole to wait it out. Fine with me! I can finish my blog and get it uploaded with pictures, I can catch up on my email and Facebook, I can have a Painkiller if I feel like it and I need to buy some beach towels. They have great shops here.

So I will leave you here for now. Sitting down below finishing this blog and watching all the action in the harbor, boats racing for mooring balls to get out of the weather, and watching the rain come down. We will go over to the Jolly Roger later and have a late lunch. That is if the rain lets up a bit.

Cheers, everyone, for you new year. Hope all your wishes and resolutions come true. I’m going to try a different tactic on keeping up with this blog. Hope it works! We shall see.