05/02/2009 Hanging out in the Virgins

04/23/2009 After dropping Cliff, I expected to hang around the Virgins for the next week or so. I did not have specific plans. I met up with Hans and Ruth Deller. I had seen them on their boat in Francis Bay. They are from Conifer, CO. That is only about 15 miles from where I live in CO. After spending time in town I stopped by their boat to introduce myself. I found out that they had spent ten years in the Virgins as the owners of a charter boat. I asked them if they knew the couple that I had chartered with when I was with Motorola. They not only knew them, but saw them earlier in the day.
I thought Gus and Marcella had left the business or area. I had trying to get in touch with them over the years. They are now only five miles from where I am anchored. I now had a plan on how to spend some of my time.
04/25/2009 After pulling the anchor I headed for Christmas Bay. This is located on an island off of the southeast corner of St. Thomas. I motored into the bay and there sat Marolanga. Marolanga is a 43’ Catana sailing catamaran. It is the boat that started me on multihull sailing and another inspiration that has brought me to this part of the world.
With some trepidation I went over and introduced myself. It had been 14 years since I met them for a 4 day charter. They remembered me immediately. Not my name, but my face and the charter trip. They had done several Motorola charters since ours. Ours was the first. They remembered some of the activities including a song that we put together as part of a contest amongst the different boats. We had won the contest with words written to Come Monday by Jimmy Buffett. We hung out for a few hours and decided to go snorkeling in the morning together there in the anchorage.
04/26/2009 Today became a lazy relaxing Sunday morning. I was excited to go snorkeling with Gus and Marcella. They move a little bit later than I do so I broke into a project on the boat. The gas valve on my gas grill had frozen. It does amaze me the amount of wear and tear that boats take when on the salt water. I figured out how to take the grill apart and removed the valve. Now I had it apart, I also figured out that the valve will need replaced. That will be another project trying to find a replacement valve. Down here in the islands is not like being at home and having specialty shops that you find just about anything. I put the grill back together in time for a good swim.
As we were swimming the water was murky from the tide washing through. We first saw a medium size turtle swimming along. I glided along with it for awhile. I have not been in the water with a turtle since the first snorkel in The Keys back in November. I then spotted a sting ray working at burying itself in the sand. We also came across a porcupine fish. I had seen these before, but did not know their name. It is one of my favorite fish. I call it the teddy bear of the sea. There were two of them and they are the largest I have seen. From the front they have a squarish body with large black eyes. They are somewhat timid, but sad looking with the big black eyes. You just want to hug them.
After the snorkel, Gus invited me back over to review the cruising areas of St Martin and the other islands as I head south. We discussed where to look for the parts for the grill on St Thomas and I worked with Gus on some software for his computer and testing out my TV tuner for the laptop. Marcella invited me for a dinner of spaghetti and I made a salad. It was like old times hanging out with them. I am really happy to find Gus and Marcella and see that they are still happy doing charters after all of these years.
If you are interested in a fun crewed charter in the BVIs, please contact Gus and Marcella on Marolanga. You can use the url on the left hand of my blog page.
04/27/2009 I decided to make another trip back into Charlotte Amalie. I was on the hunt for parts for the grill and I also remembered that I needed to fill up one of my propane bottles. After anchoring, I took the dinghy over to Crown Bay to the marina there. There is a air condition (as there is no heating shops in the area) shop that Gus thought might have the parts or would know where to find them. In the area also is the propane dealer. The good news was that I was able to get the propane. The air condition shop did not have any parts and was not aware of anywhere to find them. I hiked down the road to the Ace hardware and the same answer. I decide to catch the bus to the Home Depot as a last chance. No luck there. It is one of those projects that I will need to work on when I return back to the States this summer.
04/28/2009 I put another plan together. I would sail to a bay on the south side of St John and do a couple days of hiking before I set off for St Martin. I went to pull the anchor and the trouble started. I caught a piece of garbage in the bay. It was an old chain. The good news was that I was able to get the anchor raised enough to see it, about four feet below the surface, but not high enough to release the chain from my anchor.
This is what cruising is about. How to resolve issues like this on your own. I first tried to put a loop on the end of a line and lower it to the anchor. My plan was that if I could catch the knee of the anchor, when I let the anchor down, the anchor would pivot and the chain would fall off and I would be free. The first problem was that the line would not sink on its own. I needed to add some weight. The only thing I could find was my largest crescent wrench. I did get the line to sink to the knee, but as I lowered the anchor, it did not pivot as hoped. My next thought was that I would swim to the anchor and try to free it from the chain. That is not an option as the wind was blowing pretty strong and I was in somewhat tight quarters with other boats. I could not let my boat drift into another boat and I did not like the idea of having my boat drift without me on it. Time-out. Let’s eat some breakfast and think this through again. The idea I came up with was to raise the anchor again to as high as I could. I would then swim to the front of the boat and take a loop of line around the chain and tie it off to the front two cleats of the boat. I would then be able to lower the anchor and the fouled chain would stay suspended by the line. The boat would not drift. The down side was that I needed to swim in the bay. It is not a clean bay in any sense of the word. No other options. I got the line ready up front and then went for a quick swim. I was able to dive down and loop the line around the chain and set it by the deck. I got back on the boat and tied the line off on the second cleat and let the anchor down. It came free from the chain as planned. After getting everything ready for leaving the anchorage, I let the line free from one of the cleats and it slid free of the chain. I am off again.
I then made my way out in the sea. The weather had piped up. I started out with 20-25 knots of wind gusting to 30 knots and five foot seas. This is probably the roughest weather I have sailed No Rush in. Then the squalls started to blow in. I was seeing sustained winds of 30 knots. I put a reef in at the second point and took off again. Now I was seeing winds gusting to 38 knots. This is now probably the heaviest weather I have ever sailed in period. I decided to tuck in on the north side of St John instead of the constant beating on the south side. I made it Francis Bay one more time. I grabbed a buoy there for the night. Tomorrow I would go for my hike from here to the south side instead of the other way around.
04/29/2009 Best laid plans of mice and men… When I woke up there was no water pressure. Another project. I had replaced the previous water pump when I was at Boqueron, only a month and a half ago. A connection had corroded at the back pressure switch. After troubleshooting, soldering and putting everything back together, it was noon.
That morning I had caught the weather and it appeared that the best time for me to make the passage to St Martin is going to be Thursday. I had planned on a night passage and I would need to get moving. I canceled the hike and set sail for Virgin Gorda. The wind was on my nose again and it took me eight hours to get to Virgin Gorda. I needed to stop there so I could ready my dinghy for the off-shore passage. On the way through the cut, I was almost hit by another boat. Another area of corrosion was my starboard running light. It is out. Another project. Here is a photo of what rain squalls look like. Luckily this one was behind me and blowing away.
Being that I made it in so late and it was real dark, I decided to spend the night and leave first thing in the morning.
04/30/2009 First light in the morning. I worked on getting the dinghy ready for the passage. This means taking the motor off of the transom and storing it and cleaning out the fuel tank, bag with the life jackets and spare fuel, the anchor and any other items in the dinghy. I put all of the items away and re-attached the dinghy to the davits and we were ready. I went to pull the anchor and it was stuck. I am having flash backs to Charlotte Amalie. I am on the edge of a mooring field. I tried slowly to move the boat forward with the engines and luckily the anchor came free. Relief.
I was able to sail across the bay and out the cut. I am leaving the Virgins and making what should be my last long passage for this part of the trip. It is 75 miles of open water to St Martin from Virgin Gorda. We have light winds coming from due east. This will make for a slow passage, but I am on the boat No Rush. I started out the day with a reef in, but I quickly shook it out and went with full sails.
The good news was there was a nice wind shift that allowed me to sail all of the way to St Martin with only one small tack. I was able to hold the port tack from one o’clock in the afternoon until I made it into St Martin the next morning.
I did have one first that wasn’t pleasant though. I became seasick for the first time. It was a truly gut wrenching experience. I cleaned out my stomach. It was strange as the seas weren’t big and the air was pretty light. I was down on my cabin digging though some of the food stores I had. I believe I got sick from looking down in the choppy seas below decks. A little bit of vertigo set in. I was happy that it did not wipe me out. The best place I was able to go to recover was down in my bunk. I had a good breeze blowing through the hatch and it was cool down there. I was able to rest it off and had no problems the rest of the trip. This photo is after the sun set. Red skies at night sailors delight….
05/01/2009 I made it into the bay on the French side of St Martin at 6:45AM. Exactly 24 hours after raising the anchor and leaving Virgin Gorda. It was no record setter, but I never had to use the motors either. I have this photo here. I usually don’t have sunrises, but I thought this was a great picture with sun behind the cloud as I was anchoring.
Today is Labour Day, A holiday that has shut down pretty much the whole island. I did a little hiking around and could not check into Customs as they were closed also.
My water pump has also gone out again. After working on it, the same wire that I repaired corroded through again. I repair it once more and set the wires so that he water will drip away from the connection. We will see how long it will last. I will need to wait until tomorrow to see if I can get a replacement.