St John - USVI



Well Easter Sunday is upon us so we met with s/v Sailacious (Steve and Janice) and s/v Out of Africa (John & Joanne) and have a great time at Maho bay aboard Out of Africa with great company!



Moosetracks in Maho Bay (in the crowd)



Maho Bay

Sunset in Maho Bay

Aboard s/v Out of Africa

The next day we walked the trails in Cinnamon Bay to see the ruins of the plantation house and sugar mill.

Deer on the trail

Sugar factory

Just over half of St John island is a National Park with a large gift from Laurance Rockerfella  in 1954 of 5,000 acres which started the park and subsequent government additions including a water park area to preserve the coast line and reefs. So half the bays have a mooring system at $15/day and the other half are available to anchor in, but as luck always has it the nicest anchorages are moorings! So we decided to join our two buddy boats to circumnavigate St John. Next stop is Waterlemon Bay with some lovely reef to snorkel and a lovely trail to Leinster Point.

Group shot at the summit ruins

Moosetracks in Waterlemon Bay (far left)

Our next stop is out of the Park at Haulover Bay, a pretty small bay with a deep anchorage but we all get in safely enough as the wind is quite light and SE  this week. We dinghy to the isthmus to take a walk and after a short distance to the other shore find the only walk is the road. We take 15 minutes to reach the first couple of peaks and decide unanimously that walking on black topped roads in the mid-day heat is foolhardy so return to the boat.


Limetree Cove

Crab on the trail 4-5" across the body!

Moosetracks in Haulover Bay

While we are in this bay we get the latest SSCA bulletin, which we have been eagerly anticipating as it announces our acceptance as Commodores in the organization. It's been one of our milestones and will allow us to vote and sponsor other commodores as we continue to cruise.

Proud new commodores in the SSCA

The next Bay is on the South Side and again out of the park at Round Bay. There is one trail marked on the map so we go ashore to walk it. As we are walking up the road to the trail head a couple of local ladies come out to see us. It turns out they own all the land here and the trail is on their property, so after a nice chat they agree we can walk the trail and use their beach area as long as we promise not to sue them if we have an accident! It is America after all! We have a nice walk to the summit and enjoy the views. That evening we discover everyone loves Bocce Ball (Boule in England) so we take our set and all three international crews join the tournament. South Africa prevails as they do most nights after that!

Moosetracks in Round Bay

The entertainment came to us!

One of the hundreds of wild donkeys on St John

Returning from the walk

The next day we take Moosetracks over to Coral Bay with Steve, Janice, Joanne and John aboard so we don’t have long dinghy rides and we anchor in the bay which is very crowded with long term live aboard cruisers and storage vessels. We stop for lunch at Skinny Legs a favorite cruisers and locals restaurant here and do a little shopping for veggies on the way back.

Skinny Legs restaurant

The following day we move to Saltpond Bay which is back in the park system. It is a lovely bay with great snorkeling and a great beach to BBQ and play Bocce ball on. We start the day with an early walk to Ram’s Head which is a 200’ high cliff at the SE end of St John with great views. We return to get some snorkeling in and get great video of a small sea turtle and some nice shots of coral and fish with our Go-Pro underwater camera.

The walk to Rams Head

Lovely coral shot

Nice coral

Nice puffer fish

Saltpond Bay

Our last stop on the circumnavigation of St John is Great Lameshur Bay as it has some really good trails around it. Our first trail is to see the Petroglyphs which are carving made by the early Taino Indian inhabitants of the island.

Lameshur bay

 

Rock carving petroglyphs

don't ask me what it means

Waterfall below petroglyphs

As we rested by the waterfall (no water falling when we were there) this lovely mongoose came out to see what we were doing.

Mongoose

Another plantation ruin on the way back

On our return to the boats we meet Gregg & Jo from s/v Serenade who we have not seen since our haul out in the US at Deltaville but have been in contact as we both moved south. It was great to actually catch them and in such a surprise location at the trail head here in Great Lameshur bay. We take some time out and go to a local restaurant, Miss Lucy's, with them for a great lunch.

Liz, Gregg & Jo

A kid came to our table too.

The next day we hike up to the top of the island, well almost, at 1,277' Bordeaux Mountain is the tall mountain above the bay and too enticing to miss.

No view from the top - but a lot of trees for shade on the trail

It is interesting to note in our photo’s all the trees you see on St John. This is in stark contrast to the late 1700’s when the sugar plantations deforested the island to grow sugar cane and built large estates and sugar mills to harvest the crop. This is why there are so many good trails and many ruins here that the park service and volunteers maintain.

Well that brings is up to date, we are back in Christmas Cove and found out our water maker pump has shipped so we will hang around until it arrives and perhaps enjoy some of the Carnival here on St Thomas.

St Thomas - USVI

We left Culebra on the 30th March for Culebrita which is a small island to the north east. It is picture perfect with a gorgeous cove and a lighthouse overlooking it so we had to walk to the top for the fantastic views and a stunning picture of the cove. We enjoyed a snorkel in the cove but the coral was very damaged by storms with lots of sand on it there were some fish but nothing spectacular. We saw several turtles in the cove but they are all very camera shy! The next day we walked to the Jacuzzi which is a collection of rock pools that are refreshed by the sea and create their own whirlpool effect almost all day long.

Culebrita anchorage

Devin in the Jacuzzi

We arrived in Brewers Bay , St Thomas, USVI on April 3rd after the short windward crossing which we managed to sail a good part of. The bay is large but right next to the airport on St Thomas. The airport turns out to be a lot quieter than we expected and the internet from the Virgin Islands University here is good as is the local bus service to and from it. So we decided to stay here while we explored St Thomas. We had a nice relaxing first day just getting settled and the following day another boat asked if we would like to join everyone for a happy hour on the beach, well of course we did! We and a fun evening getting to know a few boats and finding out about transport and shopping. The following evening we had an English couple, Rob and Sarah from s/v Serafina over to play Mexican train and had a wonderful evening with them.

The next day we decided to take a bus ride to Charlotte Amalie and explore the tourist sights. We started at the local market in the heart of downtown where we found a long awaited set of paper mache animal figures which we can use for our tokens when we play Mexican Train Dominoes, just like the ones our mentors Bob and Norma use!

Mexican Train tokens

We then toured the sights starting at Fort Christian, then on to the Governor's mansion  and onto the 99 Steps. At the top of the steps we walked to Blackbeard castle and took the tour which included 2 preserved private houses and the Hotel 1829 which also has a rum exhibit with free tastings.
After this we walked down to the main street have lunch at Ideal Roti where we had a fabulous Chicken Roti. Then to walk off lunch we toured the shops on main street which are either tourist traps of trinkets or jewelry stores, not really our thing but I guess it’s all part of the scene here. We then visited the Synagogue which is the oldest in the Americas and very quaint. We finished off touring the market square where the locals sell produce but unfortunately we were too late in the day and only one vendor was left with a sad selection of veggies.

Fort Christian

Governor's Mansion

The 99 steps

At the 99 steps

Hotel 1829 - a strange place!

The Amber waterfall at Hotel 1829 - worlds largest

Blackbeard

Charlotte Amalie Harbor

Roti for lunch

A safari taxi - our way to get around

We took a lovely walk back via the supermarket to check it out and get some produce there. Then we rode the bus back to Bewers Bay. We relaxed a few more days and met some nice folks on Serafina (UK) Sailacious (USA) and Out of Africa (UK/SA). We joined them for a Braai (BBQ) on the beach as apparently for South African's this is the only way to cook!

We took one more day of shopping and exploring around Tutu Mall and Crown Bay as we wanted some fuel and oil filters which we found are in stock here as well as a replacement blender for the galley. So we had a nice wander around and got fully stocked on Rum and Gin at duty free prices as well as some much sought after Ice Cream too. So now we have empty wallets and full cabinets.

Roadside Iguana on the way from the taxi stand

Our next stop was Christmas Cove on the far side of St Thomas because there is a local dealer for our water maker there and they could hopefully diagnose why we had got slowly worse water quality. Well the technician lives on his boat in Christmas cove so he came over and after discussing symptoms and the fixes we had tried (new membrane, new filters, new primary pump) he surmised as Devin had that the Clark Pump was gone. A quick test on the port revealed it had a leak internally. So we need a replacement, well at over $3,000 for a new one we opted for a rebuilt one and to trade ours in. Hope fully it will come in less than $1,000 but we’ll see. Anyway here we wait, sadly it has very little internet but we can get our T-Mobile hotspot to work so we have email and slow internet. Well unfortunately a mix up finds they don’t have one in stock and therefore it didn’t ship, even worse they don’t know when one will be available!

Our first morning at Christmas Cove - a nice rainbow

So while we waited we had a call on the SSB while listening to the net from Sailacious & Out of Africa to join them for Easter Sunday and so we decide to go to St John’s for Easter Sunday at Maho Bay.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.

Vieques and Culebra

On Sunday at Sal Pa Dentro there is a Mexican Train Domino's afternoon arranged by Dick and Jane and a lot of the boats in the harbor attend. As we love to play Mexican Train we attended too and had a wonderful afternoon. Afterward Bill and Maureen came to Moosetracks for drinks and we had a lovely last evening with them as they are headed home to the USA and we continue east.


Herman & Anne

Domino's

We spent our last day in Salinas chasing down our care package from Walmart. We were running low on soda steam syrup and needed some more so we had to order it on line as it is not stocked in Puerto Rico in any traditional stores that have it in the USA, like Walmart. So after a bit of a running round we found the postman had attempted delivery but no one was at the bar to sign for it. We collected the delivery card and started walking to the Post Office, on the way we saw the Post Office truck and made sure we were on the right route and it so happens he still had our package on his truck so we signed for it after showing the delivery card and ID. So we saved ourselves a couple of miles walking and had 12 bottles of syrup so Rum and Coke is saved for the future!

Horse riders in Salinas

Fisherman's statue in town square

We spent our last night appropriately with Herman from Whitewing coming over for dinner on Moosetracks. We had a lovely evening recalling our shared past in St Pete and the details of our trips and friends we have made on our respective journeys. The approach is so different with Herman staying in places for months at a time and us moving after short stays. It just goes to show you make your own choices for your cruising and there is no right or wrong way to do it. Herman managed to find his way back to Whitewing and as we didn’t hear any large splashes or cussing so he made it back OK in the dark.

The next morning we were headed off to another cove on Puerto Rico for the night before continuing, but half way there decided as we had to motor due to very light winds we would go all the way to Vieques and anchor on the east end at Green Bay. We got there just after lunch and settled down in a lovely quiet anchorage which, as the sun set, we had all to ourselves. The next day we had a lazy breakfast and then walked the beaches. There is unexploded ordinance behind the beaches due to US military use, so we stayed firmly on the beach. After walking north and south we were quite hot and had planned to snorkeled the reefs after the beach for a cool down. We left from the beach and saw some lovely reef and coral as well as some great fish, just sorry we forgot the underwater video camera.

Devin testing the tree comfort factor

Moosetracks in Green Bay

The next day we moved to Esperanza one of the larger towns on Vieques and on the south side. We wanted to stay a day and explore the town as it was around here they filmed Lord of the Flies and apparently it’s a small but interesting town. Well we were one of four boats when we arrived and by 5pm we were on our own, normally a great thing. However this time folks seem to get off work around 5pm and play in the harbor and we were the only thing of interest, so all the jet skiers decide to do loops around us! It was dark before they all settled down and peace was regained. We didn’t realize the short nature of the reprieve however as the locals retreated only as far as the BBQ and their ghetto blasters. To add to this the swell came into the anchorage and just kept coming all night from the SE and gave us a rather unpleasant place to stay. We decided we like our towns a bit quieter so we picked up anchor and moved along the coast a little further.

The anchorage at Ensanada Honda could fit a whole fleet so it’s a great spot and we had it all to ourselves! There are surrounding reefs and mangroves so the swell doesn’t get in here at all. The wind forecast was for 15-20 gusting 25 from the East and we never saw more than a ripple on the water. We kept fairly far from the mangroves in 25’ of water and held perfectly and never even saw a mosquito! On our third day we had a visitor and after a dinghy around the little mangrove bays we decided to see who they were. The boat was s/v Viking Spirit with Arild & Lis Beth from Kristiansand, Norway aboard and they were such nice hosts. They sail between Norway where they keep there first boat and St Thomas, USVI where they keep Viking Spirit. We had a lovely chat over coffee while they shared some of their favorite anchorages between here and the BVI.

Dinghy trip in the mangroves

Moosetracks in Ensenada Honda, Vieques

The next morning we had lighter winds forecast and from ESE so we decided to head for Culebra which once around the east end of Vieques is due north so a great DOWNWIND sail of 10 miles! Moosetracks loves downwind so in 12-14 knots we took off and had over 7 knots most of the way to Culebra so we got there before lunch and settled in. We saw several friends in the anchorage but they were not aboard Changes, Music or Little Wing so we left our dinghy up and relaxed for the afternoon. Sadly in the morning Music was gone so we’ll catch them down island.

Beam reaching into Ensenada Honda, Culebra

The Harbor at Dewey

The next day on the Magellan Net Amanda told us they knew the boat behind us, s/v Goldcrest. It turns out they are an English boat from Bristol, so we have to introduce ourselves. Alas again they are not on board, so we see Little Wing and dinghy over. They are just raising anchor so we say hello and goodbye as happens occasionally. As we approach the dinghy dock we see a couple and call over and it just happens they are David and Lindsay from Goldcrest.  We spend the morning with them discovering the little town of Dewey and having lunch at the appropriately named “Dinghy Dock”. The beer is just what we needed and the food is fabulous and as much as most of us could eat. There were a few locals feeding fish as the bar is literally a dock as well and the tarpon are huge here and come right to the dock to feed off scraps.

The famous bridge at Dewey

Moosetracks at rest in the gorgeous harbor

Color everywhere

Mamacitas

Hand painted advertising

We think Liz found one her favorite “loos” as the ladies room had a window right over the water.

A room with a view

We had drinks on Goldcrest for their last night in Culebra as they are headed West and we are off East, again just the way it works sometimes, sorry to miss these folks but glad we made the effort to make new friends.

Our last day in Culebra we decided to walk over to Flamingo beach which is rated among the top beaches in the Caribbean so a must see. It's a fair walk so we started early to miss the mid-day sun and it took around 40 minutes. We must say it's a very nice beach with very fine and soft sand and crystal clear water. We walked the beach and discovered the 2 army tanks abandoned by the US military after their use of the island. We also met a couple who had camped at the park behind the beach and were touring the island on folding bikes they had brought as hand luggage on their flight from Miami, another interesting way to do the Caribbean we thought. We took a mid-day swim in the ocean and between us could not recall the last time we had sat on a beach reading and relaxing then swam in the ocean from a beach rather than off our dinghy or Moosetracks!

Flamingo Beach a great place to swim

One of the two US tanks on the beach

The other tank

Just great for relaxing

On our return we managed to catch a ride with a Chinese couple on a golf cart so it was a nice relief in the hot afternoon sun. We returned to Moosetracks and had a light lunch and settled in to book reading again. We were visited later by SSCA friends Jim and Donna on s/v Moonraker who arrived later in the day.

Location, Location & great food at the Dinghy Dock Restaurant

So we think we are off to Culibrita in the morning and then the US Virgin Islands after that. So we hope you are all fully into spring and your life is warming up too.