Since the last post, we’ve spent all of our time in the US Virgin Islands. That they are fantastic ought to be obvious as they are geographically indistinguishable from the BVI, but despite being in easy swimming distance of the British isles, our American soil has thankfully been overlooked by the bareboat charter industry. I’ve spent time in the BVI running charter boats on a few occasions, but I, like most others, never actually bothered to go over to St. John or St. Thomas. I suppose it’s the perceived hassle of clearing customs and immigration that deters people, but even that was painless and didn’t add more than an hour to our day.
Unlike the charter boat set, however, the Kenny Chesney-listening crowd, staying in hotels and VRBOs on the island, are not ignorant to the majesty of St. John. At any beach on the island, you can bet that there will be a group of ten straw cowboy-hatted forty-somethings standing nipple-deep in water, coozied Coors Lights or rum drinks carefully held at head height, with No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem invariably emanating from their portable stereos. They’re all right though – a beacon of hope, reminding me that I too will still be able to hang out with my friends in exotic places and get drunk and make boob jokes well into middle age. Kids and my first bypass surgery will not stand in my way.
We idled away most of our time on the north coast of St. John in relative solitude under a panorama of phenomenal beauty – lushly forested cliffs that plunge into the sea, the muted greens and browns of trade-bent coconut palms lining strips of white sand beach, vividly turquoise anchorages in which it was as easy to see 50 feet down as it was 5. The reef life is healthy, so everything else thrives as well. Rays, turtles, lobster, innumerable species of fish, stately pelicans, and so on and so on. We spent a significant fraction of our time underwater, just trying to take it all in.
Maho Bay. Don’t pass it up.
One of the highlights of our time in the USVI was meeting up with Jody and Peter from www.wherethecoconutsgrow.com. I read their blog for a couple of years before we started this adventure, so we got in touch with them a few months ago to say that we hoped our paths would cross. We thought that they might be somewhere in the area, so Cat got on the VHF radio for the first time ever and hailed “Where the Coconuts Grow, Where the Coconuts Grow, this is Monday Never, over.” I’m pretty sure hailing by blog title rather than vessel name is a breach of radio etiquette, but sure enough, Peter responded immediately from a few miles away. You should have seen Cat squeal with glee. Maybe it was excitement from making contact with our new friends or maybe it was the sheer joy of confirming that two-way radios do, in fact, work. We met up soon after, traded stories, and went on a lobster-catchin’ expedition in which I learned that I am not very much built for hunting under the sea, but Peter may have gills.
We ended up spending a few days anchored in Christmas Cove on the south east end of St. Thomas, behind Great St. James, where we were actually somewhat productive. It’s conveniently located about half a mile from the St. Thomas Yacht Club, who’s facilities we pillaged for dinghy dockage, trash disposal, and free water. We just had to pretend like we actually belonged there. How we fooled them I don’t know, but we did. We even managed to run errands on STT, thanks to the generous loan of an old truck from Jody and Peter. Did you know that there is an honest-to-God Home f’ing Depot on St. Thomas?! Like, a real American one? It was great, if not a little overwhelming being back in a land of so many duct tape choices.
As expected, we’ve continued to break things on the boat at a faster rate than I fix them, but it doesn’t seem all that urgent while bobbing around at anchor. The only exception being when I heard sloshing in the bilge, popped the floor board and found it full to the brim. A quick taste test confirmed fresh water, so no worry of sinking, but thanks to a broken hose fitting we dumped almost all of our 130 gallons of drinking water in to the bilge and overboard. The fitting in question? An extensive google search taught me that it was a ‘Qest’ compression fitting on polybutylene piping, something that was popular in Canadian trailer parks in the 80s and 90s. Since then, the manufacturer has gone belly up from all the law suits and the United States has banned it from meeting code. Great. Thanks, old Canadian boat.
Cat’s parents and family friends are coming in to Tortola on Saturday to charter a catamaran for a week, so we bid farewell to the charms of the US Virgin Islands and sailed back over to Jost Van Dyke this morning. We eschewed the tightly packed mooring field and dropped our brand new Mantus Anchor in 8 feet of water, right in front of Foxy’s Bar, saving ourselves the $30 mooring fee for the night. As a wise man named Ray once said, “that’s drinkin’ money, boys.”
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