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Updated March, 2014 |
Foxy's Corner of the Beach at Great Harbour |
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| We finally got a break in the series of storms that gave the East Coast so much snow, or at least there was a small opening that I figured would get us far enough south that the fronts would be very weak by the time I reached us. We left Bermuda on Saturday, January 25th. |
Cruz Bay, St. John, From Our Anchorage | ||
| We could have waited longer for the sea to die down, but then we would be faced with strengthening trade winds on the other end and therefore higher seas on the beam. The first day was a little lumpy, but nothing like our trip to Bermuda, and then the wind dropped to 15 knots, with occasional gusts to 20. |
Great Harbour, Jost van Dyke | ||
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We did not see many ships on the AIS for the first three days or so, perhaps two a day, but once we got down to 23° we began to see many more as we entered the busy traffic lanes between the Caicos and Mona Passages and Europe and the Mediterranean.
For a ship in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, there are not many routes to Europe, a fact exploited by pirates as far back as the 16th century. A great deal of traffic passes through the Panama Canal, and it all has to go through a small number of narrow passages between islands. For ships to or from Europe and the Mediterranean, the most direct route uses either the Caicos Passage, around the southeastern tip of Cuba and west of Grand Caicos, or the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. In either case, their routes take them on an essentially northeast/ southwest course right across our path. For some reason the names have always fascinated me: Rapallo for Hamburg, Käthe C. Rickmers on her regular run from the Panama Canal to Gioia Tauro and other Mediterranean ports, Maersk Nimes for Rotterdam, Durban Star for Cristobal, Seaspan Ningbo for Tangier. Occaasionally we altered course slightly to clear a ship by a greater margin. |
Rainbow Over Jost van Dyke | ||
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Distance Traveled to Date | |||
| This year, like last, we went first to St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, for mail and shopping before clearing into the British Virgins at Jost van Dyke. When we arrived and were waiting on the boat for the Customs people to finish with a ferry, I started fiddling with the GPS and discovered that it has been quietly keeping track of how far we have traveled since it was started up. Turns out to be just over 27,000 miles, most of them at sea. |
Plantains and Other Produce Laid Out for Judging | ||
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We arrived at Cruz Bay (St. John) late in the afternoon of January 30th. The next day we shopped for groceries, picked up our mail, and headed northeast for Jost van Dyke. We arrived mid-afternoon and as soon as we got ashore were hailed by a group of children: "Hello Miss Barbara!" Obviously there was no hope of slipping unnoticed into town.
It did not take us long to re-connect with old friends. Baba was presiding as usual over his bar at Ali Baba's. |
The Jost van Dyke School Waiting for the Ceremonies | ||
| Our friend Carmen Blyden, the local Government Officer (her actual title is probably different) was up and down the street preparing for the upcoming Farm Day. We had drinks at Baba's with our friend Reuben Chinnery, and the next day, Saturday, we went over to White Bay (next-door) to hear him sing and play guitar. |
More Produce, and the Judges with their Clipboards | ||
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Barbara rowed ashore as usual for church on the Sunday, and that night we watched the Super Bowl, or at least the first half of it, at Ali Baba's.
On Monday Barbara resumed her tutoring of children who were behind in their reading, and I got out my tools and started in to work on the boat. |
Government House, St. John | ||
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We quickly settled into a routine. I worked on the boat most days, while Barbara tutored or prepared. When our efforts warmed us up we jumped overboard and cooled off. Saturday afternoons we went to hear Reuben at White Bay, and every ten days or so we went over to St. John to shop and get mail. When we went for mail we usually stayed ashore for lunch, too.
In the late afternoons we would go ashore for a drink at Baba's, and Reuben, to our great pleasure, took to joining us for a glass or two of wine. |
Looking Out from the Beach Bar, Cruz Bay -- Barbara Anchored in the Distance |
Udo and Annie's Boat Windjammer Anchored Next to Us |
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| Farm Day came on the 11th, with a display of local produce and crafts and many speeches by politicians to the effect that the BVI needed to produce more of their own food. There were also songs and skits by the school children, and Miss Earth BVI presented various awards. |
Island Spirit, A Typical Day Charter Catamaran from St.. Thomas | ||
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Windjammer On her Way to New Adventures | |||
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Looking Out from Ali Baba's Restaurant, Great Harbour | |||
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We were very pleased to meet a Dutch couple, Udo and Annie, that anchored thir boat Windjammer near us. Unfortunately we did not meet them until just before they left, but we did have one very pleasant evening. They built their boat themselves from an antique steel hull and were taking a year off from work to see at least some of the world.
It is often the case that one meets other cruisers whom one enjoy, only to have them go off in another direction or to go off ourselves (ships passing in the night), but in this case Udo and Annie are heading in the same direction as we are, so we will very likely see them again. The cruising world is not really very big, however, and we have several times met boats that we knew from other harbors. Some have even ventured north to visit us on Chebeague. We have often seen sea turtles in various harbors, but not in Great Harbour, but this year that changed; we saw several turtles at different times. They varied in size, so clearly not always just the same one. Evidently the turtles are adapting to having lots of boats around, which is a good thing and very cheering. |
Baba and Eurinthia's Christmas Tree | ||
| My birthday is in February, and we have always celebrated it with dinner at a local restaurant. This year, however, the restauramt we had generally used had a new chef. The rumor on the street was that the brilliant former chef had a new job on Tortola. This seemed to be an omen pointing toward change, so Barbara arranged a dinner at Ali Baba's, with Baba and his wife Eurinthia, and Reuben Chinnery as our guests. When we asked Reuben he said immediately that he would come, and that he would bring his guitar. We timed it for early afternoon, after the lunch rush,which seemed to fit better into local patterns than an evening dinner. |
Reuben Chinnery Playing at my Birthday Party | ||
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Old Friends - Reuben and Baba | |||
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Eurinthia made us a feast; kingfish, fresh vegetables (summer squash, zucchini, beets), plantain, potatoes, coconut rice, and a salad, and Barbara made the traditional birthday cake for dessert. There was enough that we were all stuffed, and we ate and talked all afternoon. Ruben played whenever he wasn't eating, and we didn't get back to the boat until 18:00. We and Reuben were the lucky ones -- we could go home and sleep, but Baba and Eurinthia had to keep the restaurant open for their dinner guests.
Saturday afternoons we went by dinghy over to White Bay to hear Reuben play at the One Love Bar, owned by his nephew Seddy (I don't know what Seddy is short for, but he is a very serious and hard-working young man). It always made a very pleasant afternoon; the beach in White Bay is beautiful and the music is excellent. |
Rainbow -- Great Harbour | ||
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Boatloads of people come over from St. Thomas and St. John for the afternoon, and they usually anchor just off the beach, so the area inside the reef is a little crowded, but we always find a place to anchor the dinghy with a line ashore so we can get to it again without swimming. Friday the 28th was "Sports Day" for the school. this meant that the children all went to Tortola to compete in various events, mostly what we would call "track and field," against other BVI schools. Barbara was invited to go, so early in the morning we went by dinghy to the ferry wharf so she could catch the 7:00 ferry. |
Baba Looking for the Right Bottle | ||
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They were supposed to return on the 4:00 boat, but the events ran late, so they returned on the 6:00. I knew that in Barbara's place I would not want to cook dinner after being outside all day, so I aranged for us to eat at Ali Baba's.
We did not want to leave, but in order to stay longer we would need to go to Tortola and spend an afternoon hanging out in the Immigration office to get an extension to our time, and we would need to pay a fee to "temporarily import" the boat. |
A Tangle in a Beach Hammock | ||
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And besides we have friends in Puerto Rico we were eager to see. So after my party we went to White Bay one more time to hear Reuben, and after he finished his gig he bought us each a drink and we just sat and talked for a while.
On the Sunday I went ashore for my usual rum and tonic and found Baba making lamps. When finished, the bulb shines out through a conch shell, which makes a nice light, but part of the process involved adapting a small piece of steel to mount the bulb socket. This in turn involved working a machine screw into the steel, where it did not want to go. |
Reuben at Seddy's One Love Bar | ||
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Seddy's One Love Bar | |||
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I went back out to the boat, picked up a tap and a few screws, came back, and in short order threaded the holes so all was well.
We said a mournful good-bye to Baba and Eurinthia and went out to get the boat ready to move. The tools I had been using had to be put back in their secure travel places and the not-yet-installed parts stowed safely away. Monday morning we went ashore for the last time and cleared out. |
The Beach at White Bay | ||
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Dawn, Great Harbour | |||
| If it was hard to leave, Great Harbour had one more delaying tactic. When we weighed the anchor, it came up with a huge chunk of coral wedged in it, and this was a problem, because it would not then bite into any new bottom. And it turned out that for some reason the starboard anchor could not be lowered, presumably because the chain was somehow fouled in the locker. |
Great Harbour: Paula's, Ali Baba's, and the Admin Building | ||
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So I got a line around the crown of the port anchor (I could just reach), tied it off to a cleat, and paid out chain so the anchor would hang upside down. This worked and the coral dropped out, so we were operational again. We still had to deal with the starboard anchor, but we figured that could wait until we were settled somewhere.
With the anchor clear, we set off for St. John and then west to Culebra. |
The Coral Chunk in the Port Anchor | ||