St. John Pictures

We have stayed here for two weeks because it is so nice. Here are the pictures.

Lameshur Bay, St.John USVI

Two nights after we arrived at St. John, we woke up the next morning to discover a new boat in the bay with us; it was Laima. Benita and Rick had made an overnight passage from Saba over to St. John and ended up in the same bay as us strictly by coincidence. For those of you who do not know Benita and Rick, they are friends from home in Mont-Tremblant that started cruising a couple of years before us. So we’re just hanging out enjoying the greater weather and fantastic scenery.

Given that St. John is a national park, it has been difficult to find internet access and what we have found has been slow, hence no pictures. We have tried embedding pictures of the bay into this little note to see if that works better than trying to up load them directly on to the blog site but it didn't work as well. So pictures will come later when we have better access.

Hi everybody, we have started our third year of cruising on Snow Shoo in the Virgin Islands. We arrived in St.Thomas a little over a week ago by flying from Montreal via Miami. It took us 2.5 hours to cover the distance between Florida and the Virgins; last year we spent close to two months on the boat to cover the same distance. We caught the Roadtown fast ferry to Tortola the next morning and checked in to the Hummingbird B & B. We were delayed leaving on the ferry by a bomb threat at the airport that shutdown the roads including the one from our hotel to the ferry, but we still had enough time to walk down to the yard in the afternoon to inspect the boat and do a few things on board. The people at Tortola Yacht Services had taken good care of the boat and she was wearing a new coat of bottom paint. The first thing to be done was to put up the bimini top so that we could have some shade. The heat has been fierce, 30 ºC with relatively little wind. One big day of work and we were almost ready to be launched the next day. We were told 10:30-12:30 would be the expected time for launch. At 8:30 we found the boat in the slings ready to be launched. So much for “island time”.

Once in the water we turned the key and pushed the starter button and crossed our fingers. The engine cranked over for about 15 seconds and caught. Eureka. We sat at the dock for the most of the day getting things done including a small grocery run to tide us over for the next several days. We had sent out our top life lines to have a new set made up and because of the early launch they weren’t ready and it was only in the middle of the afternoon that we were able to leave Roadtown.

We crossed the Sir Francis Drake Channel to one of our favourite spots in the BVI, Benure Bay. We spent all of the next day there taking stock of everything on the boat and our “to do” and “to buy” lists were started. The next morning we headed off to West End on Tortola to check out with customs. Familiarity with the procedures made everything easy. We had checked out of the BVI by 9:00 and by 10:00 we had checked into the USVI. We were at Crown Bay Marina by noon and fueled and tied up at a dock by 1 in the afternoon. We had sent our various bit and pieces for the boat to the marina for safekeeping.

To buy all the food and other stuff we will need for the next few months we rented a car and hit the stores at St.Thomas. After going to a number of stores we brought back a heavily loaded Suzuki to dockside and unloaded everything on to the boat. We fitted our new main sail on to the mast and left the next day.

We are now sitting on the south side of St.John enjoying the sun and light breezes when we aren’t doing little chores getting the boat ready for the cruising season. Menno has had to go up the mast several times as an adjustment to the jib furler resulted in it hanging up and not allowing the sail go out and in smoothly. This has now been fixed and we intend to do a little sailing tomorrow to see how everything is working.

Spanish Virgins March

Well we have stayed in the Spanish Virgins pretty well the whole month of March. We did a quick hop over to St Thomas the first couple of days in March to pick up Yoli and Chris Wheeler who spent a long weekend with us in Culebra and the rest of the time we kept ourselves very occupied by sailing over to Vieques for a little more than a week. Vieques is the southernmost island and all of the islands belong to Puerto Rico. Viesques was used as a bombing range by the US Navy for more than 40 years and only recently has been opened up to the public. There are parts of the island that are still out of bounds because of unexploded ordinance that you do not want to drop an anchor on.

We spent some time in Esperanza and we drove up to the town of Isabel Segunda one day to see what the north coast was like. The town was really special and we enjoyed our day walking around and a lunch we had in an “ex-pat” restaurant, real food that wasn’t deeply fried. We spent about 3-4 days in Chiva Bay which the military personnel referred to as Red and Blue Beaches.

Then back to Culebra just before the town of Dewey was inundated by Puerto Ricans arriving to watch the Heineken sail boat races. All types of classes were being raced including some might big yachts. Unfortunately the day of the around the island race, there was a complete calm and the race did not happen.

We have met a number of great people including Peg and Neil Brand on Peggy Sue from southern California. We spent more than a couple of weeks in their company. During that time we also took the ferry over to Fajardo in PR to do some shopping and just to look around. These ferries are subsidized and it cost us all of $9 for return tickets for the both of us.

On March 24 we were supposed to head off to St John however we feel that we cannot get any better anchorages than the ones we have found in Culebra so were still in Culebra. We have started to think about what needs to be done when we put the boat back on the hard on April 14 and therefore we’ll probably have to head out shortly in order to give us enough time to get things organized in the BVI where the boat gets pulled. The pictures explain why we do not want to leave.

Cruising the Virgins

Well it’s been a while since we added to our blog. What have been up to? Well we spent a week at the Cooper Island Beach Club (CIBC) where we were fed three meals a day and more or less rested and recovered from our last couple of months on the boat. It took us at least three days before we stopped rocking every time we looked at the tiled floors. The CIBC was a quaint little place where we had a small cottage without 110 V electricity; just 12 V like on the boat. Water was heated by solar energy and we were rationed to a fixed amount in the cistern located up the hill in the back of the cottage. We had a good time and met some interesting people who had been coming there for years.

When we left CIBC we started to look for little anchorages where the charter boats do not go. We found several and have spent the last three weeks in these little quiet bays learning how to cruise and slow down without making long passages every day. Off Peter Island we stayed at Key Cay and watched the sea turtles swim by almost every day and collected conch and had them for supper. At Virgin Gorda we stayed in two small anchorages and watched the mega yachts float by. Oh yes we did laundry as well at the Leverck Bay Resort. Necker Island, owned by Sir Richard Branson, was nearby and we dinghied over to say that we had been there, we couldn’t afford the $30,000+ a night to rent the island.

Norman Island was our next destination where we found a little bay on the northeast side that was sheltered from the wind. We met Elaine and Derek from Chester NS who had the same boat as us and we had a number of nice evenings with them. We will most likely hook up with them again in Culebra which will be our next destination.

We just checked out of the BVI and checked into the USVI in record time, less than 5 minutes and only a single question from the US customs agent. We write this in St.Thomas Harbour as we wait for our friends Yoli and Chris from Lauderdale to join us for a long weekend in Culebra. More later.

British Virgin Islands

After having left the Spanish Virgins on January 24 or so (it was a Saturday) we headed for St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands (USVI) and arrived by noon time. In fact the whole time we were in Culebra we could see St. Thomas in the distance. The long voyages were over and we were into line of sight sailing. After having been in Culebra for a little over a week and in anchorages where we were the only boat, St. Thomas was a shock.

On arriving in St. Thomas there were priorities to deal with; a hair dresser appointment for Liz, and a stop at the local diesel engine shop to pick up a spare part we had chased from the Turks & Caicos to Puerto Rico. This one only cost us $8 instead of the $25 we were charged in Puerto Rico. When you need the part you pay whatever it costs.

St.Thomas was a culture shock, we were back in the consumer driven USA. What was a treat was the grocery store at the marina. It carried all the things we were used to seeing on the shelves. We had to control ourselves so that we didn’t buy all sorts of things that would have spoiled over a few days on the boat. We headed further east along the coastline of St. Thomas to a marina where we put in for a few days to get laundry done and all of the other mundane things we take for granted when we’re at home.

We then skipped by the rest of the US Virgins and headed directly to the BVI (British Virgin Islands) a total of 10 miles further east. We arrived in the BVI on February 3 and decided that we would hang out here for a while. Check in with customs and immigration was just a formality on the westernmost island of the BVI, Jost Van Dyke. We dinghied up to the dock and entered the police station to inquire where customs was and to our surprise found a customs officer manning the front desk.

The next day we sailed and motored up to Cooper Island to visit the Cooper Island Beach Club (CIBC not to be confused with the bank). After two months of passage making and finally getting the boat down to where we wanted to be we decided we needed some “land” time. It turned out that there was a vacancy for the following week and we took it. More to be said about that later. In the interim we found a quiet little bay behind Peter Island where the bareboat charterers do not go. It’s scary watching these people, often 8 on a boat, jockeying for the best places in the anchorages without any regard to what’s around them and seemingly little if any experience in boat handling. We almost lost our dinghy to one boat where the fellow was so focused on what was further ahead of him that he passed within 15 feet off of our stern and failed to see our dinghy. We wondered if we had been this bad when we chartered here 15 years ago.

Spanish Virgin Islands

Saturday the 24th of January; we have arrived in the Spanish Virgin Islands. This is over 1000 miles from where we started in Florida and at least 800 miles from Georgetown where we left after Christmas. Culebra is the main island and then there are several other ones nearby. Actually we arrived yesterday at Vieques however given that part of the island is used as a gunnery range by the US Navy we really didn’t think we had arrived quite yet. We were able to see Puerto Rico the whole way. It is kind of neat to look at the island from the east and understand why this island impacts on the weather patterns of the entire region. The easterly trade winds, laden with water from the ocean are forced upward when they hit the eastern shore and cause all of the water to fall as rain.

Well Culebra is not what I expected. From what we had read I expected an almost uninhabited island, not one with an airport, hotel, houses and a small town. We arrived by noon and instead of anchoring we were able to grab a mooring ball right inside a reef. On the other side of this reef the waves are pounding and the wind blows 15-20 knots all day and during the night. We went ashore for a brief tour just to get the lay of the land and find the important things; grocery store, bakery, gas station and ATM. Then one of the following days we rented a jeep and toured all of the island's beaches and other sights.

We expect to hang around these islands for the next week or two before pushing on to St. Thomas, the closest of the US Virgin Islands. While in Puerto Rico we met, Jimmy, a single hander who had lost his mast in the Mona Passage. Jimmy traveled with us for a while before we put into Ponce to get a couple of small things repaired. Jimmy in ¾ Time continued on to St. Thomas and we hope to catch up with him once we get there. He lives there and should be able to point us in the right direction for a few things we’re looking for. We also met Jim and Dinah on Evergreen IV Rest out of Collingwood, Ontario. They have sold everything and are living on their boat full time, not something we can imagine doing. They may catch up with us before we leave the Spanish Virgins.

While traveling we have tried our luck at fishing but apart from a three mackerel day, we caught a bunch of barracuda and a jack, none of which we are interested in eating. It’s 8 at night and we’re sitting in the cockpit enjoying the breeze and relatively cool air. It is actually cooler here than it was on the south coast of Puerto Rico. While it is cool here for the locals, we are enjoying the 27-30 degree days and the 20-22 degree evenings. That’s plus, not minus degrees Celsius. Just thought we would rub it in a little bit.

We went over to the smaller island know as Culebrita and finally were presented with what we expected. An uninhabited island with coral all over the place. The administrators of these islands got it right. Instead of having boats anchoring and damaging the coral, they have made mooring balls available at all of the best anchorages at no cost to the users. Yahoo!! We may come back to these islands if the the US and British Virgins prove too crowded as they're hardly any boats around.

The Long Haul

Well the last couple of weeks have started to blur together and we had to read the last blog to figure out where we left off. We stayed in Southside Marina in Provodinciales in the Turks for two nights and rested up and met a nice couple that have stopped cruising and have started managing the small marina. Because they were cruisers they have really catered the marina facilities to cruisers with internet, laundry, shower, etc. Simon runs a net on the VHF radio every morning providing weather forecasts and information for newly arrived boats. Very helpful and we recommend this marina to anybody putting into the island. We had drinks on their boat one night and went out with them to the Conch Shack the next night with Menno sitting in the back bed of their beat up pick up truck.

We left the marina on a Saturday morning for the outer islands to the east, Ambergris and Big Sand. We made Ambergris just before nightfall and anchored very close into a coral reef. The next morning at day break we picked our way through the reef and faced pounding seas on the other side as the sea tried to make its way through the narrow opening in the reef. Once clear we faced 15-20 knot winds and 6 foot seas that were almost right on the nose. Consequently we tacked back and forth towards Big Sand Cay, our jump off point to the Dominican Republic. The seas smooth out a bit during the day and we made Big Sand by two in the afternoon. We got off the boat and landed on a beach with what we estimated was a 30 degree slope. We wrestled the dinghy up the slope waiting for each wave to push it higher.

We left there at sundown and headed for the DR. Eighty eight miles of open ocean. The weather was pretty good but we still had the wind almost on the nose and had to motor sail the whole way. As we approached the DR the mountains were visible from 25 or more miles away even though it was still dark. As we got a little closer the seas calmed completely due to land effect where the breezes come off the land and counter effect the easterly winds that dominate in the Caribbean.

We pulled into the marina at Oceanworld at 0900 and fueled and received a berth. While we were both tired after napping in the cockpit while the other steered, there was so much to see that we explored. We found a little restaurant run by two Canadians just outside the marina and had a great supper there. The next couple of days we toured Puerto Plata and lounged by a huge pool that we had to ourselves.

On a Wednesday night we waited for the land effect breezes to take over the easterly trade winds and left Oceanworld. Well we were greeted by water we estimate at 8-10 foot rollers that bounced us around until we could clear of the shallower water near shore. We were off for Puerto Rico. Once clear of the rougher water we wanted to put up the main sail, however, the bouncing around had caused our halyard to wrap around another line at the mast and we only could use the jib. In the morning light we saw what had happened and after a little cursing and bouncing around on deck the halyard was freed. During the night we kept hearing two other boats on the radio and we finally contacted them. They were about an hour behind us so we had a little more comfort that we weren’t the only ones out there. By late morning we decided we needed a break and put into what almost looked like a fjord on the northeast tip of the DR.

We re-grouped there on one of the most spectacular sceneries we have ever seen. The other two boats also put in there however we decided to leave before they did. We were on the go again to cross the Mona Passage between the DR and Puerto Rico. This passage can be a nasty one and the distance we had to cover was about 130 miles. Weather cooperated and we made the Puerto Rico coast just after nightfall and anchored at Mayaguez, a seaport on the west side of the island. We tried to get hold of US Customs the next day because PR is a US protectorate and only finally managed to check in at the end of the afternoon on Saturday. The next morning we motored south for about 10 miles to Boqueron, a well know anchorage for cruising boats. Of course on the way down we caught a fish for supper and had it cleaned before entering the anchorage.

Looking back, we left Georgetown, Exuma exactly 12 days before arriving in PR. During that time we were laid up in the T & C for 2 days and Oceanworld for another 2 days. So in 8 days we covered over 500 miles, many of those at night. From here on in we slow down and enjoy the wonderful little bays and reefs of the islands as we will very slowly move east and south over the next couple of months.

The First Long Passage

New Years and we’re moving from Mayaguana to the Turks & Caicos. We left one of the nicest anchorages we have seen in the Bahamas with 15 feet of crystal clear water on a white sand bottom. (Liz only looked at it from near the boat ladder due to the overly curious 4 foot barracuda). At midnight we started our last leg of a 250 nautical mile passage that started at Georgetown on the Monday morning. We had left there more than a little nervous and bucking 15 knot winds and 4-6 foot waves that were right on the nose. The first leg of our journey would be relatively short, 25 miles, because we got a late start that morning as we needed to access the internet weather and try one last time to extend our Bahamian visa before leaving their waters. No success with the visa as a boat load of Haitians arrived somewhere nearby and the immigration folk were in an uproar.

We made Long Island in the afternoon after tacking back and forth along our designated route. We stayed at a beautiful beach at Hog Cay. The picture doesn’t do it justice. The next morning bright and early we left for Rum Cay. A great trip with both fishing rods out. We must have had 3-4 hits before we got into a school of mahi mahi. First one rod started to sing and before we could get more than 10 feet of line in the second one started to tear of line. Liz proceeded to slowly bring in the first fish while I tried to bring in the second on the lighter rod. Both fish were jumping and in the end the one on the lighter rod got away. Liz brought hers in close to the boat and we got it on board. A nice 8-10 pound mahi. Cleaned it that afternoon when we got into Rum Cay and had it that night for supper. Better than anything we have had in any restaurant. A 6 foot nurse shark cleaned up the mess we had thrown overboard. Talk about efficient garbage service.

We left Rum right after supper on our first overnight passage. Both of us were quite nervous as we hadn’t ever done this before and we did not have a buddy boat with us. The conditions were perfect. Almost flat seas with no chop but a 4 foot easy swell that didn’t give us any problems. Winds were light so we were motor sailing with full sails up and we were doing more than 7 knots most through the night. Instead of arriving at our next destination in the middle of the afternoon, we arrived at the Plana Cays at day break. Both of us had napped during the night and sunrise was a spectacular and welcome sight. We decided to keep going right on through to Mayaguana and arrived in the middle of the afternoon to enjoy a dip in the water before having supper and getting to sleep before our last step of the trip. The dolphins we saw as we were coming in unfortunately did not come around the boat.

We left Mayaguana at midnight and wished each other a Happy New Year. We believe that we saw the fireworks at the Turks and Caicos reflected off the clouds on the horizon to the south. As we weighed anchor the bioluminescence in the water was spectacular. So its 2:00 AM, I’m watching the meteorites zipping across the sky, Liz is having a nap on one of the cockpit cushions, there is very little wind and we’re making our way south at 6 knots using the engine. After having worried about the first night passage, this second one is peaceful and enjoyable. We left in the middle of the night because we wanted to arrive first thing in the morning before the convection winds started to blow from the east over the shallow Caicos Bank.

Our next big step will be to jump to the Dominican Republic from the Turks and Caicos, another 80 mile passage in very open water. After having sailed in the Bahamas where the water is very shallow, to be in several thousand feet of water is also a little unnerving. The deep blue colour of the water is also something we’ll both remember. Time to get back to the helm.