The U.S. Virgin Islands

From Culebra, Puerto Rico, we and our two buddy boats, Caretta and Wild Horses, set off for the U.S. Virgin Islands on May 6^th. We were anchored in Brewer’s Bay, St. Thomas, USVI by 2:30pm. Dave & I were able to go almost halfway on solar & battery, but it got bumpy so we had to cave in and turn on the generator. It’s a lovely little bay that I look forward to exploring more next season. This time around, it was just a one-night stopover. We all gathered on Wild Horses for drinks and trip planning that afternoon. We decided to brave any potential cruise ships and check out Charlotte Amalie for a day.

It was a short 6.5 nm jump to Long Bay outside Charlotte Amalie. This is the very bay in which we anchored Indigo Lady back in 2014 after we bought her. We did our provisioning from here. It was a long time ago, and I was very focused on provisioning, but a few things did ring my memory bells when we went ashore this time. First, we used the yacht club’s dinghy dock, just like we did back in 2014. I recognized the building. The cabanas where our signature boat drink, the Indigo Lady, was born are still behind said yacht club. Unfortunately, they were closed while we were ashore this time. I also recognized historic Charlotte Amalie because of the cobblestone alleys and stone-faced buildings (made from ship ballast). All the boat buddies bopped around the historic part of town for a bit. It’s pretty, architecturally, but there’s nothing there but shops and restaurants. When a cruise ship is in, this place is jam packed! The one cruise ship that had been slated to be in port this particular day had canceled, so most of the shops and some of the restaurants were closed. No worries, it only takes one restaurant to feed us, and we found one with a lovely breeze. It was an abysmally hot day, so we all returned to our boats and the breeze after only about three hours ashore.

Our next stop was Christmas Cove at Great St. James Island where we would stay for four nights. Caretta picked up the last free mooring ball and Wild Horses anchored. We were just about to make a second attempt to set anchor ourselves when a mooring ball opened up. Score! We took it. It was right next to the pizza boat. Yes, I said pizza boat. Pizza Pi is owned and run by a young man from New England (MA and NH). Small world. Brilliant idea for a restaurant! We all called in our pizza order early in the day to ensure Pizza Pi could accommodate (if they get too many orders, they stop taking them). The buddies came over for drinks, and at our 5pm pick up time, the boys dinghied over to collect our Pies. Delicious! It was a lovely way to celebrate our anniversary. 

It was a leisurely paced few days at Christmas Cove. We all caught up on boat chores. I did some baking and caught up on my blog and sorting photos. The boys dinghied the 3 miles or so to Benner Bay to Budget Marine. Everybody needed something for their boat. Dave came back with four solar vents for our cabin hatches. Now we’ll have more airflow when she’s closed up and on the hard during hurricane season. We all did some pretty nice snorkeling right off our boats. Fish Cay, really a big rock, sits in the middle of the cove and has quite a lot of fish. Our friends on Bitty Rose arrived our last day there and invited everyone for drinks that evening. It was another fabulous night with friends!

From Christmas Cove we moved to Cruz Bay on St. John. Caretta was in the lead and reported back that there didn’t appear to be any room to anchor, so we went north around the point to Caneel Bay where there were dozens of National Park mooring balls open. Score! Two thirds of St. John is National Park, including the waters. There are only a couple of places, all on the south side of the island, where one can actually drop an anchor, everywhere else you have to pick up and pay for a mooring ball. Day use is free; overnight is $26/night. Dave bought a lifetime National Park pass back in Puerto Rico, so we got ½ price off the mooring balls. Woo hoo! Our little caravan picked up three balls in a row on the north end of the bay. From there it was an easy 1.5nm dinghy ride into the town of Cruz Bay where they have a lovely dinghy dock available. Cruise ships don’t come to St. John, but passengers can make a day trip by ferry to the island. Like all such places, the waterfront is all shops and restaurants. We enjoyed bopping around and looking and we found good food for lunch. There is a wonderful supermarket a short distance up the hill where we were able to restock our rum supply inexpensively. On the dinghy ride into town we’d seen our friends on s/v Bye Felicia at the south end of the mooring field. We’d pulled the dinghies over to chat and invited them for drinks in the afternoon. So that evening we had everyone onboard, plus two dogs. Bye Felicia’s adorable Yorkie puppy, Rex, is in love with Ocean. They are so cute together. Rex is about as big as Ocean’s snout!

The next day our boat buddies boarded Indigo Lady and went to Mingo Island for a snorkel/dive on another wall. Our friend Matt on Bye Felicia used to live here and knew of a single mooring ball right over the reef that we could pick up. He said it was worth it and he was right! It was a lovely dive with still a good amount of healthy coral and tons of fish. The following day was a low key day. Dave and I donned our snorkel gear in the afternoon and swam toward the shore and along the beach, surprised that there were lots of fish among the rocks, including a bunch of big parrotfish and a zillion wee fish, likely recently hatched. We had everyone over for homemade pizza that night, and Mike & Victoria brought leftover fried chicken they’d bought ashore.

We wanted to head to Coral Harbor on the east end of St. John to stage for an overnight passage to St. Martin. The only place on the island to clear out with customs, however, was in Cruz Bay. On one of their trips ashore with Ocean, Mike and Victoria checked with customs in Cruz Bay who told them there was no problem clearing out 48 hours ahead of time. So that’s what we did. The morning of the 14^th we all trucked into Cruz Bay and cleared out at Customs with paperwork for St. Martin stamped 48 hours later. We returned to our boats and headed the 11.5 nm to Coral Harbor. As soon as we dropped anchor, we jumped into dinghies and headed for Lime Out, the taco boat. Yes, first a pizza boat and now a taco boat! We made our order to go and ate back on Indigo Lady together. Had we had more time, we would have swum over and lounged in one of their “lily pads.” These are basically round floaties that can fit 4-6 people with a little floating table in the middle. That’s something else I look forward to experiencing when we return next season!

We had hoped to see our friends Juan and Alison from s/v Guajira at their new home on the hill overlooking Coral Harbor. Unfortunately, Juan had gotten sick. Bummer! I texted with Alison from the anchorage and asked which house was theirs. We arranged an exchange of flashing lights for 8:00pm so we could “see” each other. It worked! So we flashed hello. Fun!

At about 12:30am, I heard a dull thud accompanied by a deep, rumbling vibration. What the heck was that?! I scrambled out of bed and came up to see a big catamaran up against our sugar scoops (that’s the stern end). “Dave! We’ve bumped into another boat!” Technically, as it turned out, they bumped into us, because according to our anchor circle, we hadn’t budged. The boat was attached to a mooring ball. Hmmm… Did the mooring ball break from its mooring? There did not appear to be anyone aboard, so we couldn’t wake them up to tell them. Dave used our motors to move us forward about 25 feet just to get our stern off the other boat. Then we watched. After about 15 minutes it became clear to us that the boat was not adrift. Their mooring ball had an unnecessarily long line from the ball to the bottom, like over 100’ long! That is not typical for a mooring. When we had anchored, we saw they were on a mooring and a little over 200’ from us. That should not have been too close. Little did we know about their ridiculously long mooring anchor line. On that night, the wind had died and the water was glassy, so boats were just meandering about on their mooring lines or anchors. Since this one had such a long leash, they meandered right into us. But the wind picked up and they returned to their original position. Dave and I pulled in 25’ of anchor rode, shortening our scope from 4:1 to 3:1 and went back to bed. If they meandered again, they wouldn’t be able to reach us. 

The next morning, as we were preparing for our overnight passage to St. Martin, a dinghy approached us. It was Juan and Alison stopping by for a quick hello! Juan was feeling well enough to venture out for some homebuilding supplies, and they stopped to say hello. It was a wonderful surprise! Hopefully we will be able to catch them next season for a longer visit.

At 10:00am, the three buddy boats were hauling anchor and setting off on the 95nm passage to St. Martin, which is where I will pick up next time. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!

PS- I didn’t have time to sort through and edit the photos from our dives, so this slideshow is just the land-based parts of our time in the USVI. At some point I’ll put together slides for the dives.