March 1st to March 5th, 2011
After Les and Susan left us, we spent another day at Nanny Cay doing maintenance, cleaning, refilling a propane tank, provisioning in town, and by March 2nd, we were ready to leave. We had heard a horror story from folks on yacht Club Carp who tried to clear in and our at Sopers Hole, and got caught up in a crowd arriving on a ferry, and it took them over two hours, so we bypassed West End, and motored over to Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke. There we picked up a mooring, Charlie went ashore and spoke to the agent, was back aboard five minutes later, when we dropped the mooring and headed to Cruz Bay on St. John in the US Virgins. We did not even drop anchor to check in...Charlie called St. Johns Customs and Immigration and gave them our Local Boater Option ("LBO") numbers. and that took care of it, so we were soon on a US National Parks mooring in Francis Bay. We spent the afternoon relaxing an de-compressing after having guests for two weeks.
Here's Charlie getting caught up with Lady's official log.
A couple of days later, our friends Mark and Velma on Kardia caught up with us, and we had a fun meal together, and some great snorkeling. Charlie found a lobster that Mark guessed was twenty pounds! Although one is permitted to take up to two lobsters from the park, this one was so big he was left behind...Mark considered him or her to be royalty!
Here's Kardia in Francis Bay with a gorgeous rainbow one morning.
On Saturday, March 5th, we moved on to Charlotte Amalie, and dropped anchor in the main harbor, near where the cruise ships dock. On our way ashore for provisions and supplies, we passed Gaiamar, a boat I'd been looking for for a couple of weeks! My friend Gail and her boyfriend Barry had spent a lot of time in the Spanish Virgins, and I had been told that she would be a great person to give me information about those islands. We made plans to meet ashore at Honeymoon Beach later in the afternoon.
After shopping and getting water at Crown Bay, we found our way to Druif Bay, and dropped anchor. Ashore, there was a beach bar, "Joe's Bar" and Eric Stone, a musician, who performs a lot at various island locations, and is quite popular with cruisers and charterers, was playing.
I'd brought our charts ashore and Gail and I had a great discussion about the Spanish Virgins. She gave us lots of GREAT information.
Sunday March 6th we departed the US Virgins headed west to Culebra, our first Puerto Rican destination.
The wind was light, so we had to motor most of the way. We were about a mile east of Sail Rock, the last piece of the USVI's when off to the south, Charlie saw a whale banging it's tail on the water. It was about a mile from us, but we zoomed in the cameras, and I did get a picture of it! We headed over towards the whale, but by the time we got to where we thought it was it had swum off.
