Hassel Island, St. Thomas; Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we are in Fat Hog's Bay in Tortola, BVI. We are power-challenged currently, so we're making the most of the little power we have. Our plan is to leave Sunday as the weather should be better and head for St. Martin. Hopefully, we can rectify the power situation when we get there as there are competent, reasonable repair facilities there.

Just a brief recap of our last few days. Mike got his HAM license while in St. Thomas which means we should be able to get free email more regularly.

We met a couple from Michigan, Karen and Jason from YOLO, a PDQ 42--a BIG catamaran., with whom we hung out for about a week.

We were anchored at Hassel Island, a pretty place with goats roaming the hillsides, a beautiful beach and great scenery. We were constantly watchiing cruise ships coming and going as we were just outside Charlotte Amalie, the capital city of St. Thomas, and seaplanes landing and taking off.

Had a little diversion of a beach party at Honeymoon Bay on Sunday, Dec. 2. Then after a brief stop at Charlotte Amalie, we sailed around the eastern end of St. Thomas to Red Hook Bay for one night; then over to St. John.

Stayed in St. John for a couple of days anchored in extremely rolly, but beautiful Caneel Bay--a bit of a long dinghy ride from Cruz Bay, the center of town. One day we rode the bus to Coral Bay. The ride was a rather exciting one as the streets are narrow and very steep. The bus driver who seemed a little angry would lay on her horn as we rounded blind bends to alert others coming our way. Somehow we got there and back safely.

Coral Bay turned out to be the site of an American ex-pat community with full-time liveaboards enjoying paradis. Everyone seemed to know each other.

Although most things on St. John's were expensive, we did find Woody's with $1 drinks at happy hour as well as some local restaurants with fried chicken and barbecued ribs--mmmm...good.

On Friday we headed over to Jost Van Dyke and Foxy's, a well-known sailors' hangout. Of course, we met some other charterers there from Colorado. We never cease to be amazed how many Coloradans we meet.

With Tropical Storm Olga beginning to materialize, we headed out Saturday with lively sail to Norman Island, the Bight. There we were able to stay out of the weather dangers, although we had plenty of wind and numerous showers. The swimming and snorkeling were wonderful although there wasn't a lot to do. We were anchored right next to the Willie T., a floating bar and restaurant that played a lot of loud music, which was okay. It was also the scene of a lot of partying.

Met another great couple who had sailed from London, Graeme and Gyllian Mulcahy. Their visiting friends, Jock and Jill, were delightful as well. They were true cruisers who were making their way all over the islands and further. We enjoyed our evening with them.

St. Thomas, Virgin Islands - Nov. 16-30

After 11 ½ days of sailing, we arrived in St. Thomas at 1:30 in the morning. It was great to get here especially having had such an exhilarating journey. Lots of wind and waves that our crew, Jeff and Steve, especially enjoyed. We saw only about five other boats the whole time—amazing.

There’s been a bit of rain here on St. Thomas, much to our surprise. Of course, being on foot with numerous trips to town for boating supplies and other provisions calls for rain gear as the skies are sunny one minute and pouring rain the next. Of course, these trips included a trip to have a brand new inverter/charger repaired as well. This is a large, extremely heavy unwieldy box that had to be disconnected removed from underneath the settee and carried by dinghy to a place that would repair it. (They just don’t come to one’s boat!) So Mike and I struggled with it in the pouring rain getting it into the dinghy then from the dinghy up a very steep hill to the shop. Fortunately, it could be and was repaired in a timely fashion but maddening as we had just bought it in Annapolis for lots of boat units, as we call the big bucks.

While in St. Thomas, we rode the open-air jitneys for one or two dollars, depending on how far you go, to shopping areas too far away to walk. It’s a little dangerous walking here. There are few sidewalks, and if there are sidewalks, they’re narrow and end abruptly. Streets are narrow as well and filled with all manner of busy island traffic. The jitneys are fun. They are a safari-type vehicle with four or five benches that seat about 20 people. They come every few minutes, and you flag them down. Of course, if not careful, you can end up in a taxi or a tourist jitney where it costs at least $4 or $5 plus a tip to get where you’re going. K-mart is the big department store here. Imagine! We didn’t spend much time there, but a couple of things such as a bike helmet for Mike –more about that later—were on our shopping list. The bike helmet we determined would be a handy safety item for times when Mike has to go up the mast in windy, inclement weather. This happened on the passage two days into our journey. One section of the radar reflector way up on the mast fell off. With the winds whipping up, Mike felt if not taken down, the sharp edges of the remaining pieces might rip the sails. We were all a bit unnerved when this had to be done just before a stormy nightfall. After raising him ¾ of the way up our 63 foot mast, Mike swung from side to side in the brisk winds barely missing the mast several times as we all held our collective breath. After finally getting hold of the remaining piece of the sharp-edged radar reflector, he was lowered carefully, battered and bruised but luckily no head damage.

Our anchorage at Cas Cay in Benner Bay was a quiet one but more importantly had great internet access, an often difficult thing to find without lugging the computer to shore. There was also a nice grocery store, the Food Center, where we did some provisioning. Had thought about getting a turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. Even though turkeys were available, there were no deals like we’re used to in the states.

We decided to go to a restaurant Wednesday night called Buddha Sushi. The meal was outstanding—and that’s a real compliment from Mike who does not like sushi.