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.
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