Anchored White Bay Jost Van Dyke 18:26.51N, 64:45.85W

AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Sat 25 Apr 2009 19:55
After a couple of nights in Soper's Hole we left our gas bottle to be filled and motored over to White Bay on the island of Jost Van Dyke. A short hop of 4-5 miles. As crowded anchorages go this was a 9/10 with many charter cats stopping by for a lunchtime swim and a visit to the Soggy Dollar bar - so named because people swim ashore with the money in their trunks to pay for their rum punches.
We observed one party of Americans, presumably staying in the small hotel back from the beach. They spent most of the afternoon up to their chests in the sea drinking rum punch after rum punch, playing sillier games by the hour. When a big squall hit the bay in the afternoon they stayed where they were until finally they emerged, almost unable to stand - in fact the last one crawled up the beach on all fours and collapsed in the sand. The squall when it hit reduced visibility to almost zero and had the effect of causing pandemonium amongst the anchored charter boats. A mass exodus then followed towards Great Harbour the next bay round. How they could see in the conditions was amazing. Torrential rain fell for 15-20 mins after which it cleared through, although the weather is very unsettled here at the moment. We stayed put for the night and left earlish the next morning to return to Soper's where we hoped our filled propane gas bottle would be awaiting us. A pleasant sail back across to Tortola found us on the water quay in the marina however, our gas bottle was sitting outside the office unfilled so we took off to see Norman Island a windward bash up the sound between St Johns (USA) and Tortola.