Ready to leave the Virgin Islands...back to Sint Maarten.
Chelone's travels.....
John and Susie Blair.
Thu 14 Nov 2013 13:59
|
NB: Click on highlighted text to be taken
to an external link.
Yes, we're poised ready to leave, and we could've been waiting a week or two for the trade winds to swing a little to give us a better wind angle but hey presto! just as if we'd put an order in....winds are forecast to swing north east at the weekend!! It's hard to believe that we've been here a month! and I think we did pretty well in that we had a really good mooch around albeit mostly in the British islands though at least we did take Chelone to both the American islands after initially thinking that we couldn't due to inacurate advice regarding costs. Since I last wrote we've enjoyed a couple of nice stop overs on the north coast of St.John while on the way back to Tortola. Ross had an appointment with a charter manager in Nanny Cay courtesy of our new friend Josh (whom Ross did some work for last week) so we headed up there and luckily the wind and sea were calm enough that we managed to anchor outside the marina for the night which saved us from having to taxi down from Road Town. Ross went ashore and met with the charter manager and I pottered about on Chelone with emails etc. Later, we went back in and gave Josh and his new friend Mallory a hand with preparing a buffet for the Charter Boat show and Charter reps who were imminently arriving to inspect Love Boat. Mallory had turned up and was looking for work on the charter boats and Josh needed a hand so took her on temporarily. She hailed from Michigan but had been working as a Chef in Rhode Island before coming here. So we turned up at Nanny Cay and Ross got stuck in with helping to prepare the buffet with Mallory. The next thing was we were descended upon by around twelve charter reps who, like a plague of locusts began devouring the lovely buffet that Ross and Mallory were still in the process of preparing. Not quite finished preparing the buffet? no problem...the locusts just pitched in and made the final platters (consuming as they went of course). I just sat back and people watched the frenzy of consumption.....time lapse pics would've been stunning here ('Go-Pro Teeny Lowe where are you!). No sooner had they arrived out of the blue, then they were gone.... moved on to another boat for more food n' booze! I think I'll become a charter rep! Enough about that, needless to say we had a great night and said our farewells as we were going our seperate ways now. So Ross and myself moved back up the coast of Tortola to Road Town in the hope of finding a bar that would show the Wales vs South Africa game.....yeah right! A bit of a wind up that one....wandering around in the intense heat harbouring what turned out to be 'insane optimism' though we did have a 'plan B'......the laptop!! after much frustration of trawling the internet for a free site to stream the match Ross got us the game and we sat back to watch Wales get beaten 24-15 after all that...hey-ho! We topped up our supplies in the Supermarket and sailed back around the bottom of Tortola and once again across to Jost Van Dyke. There was one other bay there that we'd missed on our earlier visit 'White Bay and the famous 'Soggy Dollar Bar'. We turned up and got the anchor down just as boat loads of Americans were making their departure....awesome! Soon after, we went ashore to what turned out to be a bit of a damp squib ....'Soggy Dollar Bar' was a tiny little shack with nobody there.....it'd gone from being an overcrowded mass of activity to, well....nothing in just an hour or so. We had a beer then returned to Chelone somewhat disappointed. Next day saw us sailing to windward up the Sir Francis Drake Passage once again as we made our way back to Spanish Town via another one night stop over at the 'Paradise' anchorage that is Valley Trunk Bay. Steve Job's Superyacht 'Venus' was anchored on 'our' spot but as we drew closer they up anchored and left.....what did we do? I think I can safely say that of all the beautiful anchorages I've had the privalage to visit this has got to be the best.....absolutely stunning. The beautiful crystal clear azure water, the fabulous beach with the most amazing backdrop of huge boulders swathed in palm trees....as one would say in Tenby....lush! After our night there we checked out with Customs in Spanish Town then made our move to the north of Tortola and Biras Creek which is near to Bitter End where we'd anchored a few weeks back. There's a swanky resort overlooking the Creek so we ventured up for a sundowner last night. What a beautiful place. On one side there's the creek with a panoramic view down the Francis Drake Passage and on the other is the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean (see pics). So, we're hoping to take a sail up to the one island left to visit....Anegada (British) which lies 14 miles to the north east. Anegada is promised to be a wonderful place and we plan to stay a couple of days before taking advantage of the wind shift mentioned earlier and our return sail to St.Marten. We'll see what (if any) internet there is while we're there and if possible I'll post another blog before we sail back to SXM. I hope you liked the 'Hyperlinks', a newly aquired computer skill! Also, I managed to upload some video....see links
below.
Bye for now, JB & R. http://youtu.be/xF-X0B_DcJ0 http://youtu.be/qHsmAEGJZmQ http://youtu.be/aDiZE6rEquc |