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Date: 14 Feb 2012 21:46:00
Title: Rendezvous Bay, St John, USVI
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We arrived here from Vieques yesterday, again under motor due to light winds.  There is a lot of truth in Doug's _expression_, there are only 3 types of wind, too much, too little and wrong direction!!  That said, since we left Antigua in November, we have had some amazing sails, and our engine hours are very low indeed - means less servicing needed!!
Our first plan was to meet up with Glenn from Sylvia again as we had some items to swap over.  We decided on Caneel Bay just north of the main port of Cruz Bay.  When we arrived there was too much swell so, rather than spend a night rolling on anchor, we headed south to Rendezvous Bay, which should have been well sheltered, but as you can probably guess it wasn't!  We stuck it out for two nights, and then decided enough was enough and headed round to Cruz Bay so we could check out, and then on to Francis Bay on the north coast.  
While we were anchored in Cruz Bay we took the opportunity to look around as this is the main town on St John, and also take a ferry over to St Thomas.  St Thomas is one of those places that everyone warns you against - it has a reputation for violence and general trouble especially at night and those whom we have met who have stayed there have all said the same - 'you don't go out at night'.  We popped in for a quick look around the marina area, particularly the chandlers in Red Hook but only stayed for about an hour and then went back to Cruz Bay.  The main town of St Thomas, Charlotte Amalie, is cruise ship heaven so we gave that one a miss!!
Cruz Bay is a more interesting town than some of the other cruise ship destinations we have been into.  There are obviously lots of the usual cruise dock shops that you get everywhere, selling perfume, jewellery etc, but also there are many smaller shops selling handmade jewellery, although each shop sells largely the same items - they have a bracelet and ring they make here with the St John hook design, and lots of the shops seem to make their own variations on this theme.  Funnily enough, if you buy the same design in St Croix, another of the US Virgin Islands, it is called a St Croix hook.  Cruz Bay was formerly a artistic community which has grown and developed largely on the back of it's being a cruise destination so much of the old 'hippie' vibe is long gone, but it was a nice place to spend a couple of hours mooching around.
That evening, as I said we moored in Francis Bay.  The big plus of this bay was that there was a restaurant ashore, but as Glenn pointed out, it would not be nouvelle cuisine as it was part of a campsite.  St John is 90% National Park, both on land and on sea, so this is a very eco friendly site.  Dinner, being an American place was served between 5-7pm - I am still struggling to get my head around this obsession the yanks have with eating so early!  Anyway off we went, it was clearly not a place for a lengthy meal, but the food was nice and we were all so exhausted after 2 rolly nights that a late night would be quite out of the question anyway.  Post dinner we watched a glass blowing demonstration - they have different craftsman working on the site at different times which was interesting.  All items were for sale in the gallery but unfortunatelywe were leaving before it opened in the morning to head back east to the BVI to try and fit in some more kite boarding.

 The main square in Cruz Bay through sheeting rain!!

 John and Glenn 'crab walking' the dinghy up the beach to go for dinner

  Glass blowing demo
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