Water Island, Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas USVI

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sat 5 Apr 2014 16:40

18:19.70N 64:57.05W

 

Thurs & Fri – 3rd & 4th April

 

The weather started brightly for Balvenie to head off to the BVi’s, but Amanda & Mark are not known for being early risers so they didn’t depart until 1030 hours, but was notable for the full, very serious Hakka performed by Mark stood on their cabin top as they crept past us. We were so impressed by his display that we were far too slow grabbing the camera as it would have made a wonderful photo for sure.

 

The weather has taken a real turn for the worse and the day was spent rushing round opening hatches to let much needed breeze into the boat and then closing them when the heavens opened. And boy did they open at times. The dinghy had ankle deep rain water after one astonishing cloud burst alone.

 

In the evening Mark and Sue from Macushla came over for drinks and we did a lot of catching up as they too have covered a lot of miles since we last saw them and they rather put us to shame with all of their traveling and cultural side trips.

 

The weather on Friday was if anything even worse and the cloudbursts were frequent and relentless, but there seemed no point in just sitting in Lameshur Bay especially as we were very low on some basic foods.  We are busy trying to use up all the tinned food that is squirreled away in the various bilge lockers etc. but there is still a need for veg and some dairy produce! So we headed off downwind to Charlotte Amalie which is the capital of St Thomas, USVI.  Here we anchored close to two huge cruise ships and went ashore to do the shopping run. We dodged another of the heavy showers by ducking into a very unobvious café/restaurant (The Buddha) and enjoyed superb wraps and outstanding coffee and bravely foreswore the delicious looking cakes.

 

Then after a fast whiz round the Pueblo grocery store we returned to Serafina and made our way out of the harbour to an anchorage on the north west tip of Water Island.  We found a spot and dropped the anchor and were amazed to discover that the boat anchored immediately in front of us was ‘Gemini’ with Ron & Susan who we had last seen in Israel on the East Med Rally in 2010. They were both very well and had only come across the Atlantic from the Med this winter and are about to head north to their home in Annapolis, USA.

 

This anchorage is where we will have to wait for Serafina to be loaded onto the ship next month for the trip back to the UK so we have come to suss it out and see what facilities are available nearby.  Our first impressions are good although it is quite rolly with passing traffic and we have now been warned by Gemini that you cannot anchor on the outside edge of the mooring field (which is exactly where we are) as cruise ships turn here to manoeuvre themselves onto the dock across the narrow fairway.  Glad we found that out the easy way!