Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Wed 4 Apr 2012 11:54

18:20.25N 64:55.8W

 

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday – 1st, 2nd & 3rd April

We left White Bay, Peter Island early so that we could get into White Bay, Jost Van Dyke.   This is a very small (and shallow) anchorage inside a reef on the West end of Jost Van Dyke that I remember as an idyllic but exclusive hotel which is renowned for inventing the Painkiller cocktail.   But when we arrived, there was this odd mini cruise ship that we keep seeing around the Caribbean parked outside and as we approached an Ovni sped in ahead.   The anchorage seem is to be deep enough for us only just around the entrance channel and it became very clear that we were not able to compete for space there!   So we abandoned and settled to anchor in Great Harbour, about 1 mile away, finding a nice spot in amongst all the mooring buoys.

We went ashore for wifi to Foxy’s and I had a wander up the beach, finding a taxi driver happy to drive us over to the Sandcastle in White Bay.   So having dumped the computer back on board and dressing nicely for the Sandcastle, we set off very slowly in the lurching taxi.   Of course, when we arrived the beach was alive with people both off the ship and over for Sunday afternoon drinking from Tortola and boy were they drinking – I felt distinctly overdressed.   We indulged in some Painkillers and had a very nice evening walk along the beach, with dozens of pelicans plunging into the sea amongst over-indulged oblivious swimmers.

Rob got off early to customs and immigration the next morning so that we could clear out of the BVIs and motored over to Cruz Bay on St Johns in the U S of A!!   We anchored rather gingerly in the temporary anchorage in less than ½ m of water and dinghied into Customs just too late to avoid the disgorging of a Tortola/St Thomas ferry whose passengers were being forced to check in here, so rather a long queue in the boiling sun.

Now very excited we returned to Serafina to set off for Charlotte Amalie to meet up with Scott-Free who were arriving there from their trip north to the East coast of the USA, Cuba and all points west of the USVIs, to discover the tide had gone out and we were rather firmly stuck in the mud!   Eventually managed to power our way out of the soft mud and headed off to Charlotte Amalie still with insufficient wind to make sailing worthwhile.   But this did allow us to dress overall (decorate the boat with all our flags for the uninitiated) to celebrate Scott-Free’s arrival.   In the event they were already at anchor but we managed to anchor nearby and spent the rest of the day celebrating, catching up and going into town for a meal.   It was perfectly wonderful to see Chris and Steve again.

Today Chris and I went into town for some much needed retail therapy to discover that the WHOLE place is devoted to jewellery shops, we even struggled to find a good coffee shop as presumably the cruise ship tourists are already fed to the gills before they disembark for yet another duty free experience.   So we were back on the quay in no time and had to resort to a K Mart in another area of the harbour, where we managed to find the perfect loud shirt for Rob at a fraction of the cost and even in his size rather than marquee dimensions.

One of the reasons we were keen to see St Thomas was that we had thought to provision and leave from here for our passage north to the east coast of America, but we have decide that this definitely isn’t the place we had anticipated and will probably leave from the BVIs now.   In fact we will be quite happy to leave here and get back to our bay and snorkelling lifestyle!   Tomorrow we will go back to St John’s where there is a national marine park and as there is still likely to be no wind, will spend some time with Chris and Steve cross-examining them for every last drop of info on their latest travels!   And of course there will have to be a Mexican Train game or two…