Christiansted, St Croix, USVI

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sat 1 Mar 2014 12:58

17:45.0N 64:41.8W

 

Friday 28th Feb

 

Seemed a shame to leave Round bay as it is a wonderful spot, calm, peaceful and with a free high speed internet signal being beamed from somewhere!  But the weather forecast was clear that today was the last reasonable day to be making the 35 mile trip due south to St Croix Island.

 

So we set sail in 18 to 25 knots of ESE wind and had a great romp down although the seas were still pretty large again as forecast though.  Failed to catch any fish during the 6 hour sail and sadly when we were about 8 miles from our destination the splice on the halyard on the inner forestay gave way and the staysail which we were using, dropped partially. We furled it up and have to re-splice the halyard whilst we are here in St Croix.

 

We made our way into the harbour at Christiansted which is a mass of coral reefs and lots of shallows and found that there are very few visiting yachts here and so anchored in plenty of space in Gallows Bay.  We then launched the dinghy and went into town to the ‘boardwalk’ and walked the short distance to the national park rangers office to sort out a permit to visit Buck Island.  We had been doing this via email but it was all very tedious, so now we were here, it made sense to go to the office. This turned out to be our lucky day as the small unit that usually deals with this was shut and so we were allowed into the main office where everyone was incredibly helpful and attentive – all the more so when they discovered that we had sailed here from England.  Our application was dealt with and hopefully we will get authorisation by tomorrow morning which will allow us to sail to the nearby Buck Island which is very much the jewel in the Virgin Island snorkelling crown. No boats may visit unless they have a permit (which is free) but these are generally very slow to obtain with the wheels of bureaucracy turning very slowly taking between 2 to 5 days by all accounts.  Why do we want to visit Buck island – well that hopefully will become clear in the blogs over the next few days.

 

We anchored in Gallows bay and were about to set off ashore when a huge fire broke out directly upwind of us, just over a low hill and in no time at all we had flakes of ash landing all over the boat.  Fortunately the fire was brought under control quite quickly and so are now hoping for rain to clean the decks off again. It is just so ironic that we had been remarking that today was the very first day this winter that bore all the hallmarks of a ‘normal’ Caribbean day with a clear blue sky and a fresh 20 knot wind – and no rain.  Now here we are a few hours later hoping for that rain again. 

 

We then took a turn around the town which is delightful and almost devoid of people and made our way along the boardwalk to the car hire companies who are grouped around the seaplane base. Avis and Budget were very unhelpful and expensive and so we were thrilled to find Denise who works for Centerline car rental. She was very resourceful and in addition to being way cheaper than the other two, she was incredibly helpful and so we have a car available for our use whichever day turns out to suit us best next week.

 

The reason we are unable to commit to a date yet centres around the weather and the actual granting of a permit to visit Buck Island, plus which days there is a cruise ship in the only other town on the island, Frederiksted.  We need to balance which days will be quiet out at Buck Island as well as when to hire the car and avoid the hordes of visitors from a cruise ship.

 

St Croix was Danish until purchased by the US during the last century and so the buildings in Christiansted reflect their Danish roots and the entire town has a very different feel and look to it.  Sadly photographically it remains challenging due to the American’s love of over-ground power cables that they cheerfully string along on poles in front of all of the most beautiful buildings!

 

So we are planning to stay here for a fair few days as we are in no rush and clearly this island has a lot to offer, the only obvious downside so far being the complete absence of a grocery store within many miles of Christiansted.  Back to the American culture of the car…..

 

Photos can be viewed at http://www.rhbell.com/photographs-2014.html