Christmas Cove, USVI. mega reunion

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Tue 1 Apr 2014 21:23

18:18.4N 64:50.0W

 

 

Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon – 28th, 29th, 30th & 31st March

 

Fri, Sat & Sun were rather dull generally and Sarah busied herself polishing the coach-roof and deck areas whilst I pretended to be something useful. We pottered over to the Fish & Lime several times to take extended advantage of their excellent free wifi and generally killed time to let the weather calm down a bit (and avoid paying the extra charges for checking out of the BVI’s on a Sunday!).

 

On Sunday evening we went out to dinner with Bill & Linda Knowles who have been so helpful, kind and generous to us over the two years we have known them and not least to thank them for the use of the very handy mooring buoy here.  We were joined by Paul & Judy Carrell who run a guest house here in Soper’s Hole aptly named the Crow’s Nest as it has the most wonderful commanding position half way up the hill overlooking this picturesque bay.

 

On Monday we were heading off to the US Virgins to join up with two sets of old friends, but firstly we were treated to breakfast at Omar’s ‘D Best Cup’ coffee shop by Bill & Linda. I then went off to Customs to run the gauntlet of officialdom to get clearance for our departure after which I went over to Rees’ house to take a few photos of Serafina sitting in the bay.

 

So it was not until 1030 hours that we finally slipped our lines and headed off on the 7 mile romp downwind to Cruz Bay, St John’s Island where we checked into the US Virgin islands. This all went surprisingly well and so we were soon heading across the channel to Christmas Cove on St Thomas island where we knew Balvenie (Amanda & Mark) and Koza (Jim & Carola) were anchored. Well that is until Amanda called us on the VHF to say that they have left there and gone to the BVI’s which is where we had just come from….. Well it turns out that being Kiwis they felt that it was probably already 1st April back home so they were entitled to have some fun with us!!

 

We picked up a buoy around 1430 hours and in no time at all Jim and Carola had joined us for a few beers and in due course Mark and Amanda came over to join the fun. God knows what time they left, but there was a big bag of empties.  We last saw Jim & Carola in Israel as they had been on the East Med rally with us back in 2010.  Mark & Amanda we last saw just outside Boston back in September (The Kiwis had been 8 races up in the America’s Cup series and the trophy was in the bag………. Question: How do you get a cork back in a bottle of champagne?  Answer: Ask a  Kiwi….. they did it 9 times!)

 

It was great to catch up with them all and the loose plan is to stay around here with them for a couple of days. Jim and Mark had been racing on a 70ft American yacht here last week and have been invited to do another race series in the BVI’s on the same boat starting this Friday, so we will saying our goodbyes on Thursday probably.  Meanwhile they have concentrated their resources on recovering the guy’s stainless steel anchor and anchor chain which he had left planted in the bay (to save precious weight for the racing) attached to a buoy but it had escaped – well, the rope broke!