Water is back on the menu.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Wed 23 Apr 2014 02:49

Sun & Mon – 20th & 21st April

 

Sunday started with a visit from Keith from Savarna (NZ) who had arrived the previous evening and he was inviting us to join them on board for supper.

 

In return I ran Keith and myself over to Gun Creek in Doris to deal with Customs and Immigration.  Keith was trying to sort out some missing paperwork and I was looking to formally check out.  Unfortunately in the rush I forgot that we had taken the paperwork out of the folder to inspect the dates etc, and had not replaced it.  So my trip was wasted and I had to go all the way back again an hour later. We had hoped to be allowed to extend our stay by a week to cruise with Balvenie, but because stupidly I had said that we only wanted clearance for a week when we arrived last week, that was all we could now have.  So we have to leave the BVI’s and sail to the USVI’s and check in there before we can think about returning to check back into the BVI’s.  (OK I doubt many readers are still with me on this!)

 

Anyway we had a lovely evening on Savarna with Keith and Pam and their guests Chris and Jo who we last saw in Israel at the end of the East Med Rally in 2010.  We also managed to say goodbye (again) to Balvenie, but it is our hope that we will meet them and Savarna again soon.

 

Customs and Immigration had been very understanding at Gun Creek and given us permission to stay until 0800 hours the next morning and so in order not to upset anyone we headed off at 0700 hours on Monday for the trip down to St Thomas, USVI.  This is just 22 miles and we had a really good sail for the most part, reaching a steady 8 knots which with the hull now carrying a year’s worth of growth and barnacles, we felt was pretty impressive.

 

We made our way to Christmas Cove, St Thomas and picked up a mooring buoy there and sat with our yellow customs flag flying to show that we had not yet formally entered the country. We phoned Chuck, the Spectra water maker technician who lives on a boat here (turned out to be the one immediately next to us!) and he came over late in the afternoon (a public holiday for Easter here too) with the new circuit board and over the next two hours got it all running again.