BVI’s and USVI’s

18:20.32N 64:55.83W

19^th February 2015

6100 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

            Today we are leaving St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands after a weeks cruising in company with Mike and Kate aboard Right Turn. I must say this is an absolutely brilliant cruising area, it is a bit like the Solent in that everything is only a few miles apart and the choices of marina or anchorage are just about endless. Also, just like the Solent it has rained on most days but it would be churlish to complain when a rain shower involves nothing more than getting your T Shirt wet (ooh Er missus) and maybe ducking under the bimini for half an hour. In fact you could quite easily spend an entire season here and not be bored at all, so what have we been up to.

On the first full day we caught the ferry from Tortola across to St Thomas in the USVI’s in order to get our passports stamped.

Breakfast in St Thomas

This is an anomaly of the system, in that if you haven’t got a full US visa on your passport and only have an ESTA you as an individual are allowed into the US but not on your own boat. So what you have to do is park the boat in the BVI’s get a commercial ferry across to St Thomas book into the US under your ESTA which gives you 90 days entry and then get the ferry back and pick up your boat which you can then enter into the US with, crazy but true. This will cover us for the USVI’s and Puerto Rico but unfortunately we will still have to go to the Bahamas to get our full visas as we want to stay in the US longer than the present 90 days allows, are you confused yet because we certainly are. Anyway to sum up, the nice American man with the uniform, sun glasses and big gun said this is what we have to do so who am I to argue. Having spent an absolute fortune on ferry tickets, departure tax and arrival tax (this was all levied by the BVI’s the US is free) we had to wait in a queue for nearly two hours to get our passports checked again going back into Tortola gosh we just laughed and laughed I can tell you.

The plan had been to take Spectra over to Peter island and meet up with Mike and Kate on Friday evening, but by the time we got back aboard it was dark and raining and so we gave it a miss and went straight to bed. Early next morning we were up and of to Peter island all of 5 miles away where we dropped anchor right next door to Right Turn in a lovely little anchorage that was teeming with wildlife life. My generator only ran for 30 minutes before shutting down and so I spent the day with it in pieces on the saloon floor. That night after a beer and internet catch up at the only bar and indeed the only building on shore we trooped over to Right Turn for a meal aboard which was a great feast and great night out/in. I must mention at this point that Steve deserted us and went ashore with Mike and Kate on their much larger and more luxurious dinghy and so earned himself the title of ‘Boat Tart’.

Right Turn leaves Peter Island by Norma

The next day we sailed up past Virgin Gorda and hung around Necker Island for a while to see if Richard Branson was in as this is his very own private island.

Necker Island or Dicks pad as I like to call it.

He must have been back in the UK on business as we didn’t get an invite to go ashore and so we turned right and went through the reef, finally dropping our anchor outside of the Bitter End Yacht club. After the obligatory few beers ashore (Steve elected to go ashore in Right Turn’s dinghy again which is fine by me as Kate is now referring to him as their ‘Dinghy Bitch’), we all went back to Spectra as it was our turn to cook. Again a great meal was had by all (no bias but I did cook it) and luckily enough we all had somewhere to sit as I had put the generator back together earlier as it had failed again after 45 minutes this time and so I had stripped it apart again.

The Bitter end Yacht Club

Another yachtie landmark reached

Mike and Kate headed over to Trellis bay on Tortola the next morning leaving us at anchor because you guessed it I had the generator in pieces still trying to find out why it was overheating. When I finally put everything back together we headed down to Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda in order to clear out of customs and then rather sneakily headed over to Trellis bay to meet up with Mike and Kate again (please don’t tell the BVI customs that we were naughty) . Another evening of generator repairs or lack of them was followed by a walk along the beach which is directly under the little airport on Tortola and as the planes were mostly small private propeller jobbies the noise wasn’t intrusive at all. PS. The ‘Dinghy Bitch’ is still playing with his new friends.

    That was it for the BVI’s, the next morning we headed for St Johns in the USVI’s and our destiny with the immigration people. As it turned out we went south around the islands while Right Turn went North and we both met up outside of St Johns main harbour, Cruz bay. This was absolutely packed and was also suffering from a rough swell working its way into the bay and so the decision was made to head on over to Charlotte Amelie on St Thomas.

Approaching Charlotte Amelie on St Thomas, USVI’s

We spent two days and three nights at anchor right next door to the Coast Guard station and managed to clear customs to head on up to Peurto Rico which I must say was a completely pain free experience .

Sea plane in Charlotte Amelie harbour

It waits for the runway to be clear of yachts before take off. It certainly pays to listen out on channel 16 when your going across the harbour by dinghy we saw a few scared yachties nearly wearing seaplane hats.

During this stay I finally lost all patience with the generator and for the first time on the trip really had just had enough of the whole thing. Too much hassle and too much stress about how to get the simplest of things done. In short I had a right good sulk threw my teddies out of the cot (or dolphin out of the dinghy I suppose) and said I wanted to go home, start working again and be done with the whole ?”£**&  thing. Kate gave us some really good advice which essentially boiled down to if something (the generator) is dominating your life and ruining the trip just get rid and start again it is not worth stressing about it. Norma also knows me of old and poured good sense into my ear until I stopped being a baby and started working on the generator and other solutions again. Then miracle of miracles an email from one of the suppliers came through with a comprehensive test schedule to isolate the fault. Most of the things I had already done but the next step was to remove the sensors one at a time to see which one was stopping the engine. I now have the sump oil pressure sensor removed and the generator is running. This is not ideal but it is a solution until we can find a replacement sensor, the engine is not losing any oil, I have given it an oil change and there is no leakage, so the assumption is that the sensor itself is at fault. Fingers crossed it is fixed, it has now run for five one hour stints without problems and my bottom lip is beginning to retract.

Sunset over Tenerife a bit out of sequence this one

That’s it for now we are on route for an over night stop in the Spanish Virgin islands before reaching Puerto Rico on Saturday afternoon and our next encounter with US Customs and Immigration, wish us luck they are scary people.

Leading a flotilla out of Guadeloupe by Norma.

PS: we are still looking for some crew to come back across the Atlantic at the beginning of June. Three legs of about 2 weeks each, Norfolk to the Bahamas, Bahamas to the Azores, Azores to Cork….anyone interested in all or part? drop us a line.

Spectra {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com

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Paul {DOT} russell732 {CHANGE TO AT} hotmail {DOT} co {DOT} uk and I will pick it up when I am on WiFi