Anchored White Bay Jost Van Dyke 18:26.51N, 64:45.85W
AJAYA'S CRUISE
Phil & Nikki Hoskins
Sat 25 Apr 2009 19:55
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After a couple of nights in Soper's Hole we left
our gas bottle to be filled and motored over to White Bay on the island of Jost
Van Dyke. A short hop of 4-5 miles. As crowded anchorages go this was a 9/10
with many charter cats stopping by for a lunchtime swim and a visit to the Soggy
Dollar bar - so named because people swim ashore with the money in their
trunks to pay for their rum punches.
We observed one party of Americans, presumably
staying in the small hotel back from the beach. They spent most of the afternoon
up to their chests in the sea drinking rum punch after rum punch, playing
sillier games by the hour. When a big squall hit the bay in the afternoon they
stayed where they were until finally they emerged, almost unable to stand - in
fact the last one crawled up the beach on all fours and collapsed in the sand.
The squall when it hit reduced visibility to almost zero and had the effect of
causing pandemonium amongst the anchored charter boats. A mass exodus then
followed towards Great Harbour the next bay round. How they could see
in the conditions was amazing. Torrential rain fell for 15-20 mins after which
it cleared through, although the weather is very unsettled here at the moment.
We stayed put for the night and left earlish the next morning to return to
Soper's where we hoped our filled propane gas bottle would be awaiting us. A
pleasant sail back across to Tortola found us on the water quay in the marina
however, our gas bottle was sitting outside the office unfilled so we took off
to see Norman Island a windward bash up the sound between St Johns (USA) and
Tortola.
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