POSITION 17:17.60N 62:43.50W St Kitts
Aurelia
Shirley and Michael Webb-Speight
Wed 14 Mar 2007 01:32
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We spent the morning at Marina Cay tackling
internet and emails before letting a mooring buoy go and heading for the famous
Baths at Virgin Gorda. You have to have a permit to stop there for 90
minutes. We landed and walked along the trail between stunning large
rocks/caves/hidden little baths and beaches, and then snorkeled the area for an
hour or so. Oliver in particular enjoyed scaling the tall rocks (mum would
have loved that). Christopher has suddenly taken to diving and snorkeling
in a big way and just loves it. Certainly a highlight of the British
Virgin Islands.
We reluctantly left The Baths and headed for Virgin
Gorda Sounds for the night (Sunday) and picked up a Saba Rock mooring
buoy. These are well sort after as the cost of them includes a fill of
water for the boat and ice for the freezer! The Bitter End Yacht Club is
nearby and does a wonderful pizza and so we had that for dinner.
Monday saw Mike sweating over the internet again as
we try to sort out accommodation in Paris and London, Eurostar tickets (which it
seems we can't do over the net), insurance (still) and other boat bits that we
want to complete before we leave the Caribbean. We went ashore for a late
lunch, and then set off after an early dinner to go to St Kitts on an overnight
voyage.
We loved Gorda Sound, such a neat anchorage and a
wonderful place to finish our time in the British Virgin Islands. We never
would have imagined that we would have spent so long in the BVI's and other
Virgin islands but we found the sailing and places just fantastic.
The night we left was the first time in several
days that the wind had gone into the NE and it wasn't that surprising I suppose
to find a dozen other yachts all doing the same thing. Around half way
most of them turned off for St Martins/Anguilla while some of us carried on to
St Kitts. We thought it would be fun for Christopher to have his 6th
birthday at St Christopher Island. We had the most wonderful sail from VG
to St Kitts. We went out through the gap in the reef at North Sound just
on sunset, and within 30 minutes we had dropped off the shallow Virgin Islands
shelf into 2000m of water. The passage was a distance of 145 miles
which we achieved in a comfortable 19 hours. At 3 am the boat was tearing
along at over 9 knots on flat seas and just 14 knots of wind -just the right
angle to maximise the apparent wind. With Bob Marley wailing in the
moonlight, M had a magic night that he will remember for a long
time
We sailed past St Statia which looked
wonderful. one of those islands which don't get a lot of tourists, and it
looked great from the sea. However, we just haven't got time to go
there! We came in between St Statia and St Kitts and sailed down the
Western side of it. We have come into Basseterre which has a marina.
Basseterre isn't huge but it is certainly very lively at the moment as the
Cricket World Cup is underway and there are flags and signs all over the
place. The Eastern Caribbean is into the World Cup Cricket in an
incredibly huge way. The game here tomorrow is Australia vs.
Scotland. My brother Richard suggested the snorkeling would be better
when he emailed me recently! However the Aussies don't agree and the place
is somewhat crawling with them! There is an Australian boat in the marina
that was on our pier at Las Palmas. It is quite amazing how many of the
boats on that pier in Las Palmas that we have run into somewhere in the
Caribbean over the last 3 months. The Aussie boat is called, Why Knot; it
wasn't hard to remember the name!
Anyway it is Christopher's 6th birthday tomorrow so
we have hired a taxi to do a 3 hour tour with us. Impossible to get a
rental car until the 24th!
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