Hard to believe we just have a few more days to our sailing adventure. We look at the temperature back home these last few days and cringe. Oh have we gotten used to the 80 degree air and water temps! What will be in store for us when we get back.  Although the view from our back porch at home will not change location from day to day as over these past 6 weeks, it amazes us how it changes from day to day depending on the season.

After our last post about Christensted, St Croix, we moved along the coast of St Croix and inside the barrier reef to Teague Bay, the home of the St Croix Yacht Club. They have a small club house where we chatted with a member about the youth sailing program. Despite the kids being able to sail all year long, she was sending her son to Long Island to sail this summer.

From there we sailed out to the national park, Buck Island. Being a weekend day, there were several local day tripper boats. We dinghied up a lagoon to a snorkeling spot that was full of stag horn coral and monster brain coral. We then hiked to the top of the island which had great views of the coral and barrier reef. As we were sitting on our boat, a neighboring boat, that had spent the previous night there and had just come back from a hike like we did, started drifting off. Come to find out his anchor chain had broken apart 4 links from the line splice. I helped him find the anchor as a dolphin came by to check on us. With that happy observation, we spent a quiet night on anchor there, the only boat.

Next day we reached 35 miles back to St John stopping at Salt Pond Bay for 2 nights. A trip like this is not like a trip in our waters at home. We did not have to contend with the tides, frontal system finicky winds, or fog. The wind down here is a predictable trade wind at 15 – 20, seas 4 – 6 feet ocean swells with numerous flying fish entertaining us. Also a big difference from our shoal waters at home was the water depth of up to 4200 feet!

Salt Pond Bay is on the south side of St John with room for 5 boats. We snorkeled and hiked to a promontory called Rams Head. We then went west around St John to Cruz Bay to restock our supplies before settling in Francis Bay for the night. On our beach walk we bumped into a 4 foot iguana with one of its chicks.

Next day brought us back to the BVI’s at Sopers Hole to check in. We met up with Erin and Jamie’s uncle and his wife who winter in the BVI’s on their boat. They tempted us to register for a Valentine’s Day race. I was even able to enlist Tommy Brownell for crew as he was spending time there while his wife was away. But then I discovered that our charter company did not allow their boats to be raced. That was the best Valentine’s gift the crew could have hoped for.

Not being able to race, we headed to the north side of Tortola hoping to spend the night at Green Cay, but the weather was squally and we started having an engine alarm going off indicating a battery problem. The belt was tight so we had to go to Cane Garden Bay on Tortola to have the problem looked at. It turned out to be an isolator/relay which they were able to replace. Luckily this did not happen at Culebra or St Croix.

We did make it to Sandy Spit, a very small island off Jost Van Dyke, the next day just in time for a wedding on the beach. This actually was our second wedding, the other at Salt Pond Bay. From there we went over to Leinster Bay on St John and hiked to Brown Bay which had great snorkeling.

Yesterday we went to Peter Island and today we are at the Bight on Norman Island, after stopping to snorkel at a well-known rock pile called the Indians. With a cloudy afternoon we had another long hike to great views of the “Bight.”

Only a couple of days left!

The backgammon tournament has been back and forth with some nail biting finishes and some annihilations. We are tied at 15 games each with 2 matches to go, unless sudden death OT is required.

We fly home this Thursday. Our journeys will continue in March as we charter a boat in Grenada. Our son, Dan and his wife, Alice, and 2 sons, Charles and Will, will join us as we meet up with Andy and his family – wife, Liz, Mira and Peter. They have been sailing the islands since November. We can’t wait to see them and get our entire family together to continue our sailing adventure.

We have passed our midpoint and have moved onto our 2013 Dufour 38 – Abacadabra / Abracadabra. This is a modern designed French boat with relatively flat hull, plumb bow, and sail drive and bulb keel sort of like Gut. It definitely sails much better than the Hunter . It has twin wheels and drop down transom making for a great back porch. Importantly, the head has the handle on the opposite side so we can balance out our shoulder muscle mass. It does lack an inverter, so no blender. The dinghy is smaller which is better for towing.

After dropping off the Hunter we taxied to Road Town to pick up the Dufour. We had a quick turn around and had a shake down sail back to Peter Island for the night. From there we went to Soper’s Hole to check out of the BVI. Then to Cruz Bay, St. John, to check into the U.S. Night was spent in Christmas Cove off St. Thomas, having pizza from the Pizza Pi boat there.

The next day we headed west downwind along the busy coast of St Thomas for Culebra over 25 miles away. We spent the night at a small uninhabited island off Culebra called Culebrita. We stayed in a horseshoe bay facing NE with the most perfect beach and a lighthouse overlooking it. At one end there is a collection of very large boulders making a pool where surf rushes in, called the Jacuzzis. There we met childhood friends of Michael and Susan Stranz. Amazing what a small world.

The next day we climbed up to the lighthouse built in 1882. Being a non US boat we had to check in at Culebra so we sailed in to the main harbor on Culebra and anchored in the town area.. We had to walk over to customs at the airport. We were the only ones there yet it took the 2 agents about 20 minutes checking us in shuffling papers back and forth between the 2. We spent 2 more nights at Culebra – one behind a reef near the main harbor and the second behind another reef. We snorkeled along mangroves for the first time. Quite eerie with a fair number of fish.

The next morning after a windy night we reached 45 miles with winds blowing northeast in the mid twenties settling to upper teens by afternoon to St Croix. Mid way along we were joined by a dozen dolphin that played with us. With the wind from the NE the anchorage was rolly the first night, but tonight is better as the front has passed with the wind shifting back toward the SE trades.

We explored the old Dutch city of Christiansted with the mid 1700 neo classic architecture. In preparation for a trip to a protected reef area at Buck Island tomorrow, we had to apply for a special permit which took all kinds of paperwork. Now we have to wait for approval. Another day or 2 here then back to St. John.

As many of you know, sleeping on a monohull in the Caribbean can be something else at times. Many of the anchorages are not that protected or allow the swell to wrap around into it. This can lead to various motions from a rhythmic mild roll to rather violent sloshy rolls when you line up taking the swells to the beam. Besides the rolling there is the creaking and groaning of the boat. You quiet one creak, and another appears…

The Backgammon tournament continues with the skipper getting down 4 games but clawing back to a draw by throwing doubles on the last roll to win last night’s match.

We are trying to resize the photos smaller, so hopefully they will upload better.