Adventures of Navigator: April 2015

Spanish Virgin Islands:

The Island Look

Our first stop was at Green Bay, a lovely sight with a beach that boasts the island look. Swaying palm trees, white sand, turquoise water. However, the swells were a bit bumpy so Slow Dancing and Navigator moved on the next day to Esperanza, which was really a cute town with several good restaurants and nice boutiques for shopping. The town was rather scenic and obviously was a great attraction to tourist from Puerto Rico.

Navigator and Slow Dancing in harbor of Esperanza

Culebra in the rain

We found ourselves a couple of days later on the island of Culebra. The town offered a Dinghy Dock Bar and restaurant where we ran into Steve (another Island Packet Owner who was single handing), his newly acquired friend (Also a Island Packet owner), Tim and Susan (yep, an Island Packet owner), and Slow Dancing. Island Packets did seem to dominate the anchorage.

"Open some days...closed others"...spirit of Culebra

This was a cute town with two grocery stores, golf cart rental agencies galore, and several restaurants.

All in all, we were very glad we took the time to explore the SVI’s as we found the area to be quite pretty, with very friendly people.

United States Virgin Islands

Crown Bay Marina

So off to the US Virgin Islands…After sailing a half of day, we entered Crown Bay Marina in Charlotte Amelie where we were astounded to see such huge passenger ships in the harbor. The interesting thing was that one would come in and the other would leave and when you woke up in the morning, you were surprised to find two completely different ships at the dock.

We stayed in the marina for a few days and enjoyed the nice marina bar and restaurant for lunch, dinner and breakfast then decided to move on to the harbor in St. Thomas.

St Thomas

Although I had been there the year before, it seemed nicer to me this time round and we really enjoyed the shopping, restaurants and seeing an iguana walk right past us in the parking lot of Bluebeard’s castle.

Iguana in Bluebeard's Castle Parking Lot

We took off for Redhook shortly thereafter for a marina that had facilities to replace the windlass on Slow Dancing and enjoyed a happy hour at the famed Duffy’s Beach Bar located in a shopping center parking lot across the street. Whoever said that Beach Bar’s should only be on beaches???

St. Johns:

Maho Bay with BVI's in Background

Slow dancing was delayed at the marina for some time so Cliff and I decided to set sail for St. John’s

Our first stop was at Cruz Bay, where we found an anchorage at a bay nearby and were stunned to have two separate dinghy’s hail us in one afternoon. The first couple saw that we were from Georgetown, Maryland and wanted us to know that they were from Maryland also. The wife stated that she was actually from Ellicott City and after some discussion, I was surprised to learn that she grew up on the same road as my high school in Ilchester, Maryland. Later, another couple came by to tell us that they keep their boat in Rockhall. Small, small world.

Later that afternoon, we set out for Cliff’s friends highly recommended Beach Bar. We called them while we were having a drink and they were able to see us on the bar’s webcam.

The next day, Slow Dancing caught up with us and we were off to Coral Bay, which proved to be kind of disappointing. Apparently the area had seen better days.

Maho Bay was a wonderful anchorage and we took a very long walk up a mountain to the Cinnamon Bay area, where we found a path with Sugar Plantation ruins, and thankfully found a bar for our “thirsty” skippers.

Pelican Walking the Beach in Mayo Bay


Wild Donkey Sampling Bather's Bag of Snacks

The next day, we spent attempting to Snorkel, paddle board, and later, a taxi ride “this time” up the mountain to another Sugar Plantation Ruins.

Cliff and I went to Trunk Bay via dinghy to observe the snorkeling trail and in the absence of a dinghy dock, decided to beach the dinghy. Seemed like a good idea at the time until we were ready to leave and realized that the waves were so overpowering that they rolled right into the dinghy and flooded it. Cliff was a “tad” upset and even with the help of a couple of strong men, we still couldn’t get it afloat. Sooooooo and understand I do not write this arrogantly, I gently suggested that he pull the drain plug to empty it and together we turned it around so the bow faced out and voila!!!!, we were afloat.

British Virgin Island's

Slow Dancing‘s windless problems sent them back to Red Hook and Cliff and I decided to head for the BVI’s alone. Our first stop was Josh Van Dyke, where we checked into customs, went to Foxy’ for lunch, did some grocery shopping and then decided to dingy to the adjoining bay to find a Beach Bar that boasts they are the home of the very first “Painkiller”. Don’t know for sure if that is true but they certainly were crowded with some very young, hot figured women and good looking guys who were having a fun time. Cliff and I were a bit out of place but did take a picture or two that unfortunately got lost at sea. (Story to follow).

Our next stop was Norman’s Bite. After picking up another mooring successfully (Yep, I am prepared to teach mooring ball pick up at the next Sailing Club Spring TrainingJ), SOS skipper John Murray hailed us in his Dinghy. He was on vacation with power boater friends from Maryland and saw the Singles on Sailboats Burgee on Navigator. Later that afternoon, we dinghied over toward the Willie T and decided that we would prefer to go to dinner at the beach restaurant. On the way back in the early evening, I was exiting the dinghy to board the boat’s ladder when my purse slipped off my shoulder and promptly fell in 40 feet of water in the dark. Gone were 2 credit cards, driver’s license, iPhone, camera, prescription glasses and sunglasses, Cliff’s prescription sunglasses and cash. I can talk about this today because as of this writing, just about everything lost has been replaced and that’s that …

Bitter End

The next day, we set off for Limerick Bay, where Slow Dancing caught up with us and were surprised to find that if you took a mooring, the resort would give you free water up to 150 gallons, ice and showers. Nice that it was, we opted to go to Bitter End the next day took a mooring, had dinner and explored.

Anagoda was our next stop.

Kathy and her motor scooter

Talked Cliff, Dan and Melissa into renting motor scooters to tour the island. Dan having owned motorcycles had no problem renting a scooter for two. Cliff was a bit hesitant about my exuberance and preferred to get a one person motorcycle especially after hearing that I hadn’t ridden one since I was about 10 years old.

Anyway, off we went and I found that scooter to be really fun and definitely better than my brother’s homemade version with a lawn mower engine. Gosh, this rental went up to 35 miles an hour and had head lights, turn signals and a horn…What fun!

That evening, we went for a terrific lobster dinner on the beach. What a wonderful way to end our Virgin Island tour.