Sunday, St. Thomas to St. John

Forecast: Winds NNE 16-19 kn, gusting to 25 kn, seas NE swells 5-7', small craft advisory

As we arrived at CYOA on Saturday afternoon it was great to see all the familiar faces: Nancy, Jay, Jan and we got to meet Debbie for the first time.  Debbie & Jay post on the Livin da Life blog that we follow to keep up with what is happening on the island so it was fun to put a face to the woman behind much of the writing.

Having a car rental is totally the way to go.  We ate a quick dinner, got our provisioning done and headed back to the boat with absolutely no hassle.  We realized that this is  our fifth trip to the island now so it definitely feels like coming back to our second home.

Jan made the offer that if I cared to get up nice and early, I could join her on her early morning walk.  Sure enough, I was up and ready to go when she appeared at 6 am.  This may be vacation, but if you want to get in a good walk this is definitely the time of day to do it.  The humidity takes a lot of getting adjusted to, especially away from the ocean breeze.  Jan has a great workout walk into town from the marina that includes the famous 99 steps and another run of steps that I'm sure had more.  We walked up to Bluebeard's castle, back down and then Jan walked back up again (I was definitely huffing at that point) before making our way back around the harbour to CYOA.  Now if only I can keep up on this great intention to get out on a regular basis - I'll be a very happy camper.

After a few more errands and returning the car we were on our way.  A weather advisory with high winds and a strong swell were forecast so to stay out of the swells we sailed the south shore of St. Thomas and St. John, picking Little Lameshur Bay as our destination.  We came the whole way on one tack, passing through 4-5 squalls with winds and spray that made us very happy that we had prepared with a double reef in the sails. The double rainbows against the shore of St. John were spectacular and made the dodgy weather all worth it.

Given the wave action that was probably hitting the north shore beaches, there was lots of activity on the beach here until about 4pm, but then poof, everyone disappeared, including the only other boat in the bay.  Once again, coming to the south side has treated us to a lovely secluded anchorage for the night.

Just Two More Sleeps

I should probably be packing but instead I've been browsing the web and tweaking the blog - all part of getting my head away from work and into vacation mode.

This summer didn't see nearly enough time on the boat up here in Ottawa so the next two weeks on Mowzer are going to be fabulous.  We're still not completely decided on where we'll head and in reality it will probably be Sunday or Monday morning before we finally decide, but the likelihood is that we'll try to get back up to Anegada.  Lobster dinner on the beach as a belated birthday celebration for both of us is in the works.

Meanwhile back in Ottawa this past summer, I decided to tackle a 'canvas' project on the home-front.  Our gazebo cover gave out the year before last and we missed the shade by the pool last summer.  I picked up a roll of beautiful yellow/gold striped Sunbrella and fashioned a new cover.  It certainly felt incredibly decadent to set up space on the pool table for the sewing project - there definitely won't be this sort of space aboard!

Under construction ...

Like a crazy ballerina ...

It turned out pretty well although I never did get a picture of the final product up on the gazebo.  I love working with Sunbrella but it pushed the limits of my Janome machine - oh for a Sailrite!  Got lots of ideas though for how to handle boat projects down the road.

Joy of Sailing

To finish off this trek, I now have all the photos and videos posted ... just click on Photos at the top of the page.

The one I love the most is this video of Jim up on the bow - this is what a perfect day on the water is all about.

Show me the Numbers (or the Route, or whatever)

I unloaded the GPS today and was able to put together our tracks from the two parts of our trip. I broke it into two because that's basically what we did, and the distances are easier to show on the two maps.

Part 1: St. Thomas to St. Croix and back

Part 2: St. Thomas and into the BVI's with Caitlin & Jim

Rounding out the trip

As we finished off our fabulous week in the BVI's we ran out of wi-fi connections and so this posting is late but here...

On Saturday morning we headed back into Road Town for more exploration and some shopping. There were a couple of smaller cruise ships in town but compared to St. Thomas the pandemonium was completely tame. The shops along main street were delightful and it was much easier to find locally crafted items rather than flipping over something and finding 'made in China/Indonesia' on the back.

Jim actually ended up picking up the very funky green t-shirt hanging on the line at the back of this little alley and the art shop adjacent had wonderful items.

We also took the opportunity to visit the Old Government House which was perched just above our anchorage. Surprisingly we hooked up with a tour that was just about to go around which was hosted by a localized ex-pat Canadian. The house had quite a history and was lovely and breezy; one could just imagine the colonialist British governor enjoying a cup of tea in the afternoon as his children lazily romped through the grounds. The dining room had the most beautiful murals painted by the wife of one of the former residents and our guide was quite adamant that they were pretty much the reason the house had been saved.

We checked out of the BVI's at Road Town and then headed off for another delightful afternoon sail, running down to St.John and Leinster Bay. It was too late to make our way round to Cruz Bay so we quietly stayed on board as the wind blew through the anchorage.

Our evening fun onboard with Caitlin and Jim has consisted of a few rounds of Euchre (great to have 4 to play!), a couple of rounds of asshole (that title rotates quite freely) and then a challenge of Scrabble. Aren't we the exciting bunch!!