Moving On

Privateer Bay, Norman Island, BVI

We'd been in Leinster Bay which is known for it's good snorkeling for a couple of days now and had yet to don mask and flippers so we decided to remedy that this morning. Watermelon Cay has beautiful clear waters but the currents are strong so it's a good work-out too. The coral was a little damaged from idiots who think the marked area doesn't apply to them and they drive their dinghies through breaking off the elk horn coral, but we did see a good number of colourful fish and one ray.

Lurking under the big boat were about 18 good size tuna - guess they know that fishing is out of the question within the marine park. This little jack eyed me up and decided I was less of a threat than the big fish below. They don't look very big but they were hanging out in the water at about 15' deep and probably measured about 2' in length. That's a lot of sashimi!

Dave and Alex decided to take advantage of the calm conditions and slightly northerly winds and make the jump back to St. Martin tonight so we joined them for a final hike up to the Annaberg ruins on St. John. A park volunteer was very informative and filled in some more gaps about the history of the islands and the building of this extensive estate. We rambled among the well-preserved and signed remains of the horse-mill, the base of the old wind-mill, the summer kitchen of a later owner and the boiling room which still has one copper intact.

The shoreline path was a stroll in the park compared to the hike yesterday.

Looking out over the coral reef at the west end of Leinster Bay.

Windows are all framed with coral blocks.

Nature is trying to reclaim these walls - the Park Service is fighting back.

We eventually bid our farewells and wished Dave and Alex a safe trip back to the east. I'm sure our paths will cross again in the future and by then we'll all have tucked new adventures under our belts.

We headed up to Soper's Hole (West End) on Tortola to check into the BVI and then made our way over to Privateer Bay on the west side of Norman Island for the night. Our most challenging issue of the afternoon was trying to get our Digicel data card reactivated so that we can have internet in the BVI. Although the card we bought at this time last year was supposed to be good for a full year and I'd been told that the expirey date wasn't until the end of March, we were unsuccessful in getting it reactivated. We'll now need to head into Road Town and back to the Digicel office if we want to try to get data access other than just the free wifi offered by some of the bars (with very expensive drinks.)

Oh well, that's a challenge for another day.

Sunset tonight over the east end of St. John.

Putting Us Through Our Paces

Watermelon Cay, St. John.

One of the reasons we came up to St. John was to connect with Dave and Alex on Banyan. We've followed their blog for the last year or so and were eager to connect, as we had with Mike & Rebecca from ZeroToCruising this time last year. Yes, we are hopeless groupies. This time however, we gave fair warning through email and when we pulled into the mooring field they were still here, so the connection was made.

We made arrangements to meet up this morning to tackle the Johnny Horn trail over to Coral Bay where we would lunch at Skinny Legs. This trail is incredibly steep up to 500 ft, which wasn't too bad in the morning but by mid afternoon with a tummy full of delicious cheeseburger and the sun beating down, was a bit more of a challenge - ok, I felt like it almost kicked my ass, but we were victorious and made it back to Leinster Bay.

What exactly are the guys checking out?

Ah, a great view of the anchorage.

Doesn't look so steep here, but man this was a well-deserved break.

The reward at the end of the trail.

Recuperative swims and siestas were in order and then we met up once again onboard Mowzer. We are having problems with the display on our chart-plotter and can't get it bright enough to see in daylight, and given they also have a Raymarine chart-plotter, hoped that Dave might be able to 'shed some light' on the problem. Not for want of trying the chart-plotter is still dim but we had a great afternoon swapping stories and getting some great tid-bits of info for when we're out here full-time.

As we've said in the past these are special days when we make connections like this. A few hours spent on a hike, a few more sharing a drink (or two), and we hope we will have the chance to meet up again in some anchorage on some island; who knows where our paths will cross again.

And Away We Go

Watermelon Cay, St. John.

Last errands were completed today with a final run to Pueblo early this morning for missed groceries and then a refuel at Crown Bay, followed by a high rev run around Hassel Island to make sure there were no engine problems. We were now free to head off and away from the hustle and bustle of St. Thomas.

Big Boys in Town Today

When your home is a castle, your backyard can be a pirate ship.

Fun goes on above the water too

There seems to be a pirate theme

With winds dead on the nose all the way up to St. John we put the engines through a further 'test'. For a few minutes we unfurled the headsail but it was short-lived as he winds clocked back to the nose. No worries, we were happy to be out on the water and made our way up to Watermelon Cay where we picked up a mooring ball for an overnight stay.

Our view to Jost Van Dyke sported spectacular colours in the afternoon sun.

We're now on St. John where there is little chance of internet so we'll post when we can and fill you in later...

A Day on the Dock

With Mowzer having been out of the water for an extended amount of time, the folks at CYOA have had their work cut out for them over the last week getting her ready for our arrival and the follow-on charters after we leave. Lots of jobs had been completed and just a couple remained before we can push away from the dock.

So, knowing this is to be savoured, we headed off for the morning in our rental to do groceries, leaving those boat jobs behind. On our return we found B had fixed a leaky thru-hull - definitely a good thing to keep the sea water out of our bilges, N replaced the head light fixture that had gone non-functional and C had been up to the top of the mast to repair a cracked VHF antenna fixture. This was all before lunch and what amazes me is that each if these jobs would probably take us a day to prepare for and complete. Nothing daunted, in the afternoon, B and C took on the leaky port window. We had witnessed ourselves the extent of this leak in the rain yesterday afternoon as the water streamed in the top of the window and ran down to the drain in the shower - so happy that this leak occurred in the head and not the berth!

The guys got busy with various nasty-sounding tools and after a 2-hour struggle were able to get the window pried away from the hull. Other owners who have tackled this job and posted about it online have all sworn that it is a difficult job, and they weren't kidding.

The afternoon brought more rain, heavy at times, but it let up in time for the window to be reset and clamped for an overnight cure. Hopefully it will all be set and ready for us to head off tomorrow.

We treated ourselves to dinner at Hookline & Sinker. Perhaps this guy was on the menu tonight?

Re-Connected

O.M.G. - if the stress of getting ready to get away doesn't kill me, I am determined to enjoy this break.

It's been a year since we were last aboard Mowzer and the saga of why is probably best left to a later blog. Needless to say, 7 months out of the water and a major repair later, we are so happy to see her back where she belongs. A huge shout-out to all the hard work and perseverence by John at CYOA for seeing our repair through the warranty process at Fountaine-Pajot and the crew at the docks for putting her back together so beautifully.

Ottawa was a bit snowy overnight but nothing enough to cause a delay. The torrential rains in St. Thomas this afternoon definitely put a "damper" on our planned grocery excursion. Instead we went on the hunt for a data simm card for a nifty little device I picked up on Amazon. This little baby is unlocked so we can put any company's data card in it and then create our own hot-spot on the boat for any device - like my iPad I am currently using to write up this post. We'll be careful how much we load on it until we get used to how much data we're using but it is prepaid by the week and not too expensive.

Of course for any of you reading from work - I'm still out of reach :-)

In all reality though, sitting on the boat in the evening and being able to download the weather charts for the next day and shoot off the odd post or email is pretty sweet. I don't expect it's like this on all the islands, but we'll enjoy it while it's here.