We left Culebra with a forecast of reduced winds and seas. Reduced is relative, when it blows 20-25 everyday dropping below 20 is a reduction. We have been experiencing what is called the "christmas winds". The christmas winds continue until some meteorological event shifts the high pressure that sits up north of the islands. Eventually something moves and the winds calm down. We have had almost constant 20-25 knot winds from the east since we arrived. The forecast called for several days of moderation and we took advantage of it to motor, against the winds and waves to the island of St John. Oh yea, the waves. The forecast called for them to drop from 7-9 foot. Depending where we were in relation to an island they did drop but we still saw a lot of 7-9 footers. But it could have been worse, it was a short trip, 35 miles or about six hours.
We use an online program called Active Captain to help guide us. People write reviews and rate such things as marinas, anchorages and make notes about different hazards you may encounter. Using this we chose a bay on the south side of St John to anchor when we arrived. Once we got in we found that it wasn't a real good choice so we tried the next little bay. It was a bit less crowded so we dropped anchor to see how we would ride. Not good, too much roll. We decided to continue along a couple more miles to Great Lameshur Bay and pick up a park service mooring. Most of St John is a national park and most of the bays in the park have mooring balls provided by the park service. You are also not allowed to anchor in the park waters to protect the coral and bottom structure. This sounds like a nice service but nothing is free. Until this year there was a charge of $15 per night for the mooring but this year it was raised to $26. Fortunately, I have a senior access pass that reduces my cost by 50%. I only have to pay $13 a night. If you or anyone you know is over 62 and travels to any US National Park this is a good card to have. It costs $10 and gives free admission to all National Parks for the person and everyone with them. I have used many different parks. The bad news is that there has been a proposal to raise the cost to $80 in the new budget. Still a good deal if one visits several parks. The card is good for the rest of your life. I have saved well over the purchase price in just a few years. Anyway, back to St John, most of it is wilderness and thy have developed a number of hiking trails and that is one thing we tried to do. Our first attempt at hiking was called the Bordeaux Mtn. Trail. This turned out to be anything but a walk in the park. The trail is 1.2 miles long and climbs 1277 feet, and then you have to walk back down. I thought my knee hurt going up, coming down again was ever harder. We made it and there were some breathtaking vistas along the way.
The nest hiking excursion, after a day of rest, was the Petroglyph Trail. This was only about three miles with a diversion to the Reed Bay Sugar Mill ruins, then three miles back. This did not climb as high but we still had to climb over a major ridge line to get there, and back. The petroglyphs are some carvings in rocks from the original natives of the islands back several thousand years.
The sugar mill ruins were the remnants of the last sugar plantation in operation on the island closing in the early 1900's
Another bright idea we had was to hike the Brown Bay Trail until it met up with the Johnny Horn Trail that ended in the town of Coral Bay. From there we planned on following the road back to where we left the dinghy. About a six mile hike across the island and back crossing several ridges with some grades almost too steep to climb and descend. Once in Coral Bay we stopped at Skinny Legs bar for a cold one and met Rick and Nancy from Colorado and accepted a ride back to our dinghy. Back at the dinghy we found that we had been visited by a park ranger and he left a notice that we were not allowed to leave the dinghy where it was and that it is against the rules to tie it to a tree, or anything else for that matter. It was just a warning, not a citation so there was no penalty. We also got a warning the nest day when we got back from a day trip to Cruz Bay. We were not supposed to stay two nights on a day-use mooring. We moved to an anchorage outside the park for the night in case he came back to check on us. We made several more hikes while around the island, mostly short ones to a ruins of some sort.
We did make one trip to the town of Cruz Bay, taking a Safari Taxi to town and then the bus back. Safari Taxis are pickups with seats in the back and a roof over the passengers heads. We climbed aboard and quickly found we were with a former resident of New Bern NC and a resident of Ocracoke Island. They were on their way to the ferry to return from their vacation. While perusing shops we also met a former resident of Beaufort and while waiting to board the bus met a family from Cary NC. They all noticed that my T shirt was from Oriental NC and struck up a conversation.
Aside from the hiking Cori took several opportunities to get out on her kayak and explore some of the beaches and I got in some more snorkeling. I saw a variety of coral and fish, again taking too many pictures of where a fish had been. One site had a number of squid to check out.
We worked our way counter-clockwise around the island staying for a couple of days in different bays. Our last night the winds and waves shifted and we started to roll. We had plans on moving along a short distance to check out an underwater snorkeling trail but it was too rough to want to stay even for just the day. We checked out several other bays, even taking a mooring on one to see how it felt but still was uncomfortable so we moved on.
We moved across to Big James Island and picked up a free mooring in Christmas Cove. The story is that it is called Christmas Cove because that is where Christopher Columbus spent a Christmas. The unique thing in this cove is the pizza boat. There is a boat anchored that is set up with a kitchen to make and sell pizzas.
We had a great time on and around St John and will be back. We decided to take a couple of days and give Hi Flite some love. We moved to Red Hook Bay on the east end of St Thomas and are tied up to a dock. I need to give the electrical system some attention and need to be on 110 service for a couple of days. We were here only a couple of hours and Bill and Andrea from Voyager I stopped by to say hello. We met them in Culebra. We have been meeting a lot of others along the way, even a family from Fargo while waiting for our pizza at the pizza boat.
In the midst of this we spent a quiet Christmas and New Years Eve. We hope everyone had a nice Christmas and wish all of you a Happy New Year!
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