Back in the US, Sort of...

Well we are back in the US, sort of.  We left Antigua and sailed to St John in the US Virgin Islands.

We were sitting in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua waiting for the winds to die down.  The forecast each day was for winds in the upper 20's with gust into 30's.  Not nice for sailing.  The harbor is large so with these winds there was a bit of chop kicking up and we were assured of getting wet when going ashore.  I really wanted to get over to the East side of the island to check out some anchorages but that involved motoring directly into the wind and seas.  Eventually we said "enough" and decided to move.  We motored out of the harbor and had two choices, left or right.  Left was upwind to the east and right was back to the west end running downwind.  Most sailors would say this is a no-brainer.  I on the other hand wanted to see the east end, how bad could it be?  We motored directly into 20-25 knot winds for an hour.  We were pushing directly into six foot seas with waves crashing over the bow and dropping into the trough between waves.  This continued as the seas grew bigger.  Finally we dropped off one wave at least nine feet high and plowed into the next burying the bow.  My next thought was that I would have to take these on the beam (side) when we turned to get into the anchorage.  That's when we decided we didn't like this and turned around.  We were off to the Jolly Harbor area like we should have done in the first place.  Running downwind was much more comfortable and safer.  We made it around the end and decided to continue a short distance past Jolly Harbor to Five Islands Bay.  Once in there we anchored just off the Hermitage Resort and were able to attach to their WiFi.  We had the added enjoyment of watching the Valentine Weekend sailing races.  On Sunday they raced again.  This was a lot different then Falmouth Harbor, we were among only six other boats.  While we were here we spent some time visiting with Robbert and Luuke on their catamaran Eight and also Ron and Penny on Arctic Vixen.  We made a trip to shore to check out some of the beaches and a couple of blow holes.  A blow hole is where a wave pushes into a confined space and then shoots out another opening, similar to a geyser.

On Wednesday, the 19th, we pulled the anchor and went around the point to Jolly Harbor.  We went ashore, bought some groceries and took care of the paperwork to check out of the island.  The forecast was for the high winds to start dropping and it was time to move on.  The next morning we pulled anchor and started our way to St John in the US Virgin Islands.  The winds were still 20-25 knots and the seas around six foot but we were traveling more downwind which cut the wind strength into the teens and the seas were off of our starboard quarter, behind and off to the side.  The seas pushed us around a bit as they moved under us causing a roll but it was manageable.  We had a little under 200 miles to go in an estimated 30 hours.  We sailed trough the day and overnight with clear skies and lots of stars.  Our wake was kicking up some phosphorescent critters which look like fireflies blinking in the disturbed water.  Altogether a pleasant trip traveling at 6-7 knots.  In the morning our batteries were running a little low and the wind was dropping.  Eventually we were doing around four knots and it was time to motor sail.  This would have the added benefit of charging the batteries.  Unfortunately when we started the motor the alternator did not kick in.  We continued motoring until we reached St John and picked up a mooring in Caneel Bay just off of the town of Cruz Bay.  We had the opportunity to try out the Customs and Border Patrols new app to check into the country.  I had filled in all of our information and once we were within cell phone distance I sent the notification we were arriving.  In about 15-20 minutes I got a response that we were cleared for entry.  That's it, no having to go ashore to the Customs and Immigration offices.  It was about 1:30 on Friday and we were now officially back in the United States.  187 miles in 29 hours.

We spent two days on a mooring at Caneel Bay, first trouble shooting the alternator problem then heading into town.  I had it figured that we had either a connection problem, a bad voltage regulator or a bad alternator.  First we got the spare regulator an alternator out of storage then dug into the problem.  We were in luck, it was a bad wire connector that failed.  I redid the connector and started up the engine.  We again had a working alternator.  Then we launched the dinghy and went to town.  There is a restaurant called the Tap and Still with very good burgers.  It has been four years since we had one on St Thomas and looked forward to a burger and fries.  We were not disappointing.  We wandered around town for a while and then went to Woody's Seafood Saloon for happy hour.  Happy hours run from 3:00 to 6:00 so it is never too early.  Woody's promotes itself as having "a world famous happy hour".  When asked why world famous, their response was because people from all over the world come there.  I guess that is simple enough.  It is a small place with three tables inside and two outside and the sound system blasts out a combination of older rock and country.  Three rum and cokes later, ($3.00 each) we were on our way back to the boat to run the generator to top off the batteries.

We spent two nights on a mooring in Caneel bay then moved around to the north side of the island to Waterlemon Bay and picked up a mooring and shared the location with ten other boats.  St John is almost all a national park and anchoring is not permitted.  The park service has installed moorings in most of the bays with convenient pay stations for us to use.  The fee is $26 a night but with my Senior Pass I get to use them at half price.  This location gave us a view on three sides of forested hills climbing up from the shore and several island that are part of the British Virgin Islands to our north.  The BVI islands were the only lights at night.  During the night a north swell filled in and we did a lot of rolling making for an uncomfortable night.   In the morning we dropped the mooring and moved around to the southeast side to Round Bay and anchored with four other boats.  So much for crowded anchorages.  We took the dinghy over to some rocky beaches to get off the boat and then spent a quiet night at anchor.

We are presently hanging for another day and night at Round Bay since it is out of the park and a free anchorage and we are getting fast WiFi.  We plan on spending a couple more nights in some of our favorite anchorages before moving on.

Here are a couple of photos since the WiFi is working:

Biggest hermit crab we have ever seen.

Moving On Up

As the theme song for the tv show "The Jefferson's" says: We are moving on up.  In our case we are moving on up the islands.

We decided our time in St Anne was up and we pulled anchor on the 27th and moved around to the west side of the island to Petite Anse.  It was one of those special days when it all comes together, a downwind run then one tack to the bay.  We took the opportunity to play with holding the headsail out with the whisker pole since we foresee doing that on later in the trip.  Petite Anse is a small anchorage where there is a small community, an old church, a bakery, good snorkeling and more.  Once we were anchored Cori took the dingy to a beach to look for sea glass and I dove in to check our anchor and swim over to the main snorkeling area.  On the way there I was passed by a big turtle.

The next morning we checked out the town and the fish market and decided to move on.  The anchorage had an uncomfortable roll.  We tried sailing but the island was blocking the wind so we motored up to St. Pierre, at the northern end of the island.  St. Pierre is one of our favorite spots.  The town has a very interesting and sad history but the beach is one of the best for finding sea glass.  We anchored by Arctic Vixen and the next day Dreamcatcher caught up with us.  We spent several days wandering around and collecting sea glass.  The other two boats left to move up-island but we planned to stay over the weekend.  Those plans changed when we checked the weather forecast and decided if we were going to make it to Antigua we needed to leave Sunday.

At 5:30 Sunday morning the alarm went off and we were on our way by first light.  We had a combination of motoring and sailing to Dominica.  Along the way Cori saw a whale but I was too slow getting on deck to see it.  We pulled into Portsmouth harbor in the afternoon and picked up a mooring near Arctic Vixen and Dreamcatcher.  We were planning to stay just the night so we skipped checking in and just settled down to visit and rest.  We are not sure when we will see these friends again.  The next morning the alarm went off at 5:30 and at first light we headed out.  We need to do three fifty mile days so we needed to get an early start each day.  Once we cleared the top of the island we had a near perfect sail until we got into the wind shadow of Guadalupe and then started motoring.  We stopped for the night in the little harbor of Deshaies and settled in for the night.

Thursday, the fourth, we pulled anchor again at sunrise and started off on the final leg to Antigua.  We had visited these stops before so we didn't feel we were missing out.  We have not been to Antigua yet and were eager to check it out.  I got a momentary look at a whale as it dove down but couldn't tell you what kind.  We arrived in the afternoon at Jolly Harbor and anchored in one of the best shallow sandy anchorages we have visited since the Bahamas.  We spent the night, checked out the community in the morning and then motored around to Falmouth Harbor.  There is an additional fee if you check in at Falmouth or English Harbor so that is why we stopped at Jolly first.  Falmouth is protected almost 360 degrees so it is a popular anchorage.  I also has several marinas that cater to the mega yachts so there are some unbelievable boats here.

The winds have been howling, we get a little wet going ashore but we are enjoying our stay.  We have been getting together with Gary, Deb and Jack from Angel Sea.  Jack is somewhat famous, check out his Instagram page at "Jackthesailingdog", he has over 10.5k followers, I have 109.  It is a short walk over to English Harbor which is the home of Nelson's Dockyard.  In the 1700-1800 the British had a repair yard here and Lord Nelson was stationed for a while.  The buildings have been restored and is now an international heritage site.  There are several nice hiking trails that lead you to various defense sites the British built to defend the area.  Along the trails you run into a lot of wild goat which are fun to watch.

We plan to stay here until the winds let up and the seas calm but it may take a week.  Once that happens we hope to get further around the island to check out some of the other anchorages.