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.
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