Jost Van Dyke, BVI - Foxy's

On Thursday we made the quick 13 mile jump from Christmas Cove in the US Virgin Islands, over to the island of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgins. Great Harbour is where the world-famous Foxy's bar is located, so we wanted to anchor there and check it out. We got into the harbor around one in the afternoon and most of the boats had left. The anchorage is pretty deep and doesn't have great holding so we dropped our anchor in 35 feet of water, let out plenty of scope, and backed down pretty well so that we wouldn't drag. Then Kevin headed ashore to check us in with customs and immigration, and came back for us so that we could go to the bar. We sat down and ordered two Foxy's microbrew beers for Dad & Kevin, and a painkiller (rum drink) for me, then we sat back and looked around at all the old T-shirts, hats, business cards, flags, bras, and other random memorabilia that people on boats have left hanging up in the bar. We've seen lots of little bars with this type of decor, but this one by far had the most of any we'd seen. After our drinks we headed back to the boat to watch the entertainment...

The British Virgin Islands is probably the premier spot for charter boats. This is where people rent a boat for a week or so and sail it around the islands. Sometimes these people are experienced sailors. And sometimes not. (We chartered a few years ago and we'd only had a week's experience sailing. We were amazed that the charter company allowed us to take their boat out with no supervision whatsoever.) Two dead giveaways that a boat is a charter boat vs a cruising boat: 1) the people aboard are pasty white, and 2) the boat is packed to the gills (the whole family plus grandma and grandpa). Charterers usually pick up moorings, since that is the easiest way to "anchor" the boat -- you pick up a line already anchored down and tie it off to your boat. But Great Harbour doesn't have any moorings so charterers are forced to anchor. It's entertaining to watch because they never put out enough scope and you watch them repeatedly drop the anchor, let out a little chain, and then drag back; when they realize they aren't set, they pick up the anchor and start again. We watched one guy make no less than 8 attempts to get his anchor set.

As the afternoon wore on, the anchorage filled up and of course a brief squall blew through. We watched helpless as one boat dragged down almost hitting another boat, Kevin blasted the air horn and luckily the guy peeked his head out of his boat and started the engine right away. Some of our friends we met in Luperon (on the boat Tusen Takk) showed up in the late afternoon and anchored right in front of us, which was a relief since we knew they'd anchor themselves properly. Later we all met up for happy hour at Foxy's and they mentioned that the charter boat next to them (Cala Mia) only had 60 feet of chain out. 60 feet of chain in 30 feet of water is only 2:1 scope (most people will advise you to have 7:1!). Basically the anchor is sitting on the bottom but won't be able to bite into the bottom to get a good set. Of course the next morning the wind shifted and we ended up so close to Cala Mia my dad had to fend them off with the boathook. We explained that if we have 170 feet of chain out and if they only have 60 feet, when the wind changes around they are right in our swing circle. The lady said "well, we aren't that big of a boat", and I patiently tried to tell her that you don't let out anchor scope based on how big the boat is, but how deep the water is. Luckily we were leaving anyway, since I'm not sure they really understood what we were talking about.

Where we are:
Location=Jost Van Dyke, BVI
Lat=18 26.479
Lon=64 45.083

Christmas Cove, St. Thomas, USVI

[Kevin's Post]We flew back to the boat on Monday with Amanda's dad, so of course we woke up Tuesday morning to pouring rain. A perfect day to head over to Culebra (sarcasm). Actually the winds were forecast to be very light so even with the rain we knew it would be a fairly easy trip over. It kind of drizzled the whole way over, but as soon as we picked up our free mooring it started coming down in buckets, we could only see a few hundred feet. We had planned to go all the way to Isla Culebrita, but we got a late start since we had to pick up the cat from the vet, hit the grocery store and return the rental car. So we called it a day on the west coast of Culebra where there is excellent snorkeling. It eventually stopped raining and we were able to do some snorkeling and grilled up some chicken for dinner.

The sun was out Wednesday and we got an earlier start. We headed over to Isla Culebrita en route to St. Thomas. There were large breaking waves on the reefs on either side of the entrance to the cove on Culebrita which made for an exciting ride in. We could see that past the reefs it was fairly calm so we went through and picked up another one of the wonderful free moorings they have here. The surf on the beach would have made landing the dinghy challenging so we decided to just swim ashore to have a look around. We were the only boat there and had the island to ourselves. Within about 20 minutes a group of teenagers walks out of the trees onto the beach complete with beach towels, frisbees and other beach toys. I asked them where they came from since they obviously had no boat. They said that they had been dropped off on the other side of the island. They were soon followed by about 20 others about half of which were screaming kids. So much for having the island to ourselves.

After swimming back to the boat, we headed off to St. Thomas, about 25 miles to the east. On the way we encountered probably the biggest seas we have ever seen on the boat. The swells were 10-15 feet, but they were far apart so it was a very gentle motion. We had fishing lines out but didn't catch anything. We knew our friends on Adventure Bound were anchored over on the East end of St. Thomas so we headed over to Christmas Cove to join them. It was good to see them and catch up with them over beers.

Where we are:
Location=St Thomas, USVI
Lat=18 18.720
Lon=64 49.928

Villa Marina, Fajardo PR

And we're back . . . We flew all day and are now back in Puerto Rico on the boat. Stay tuned for more.

Villa Marina, Fajardo, PR

[Kevin's Post]Amanda flew back to Phoenix on Wednesday in order to prepare for Jamie's bridal shower (Amanda is the matron of honor) and bachelorette party.  I'll be flying back a few days before the wedding.  In the meantime I've been working my butt off on various boat projects.  It's tough for me to relax at a marina because I want to make the most of the time.  Although looking back at the projects I probably could have done almost all of them at anchor, but some of them are easier with a hose and unlimited fresh water.  For the rest, it is just nice to be able to run to the local marine store when things go wrong (they usually do).  I've polished all the stainless steel deck hardware, removed 4 of the 6 solar panels so I can reseal the hardtop seams, replaced the jib halyard, replaced the main sheet, replaced the dinghy hoist lines, got the propane filled, cleaned the grill, and reorganized half the boat. 

I know, you're probably sick of hearing about the iguanas.  If so, stop reading now, cause here comes more.   This morning I was working on getting the solar panels off when out of the corner of my eye something catches my attention.  It was a huge iguana trying to climb up the transom.  Mind you, the boat is in the slip bow first, so he had to swim all the way around the boat to get to the transom.  I ran to get my camera and when I got back he was still there, but I scared him off before I could get a shot.  Speaking of shooting . . . later this afternoon I heard this pop-pop-pop sound coming from the entrance to the marina.  I look that way and there is this guy on the back of what is probably a million dollar sportfisher with a rifle shooting at the iguanas on the way out of the marina.  Maybe this guy has been on the Disney jungle cruise one too many times.  I guess if you're going iguana hunting, you might as well do it from the back of your million dollar sportfisher.  Some Puerto Rican lady started yelling at him in spanish, so I couldn't tell what the heck she was yelling.  But, he didn't stop shooting, so for all I know she was giving him advice on his aim. 

Fajardo, PR

[Kevin's Post]We left Culebra this morning to head back over to mainland Puerto Rico where we had a slip reservation at one of the Fajardo marinas.  We've been plowing straight into the wind and waves for the past several weeks.  Every single day we have seen strong winds out of the east (no surprise there, it is the tradewinds) generally 15-20 knots.  So we were actually looking forward to the day when we would get to turn around and sail (gasp!) downwind.  Today was supposed to be that day as we had to go about 20 miles west back to Fajardo.  As luck would have it, today there was no wind at all.  So we ended up motoring the whole way back to Fajardo.

Iguanas are like pigeons here, they are everywhere.  They are on the docks, in the trees, in the bushes, in the water.  It is amazing.  And they are huge, some of them are 4' from head to tail.  If you walk by one of them on the dock, they jump into the water and swim like you wouldn't believe. I didn't even know they could swim.  But they don't dog-paddle like you might think, they swim down like a fish and disappear.  I don't know how long they can stay under, but we saw several dive in and we didn't see any of them come back up.  I'm not sure how far they can jump, but we're keeping the dock lines extra long and hoping they aren't good at tightrope walking. 

Where we are:
Location=Villa Marina - Fajardo, PR
Lat=18 20.574
Lon=65 38.207

Culebra Regatta

Culebra, PR -- Heineken Regatta

So the people on Kimi Jay (the boat that dragged towards us yesterday) finally arrived back at the boat in the afternoon around 3pm. Actually they dinghied past their boat to visit a friend on another boat and didn't even notice that they had dragged and were less than a boat length in front of us. I had to shout to the lady, "Hey! Is that your boat?". When she said yes, we told them what happened and they picked up both anchors and moved. We waited for a couple hours, expecting that they might return our anchor and rode with a thank you, but that didn't happen so Kevin dinghied over to them to pick it up. He got a quick "thanks" from the guy but that was it. Oh well. We didn't do it purely out of the kindness of our hearts; if we had done nothing their boat surely would've hit ours.

The water in Dewey's main harbor is pretty murky and we wanted to give the bottom another good scrub so this morning we moved back over to where we were on our first night on Culebra (we even picked up the same free mooring). It is definitely time for a new coat of bottom paint -- even though we'd just scrubbed the hull a couple weeks ago it was just as bad, barnacles everywhere. We aren't planning to haul out until we get to Grenada, so that means we'll need to scrub the bottom every couple of weeks until we get there so that we don't have a hull coated with growth by the time we do haul.

Originally we had intended to get out of Culebra to avoid the crowds that come here for the Heineken International Regatta. When we moved this morning, we thought we'd seen the last of the regatta (all the boats were anchored in Dewey). But sure enough, around noon we saw one boat come around the corner and pretty soon there were thirty others charging along right behind it. Seems that the big boats race around the whole island, while the dinghies just race in the harbor. So we were treated to a great view of the race, every boat went past ours on it's way around the island. Some of them even aimed right for our stern and then tacked (turned away) at the last minute. We weren't too worried though since these crews seemed to know what they were doing. Except the one that went around us and came within a few feet of the reef near the island. Some of the coral heads come up within a few feet of the surface so I was biting my nails but they managed to turn just in time.

Where we are:
Location=Culebra, PR
Lat=18 19.806
Lon=65 19.988

Culebra, PR -- Ensenada Honda

[Kevin's Post]Today it was our turn to rescue a dragging boat.  We have been anchored in the harbor near the Culebra town of Dewey for a few days longer than we had planned trying to finish up our taxes using the wi-fi here.  A big regatta started yesterday attracting boats from all around and we were hoping to be long gone before the festivities got started.  Now we remember why.  This morning I was writing an email when we heard some airhorn blasts (thank god for airhorns).  Amanda went outside to see what was going on and suggested I might want to come outside to see something.  There was a monohull about 30 feet in front of our bow, and getting closer.  It was blowing 15-20 knots.  This boat was originally anchored several hundred feet away.  We decided to let out more chain to get some distance between us.  Of course with our long bridle, that meant we had to motor forward and pull chain in to remove the bridle before we could let any out.  So Amanda took the helm and masterfully piloted us to within 5 feet of the stern of the other boat, so I could quickly unclip the bridle.  Then I let out about 30 feet more chain.  We watched the other boat hoping that their anchor had set and that they wouldn't get any closer.  Nope, they were still getting closer.  Last December we bought a 35 lb danforth anchor and mounted it on the port bow pulpit so that we would have a second anchor that could be deployed quickly in an emergency.  Of course when we dragged in Luperon, I didn't have any rope attached to it.  Oops.  We learned from that mistake and have since attached 275' of rode in a bag lashed to the corner of the trampoline.  I grabbed the danforth and anchor rode bag and tossed it in the dinghy figuring it would be fastest to just re-anchor their boat with my own anchor.  I dinghied about 100 feet in front of them and chucked the danforth in the water.  Then I dinghied back to their bow and cleated off the rode.  I tied off the dinghy to their boat, climbed aboard and started hauling in the rode I just cleated off to make sure the danforth was set and to get a little more distance between them and us.  This all took about 3 minutes.  It was an awesome performance and I don't think anybody even noticed.  Oh well.

I was a little worried that their anchor had dragged over our chain and would get fouled if they tried to pull it up.  So I put on my snorkel gear and jumped in the water to take a look.  The water here is a little murky and you can't see the bottom even though it is only 8 feet deep.  Trying to follow 100 feet of chain along the bottom is hard when you can't see it from the surface.  I would swim along the bottom until I ran out of air, come up for a breath and try to go back down before I drift too far and lose the chain.  I lost it several times, and had to swim perpendicular to the chain along the bottom until I found it again.  I eventually found our anchor, and theirs.  It must have been a 1000 to 1 chance, but their anchor actually hit our anchor and was deflected to the side coming to rest about 3 feet downwind and to the left of our anchor.  A few feet to the left and they would have missed it completely, a few feet to the right and they would have snagged our chain.    They only have about 50 feet of chain out, which is about 4:1 scope.  Not enough for 20 knots wind.

It's been several hours and we're still waiting for them to return to their boat.  They are still pretty close so we are keeping an eye on them to make sure our danforth holds.  We are hoping they will return our anchor plus our anchor rental fee: a six pack of beer. 

Where we are:
Location=Ensenada Honda, Culebra, PR
Lat=18 18.455
Lon=65 17.935

Isla de Culebrita, PR -- Bandito Nudito

This morning we dinghied into Dewey, Culebra's only town, with our friends Eli and Marla from "Iguana Dance". Eli and Marla have the same type of boat as ours and have been cruising in this area for several seasons. Although we had never met them before we've been emailing back and forth over the past year or so. Yesterday as we pulled into Culebra we heard them hail someone on the radio and it turned out they were over in the next cove. So we got together for drinks and decided to head into town today for lunch. The ride over to town was a wet one -- straight into wind and waves coming from the east so we were all soaked. But we dried out well enough walking around the town and checking out the boutiques and dive shops. We stopped in at Mamacita's for lunch, which is a place right on the water with a pretty good menu. From our table we could see a huge iguana in the tree next to us that was hungrily eyeballing the lettuce on our hamburgers. There was a sign saying "don't feed the iguanas" so you can tell that this was probably a common occurrence at Mamacita's. Later, as we passed by in the dinghy we saw that the iguana must have made his move because he was now crawling along the deck instead of in the tree and the waitress was frantically shooing him with her apron to get out of the restaurant. Not something you see everyday back home.

Back at the boat we dropped the mooring and motored clockwise around the island of Culebra to a smaller island on the northeast side called Culebrita. In Spanish when you see an -ita or -ito after a word it usually denotes "small" or "tiny". So "Mamacita" means "little mama", and "Culebrita" means "little snake". "Dorito", "Cheeto", and "Frito" all mean pretty much the same thing: tiny tasty corn chip snack. That's the end of today's Spanish lesson.

The cove here has a beautiful soft sand beach and there's a lighthouse you can hike to as well. It amazes me that here in Puerto Rico you can find a spot like this with 7 free moorings and some are still empty, whereas 50 miles away in the British Virgin Islands you'd find a similar cove with 70 moorings for $25/night, packed with boats. The boat right next to us in the cove seemed to be particularly inspired by the natural beauty -- I was sitting in the cockpit watching Kevin snorkel and I look over and there is the guy next door, showering completely au naturel. I've seen lots of men in speedos but this is the first (let's hope for "only") time seeing another cruiser showering completely nude. And absolutely proud of it, judging how he took his time and made sure to give everyone in the anchorage a couple of 360 degree views. Okay bad enough, but then his wife put on a similar show. Mind you, we are not moored next to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. This is an older cruising couple with, well...older cruising couple's bodies. Entertaining? Yes. A turn-on? No. Of course at this point we are looking around to make sure that we aren't in the middle of "The Nudist Regatta" or something and we notice that the guy on the boat on the other side of us is also doing something pretty funny: holding a camera.

Where we are:
Location=Isla Culebrita, PR
Lat=18 19.153
Lon=65 13.651

Isla de Culebra, Puerto Rico

We spent last night at Monkey Island. It's real name is Cayo Santiago, but most folks call it Monkey Island because there are over 500 rhesus monkeys roaming the island. A colony was originally brought here in 1939 so that scientists would have a quarantined stock of monkeys that could be used in experiments. Since then, the monkeys have had free run of the island so it's no surprise that visitors aren't allowed ashore. There were several signs warning people away and stating that the monkeys have been known to attack people. Guess we won't be going ashore to make friends. We anchored a few hundred feet off the beach and did manage to see a few of them wandering around, but other than a few glimpses we didn't see or hear much from the monkeys. Since there wasn't much to do or see, we decided to take off early this morning.

We are now in the Spanish Virgin Islands, to the east of Puerto Rico. Culebra is one of the two biggest islands in the Spanish Virgins, and has some of the best snorkeling and diving in this area. We were able to pick up a free mooring ball just 80 feet away from a spectacular coral reef, so after lunch we donned our snorkel gear and jumped overboard to have a look. This was some of the best snorkeling we've seen since last year in the Bahamas, lots of schools of fish and a field of purple and gold coral fans bowing to and fro as the current passed. There was a dive boat here when we arrived so we were able to float above the divers for a while; it's kind of a trip to see people 50 feet underwater below you.

Where we are:
Location=Culebra, PR
Lat=18 19.806
Lon=65 19.988

Punta Patillas, PR

[Kevin's Post]We left Salinas yesterday morning and motored 6 miles to Boca de Infierno, which is a small cut through a reef with some mangrove islands. We anchored in the lee of one of the mangrove islands to position ourselves for a night departure to Punta Patillas, another 15 miles away. The tradewinds are a major pain in the ass when you are trying to go eastward. Every leg we have made on the south coast of Puerto Rico has been straight into the wind and we have been generally leaving before sunrise to try to cover as much distance as possible before the wind picks up. This morning we left Boca de Infierno at 3 am and actually got to Punta Patillas before sunrise. The full moon was a nice change, it is amazing how well you can see with just moonlight. Also we were treated to a lunar eclipse last night before our departure.

We anchored in the bay at Punta Patillas at the crack of dawn this morning and promptly went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter we were awakened by the sound of jet skis. It must be Sunday. We are the only boat anchored in the bay, which of course makes us the star attraction for the local jet ski rental company. I think they are handing out flyers: 'Come see the magnificent catamaran of Punta Patilla!'. It is just 20 jet skis and us in the whole bay. They are playing games like, let's race to the catamaran and back. Or, let's do donuts around the catamaran. Or, let's see who can get closest to the catamaran without hitting it. Normally this would bug the hell out of me, but today there is a surge coming into the bay and it is pretty rolly anyway even without the jet ski wakes. And I know that all the jet skis will be turned in by sunset and it will quiet down then.

Where we are:
Location=Punta Patillas, PR
Lat=17 58.611
Lon=65 59.786

Salinas, PR -- Viejo San Juan

Thursday morning we got a late start to avoid San Juan rush hour traffic and arrived in Old San Juan around 10 am. For those of you who were kids in the early 80's, San Juan was home to Menudo (a latino boy-band that included a pre-VidaLoca Ricky Martin). So of course I had the refrain from one of their songs running through my head all day. Old San Juan is dominated by two Spanish Colonial fortresses: the larger Castillo de San Cristobal and the older El Morro. Both have stunning views of the ocean and the city. We started off at San Cristobal and then wandered up the road to El Morro. The architecture was worth admiring, and both forts had all kinds of underground passages and spiral staircases to explore. By the end of the morning, we were all forted out. So we strolled over to the Casa Blanca, home to several generations of descendants of Ponce de Leon (you may remember him from such quests as "the search for the fountain of youth" and "finding Florida"). Anyway, we wandered through the shady courtyards in the walled gardens and admired the fountains. It would've been a great spot for a picnic lunch. If only we'd remembered a picnic lunch.

San Juan

By this time it was after one and we were ravenous so we walked into the old city and found a restaurant that seemed to be full of people. After our food arrived, we realized why all the other patrons were only drinking at the bar. It was a pathetically half-hearted attempt at spanish/mexican cuisine. Afterwards we walked down the street to Ben & Jerry's to get something that we knew for sure would taste good. We meandered some more down the city's scenic streets. Old San Juan is only about 8 blocks wide by 7 blocks tall, so we had seen all there was to see by 3pm. One point of interest that was mentioned in Lonely Planet was a visit to a shop called the Butterfly People. This is run by a family that takes tropical butterflies and mounts them in lucite (after they're dead of course) that's meant to hang on the wall like a shadowbox. The walls of the shop were covered in large-scale arrangements of color that were both beautiful and extremely creepy. Not to mention expensive: a small box with 6 butterflies was priced in the hundreds whereas the larger collections could be upwards of two grand. We had to laugh when we saw a little tacky tourist shop down the street selling framed butterfly knockoffs for only $27.

Editorial Note

Blogger lost a few of our SSB posts from last week, so there are 3 'new to you' posts dated 2/22, 2/25, and 2/26. Plus, we have uploaded some new photos.

And no, we are not in Africa. Occasionally, the Google Maps inlay to the left places us at 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude which is off the west coast of Africa. Hit refresh and it should correct itself.