Anegada to Fat Hog

After a couple of wonderful days in North Sound on Virgin Gorda we decided to head north to Anegada on Friday. We've been to the BVI's several times but had not yet been there. All the other islands in the BVI are line-of-sight navigation, meaning that you don't really need to use charts or a chart plotter to get from island to island. But Anegada is farther away than the other islands and it is low elevation so you can't see it until you are close to it. Charts or a chartplotter are helpful to say the least.

We had perfect weather for sailing, so we put up the sails and practically flew up to Anegada, doing 8+ knots most of the time (our max speed was 10.1 while surfing, which is really fast for us considering that most of the time we are motoring into the wind at about six knots max.)

Wide stretches of sandy beach skirt around the edge of the whole island. We decided to head over to Loblolly Bay to hang out on the beach for the afternoon. The weather was sunny, but a brisk northerly breeze kept us cool. We snorkeled the reef and saw some interesting coral heads, then hung out on the beach enjoying some rum and cokes. Since Anegada seems to be renowned for its lobsters, we made sure to have a couple for dinner...over two pounds apiece...we were stuffed!

On Sunday we decided to head back. Winds were light, so we motorsailed back down to Tortola. We anchored in Fat Hog's Bay and soon were in the middle of our typical scenario: arrive at an anchorage in the afternoon, the holding is great/water is flat so we wonder "why haven't we ever heard of what a great anchorage this is?" only to find ourselves seasick with rolling waves around one in the morning. Kevin did notice that some of the moorings closer to the reef looked flatter, so we picked one of those up today (Monday) and are breathing big sighs of relief and looking forward to a more restful night tonight!

North Sound, Virgin Gorda BVI

[Kevin's Post]We left Road Town on Friday in the pouring rain. Ordinarily we wouldn't choose to move the boat in inclement weather, but with dockage costing $120 a night the money won out. We had planned to head over to Cooper Island to check out some of the dive sites around there, but a couple miles out of Road Town we changed our destination to Norman Island rather than pound into 25 knots to get to Cooper.

Before we left Road town, we dropped our scuba tanks off to get recertified. Unfortunately one of our two tanks failed and was condemned due to corrosion. We asked the dive shop if they had any used tanks they wanted to sell, and ended up buying 3 more tanks. So now we have 4 tanks total which is great because now we can do twice as many dives between fills. At Norman, we dove The Indians and Pelican Island. We saw an anaconda sized Moray eel on the first dive, and some huge lobsters on the second.

Jim and Amanda (previously of Adventure Bound) were off charter this week so we met up with them at Norman and they dove Pelican Island with us. We also joined them for dinner and drinks Monday night at the Willy T (floating bar at Norman Island).

We had a couple days of horrible weather while we were at Norman and the gusty wind killed our wind generator. One of the slip rings between the pedestal and the generator broke off so there is no electrical contact any more. I don't have a decent soldering iron on board, so have no way to fix it for now. Hopefully the genset will continue to work until I can figure out how to fix the wind generator.

We left Norman Tuesday AM and headed for The Dogs to dive a site there called The Chimney. This site is named for a narrow canyon that is like a rock climbing "chimney". It was a pretty cool dive with several canyons and a large underwater arch you can swim through. We had planned to also dive another nearby site with an airplane wreck, but the visibility wasn't very good, so we called it a day after the first dive.

After diving we motored over to a nearby anchorage called Savannah Bay, it was large, flat and empty. A little too empty, we thought. Around 11pm we discovered why. It started to roll pretty bad and we had another sleepless night.

This morning we headed to North Sound in Virgin Gorda where we found a nice (hopefully flat) anchoring spot and did a little exploring this afternoon. We had beers at Saba Rock, lunch at the Bitter End Yacht Club, and went for a nice walk all the way over to Biras Creek Resort.

And There Was Much Rejoicing

Tim, the magician -- er, mechanic -- arrived around noon on Wednesday to have a look at the port engine. He was a very cheery British guy with a wry sense of humor. He and Kevin got straight to work taking the engine apart. Sure enough, he confirmed that Kevin was right about which part had failed. It was a rubber vibration damper that absorbs vibrations in the transmission and it had shredded in two. Unfortunately the new one that we ordered in December still hasn't shipped from Sweden yet, so we were worried that we would have to keep limping along for several more weeks. Tim, however, was not deterred. He made a few phone calls and managed to find the last one on the island. Within an hour he had it installed and Kevin fired up the engine and was able to test out forward and reverse gear...SUCCESS! We were so ecstatic that we actually opened a bottle of champagne that we were saving for our wedding anniversary a day early. It was the best possible anniversary present we could have received (Thanks, Tim!).

Thursday was our wedding anniversary and we decided to take one of Tim's recommendations and head over to Brandywine Bay Restaurant. It was a beautiful spot, very romantic, and very quiet. I mean really quiet, as in there was only one other couple dining the whole evening. As a result the service was impeccable, since there were two servers working. Dinner was very good...beef carpaccio, lamb ravioli, roast duck and chocolate mousse for dessert. It was pricey, but delicious.

So today we will check out of the marina (with both engines running, hooray!) and our plan is to head over to Cooper Island to do some scuba diving.

Village Cay Marina, Tortola BVI

After the New Year's festivities, we wanted a change of scenery but didn't want to go too far since we were still waiting on a part for our port engine. So, we followed Seaman's Elixir and Sojourn back over to Lameshur Bay for a few nights to kill time while we waited for an update from Volvo on our part. In Lameshur Bay we went for a hike up Bordeaux Mountain, at 1200 feet the highest point in St. John. We figured we would be treated to an incredible view at the top, but instead it ended at a dirt road with 20 foot trees in all directions. We walked another mile down the road, but still no view so we headed back down the hill disappointed. We did get one decent view, but it was only 1/4 of the way up so we could have just as easily turned around there.

When Monday rolled around I called Volvo to see if they had an updated ETA on our part. They said they would have it on Jan 18th, which coincidently was exactly two weeks from the call. Sounds like BS to me. When I originally ordered the part they said 1-3 weeks. 4 weeks later, they tell me 2 more weeks? So, we decided not to wait for it any more and headed off to Tortola (BVI) to have a mechanic look at it. After all, I'm not even 100% sure that I need that particular part. I figure we might as well have a mechanic confirm whether or not we need the part rather than sit around waiting for a part that realistically may never come. Maybe we'll get lucky and it will be a different part more easily obtained. Or maybe we can have a replacement fabricated here.

The mechanic we had been in touch with on Tortola said he couldn't look at it until Jan 13th, so we cleared into Road Town and headed 5 miles south to Peter Island to wait out the 6 days. Everything is more difficult with one engine, so we've been really keeping our movement to a minimum until we can get this issue resolved. Peter Island is a pleasant spot to spend some time. Our old friends Jim & Amanda (previously of Adventure Bound) were there on a beautiful 58' catamaran they are working on as professional crew. They didn't have a charter booked for the week, so we were able to hang out with them a bit when they weren't working on their boat. Peter Island also has some fantastic walks with incredible views. We were kicking ourselves for forgetting the camera yet again, but we plan to go there again and won't forget the camera next time.

This morning we left Peter Island and headed over to Village Cay Marina to take dockage. We had both been dreading this because maneuvering the boat in close quarters on one engine is extremely difficult. We had a reservation and I knew exactly where the slip was, so my only concern was that the slip might not be empty when we showed up. We circled outside the marina for a good half hour waiting for somebody to respond to the radio. Finally they did and told us we would be in a different slip, A29 instead of B23. Of course all the slips are numbered, but they don't have the letter. So we aim for what turned out to be C29 and barely managed to turn the boat around in the narrow space to get out. By process of elimination we found our slip on the third "A" pier and managed to get tied up with the help of one of the dockhands without damaging the boat. Hopefully we don't have to leave on one engine as well.

The first order of business was to get a SIM card for our cell phone. We haven't had a working phone since leaving St. John and have really missed it. I don't know how we managed without a phone for most of the trip south originally. Just being without one for the last week has been difficult. So now we have a local BVI cell phone and our handy Tracfone for the USVI and PR. We also manage to find a decent grocery store and Chinese takeout. We are resting comfortably in the marina with air conditioning, wi-fi, and stomachs full of Chinese food. Tomorrow the mechanic is supposed to come and hopefully solve our transmission problem, or at least tell us definitively what the problem is.

Happy New Year in St. John!

We are hoping we 2010 brings us some better luck than 2009. We have recently added the generator to our growing list of out-of-commission equipment. The belt is shredding which means we can only run it with small loads, like the battery charger, instead of larger loads, like the air conditioning, microwave, hot water heater, or washer/dryer. I washed a load of clothes by hand last week which really made me appreciate the modern conveniences of a washer and dryer! We've ordered a new belt and hopefully Kevin can figure out why the genset keeps shredding them. In the meantime I just keep telling myself "It's like camping...camping is fun, right?".

On Monday we took the bus from Coral Bay to Cruz Bay, which took us across the entire island. It cost a dollar. Cruz Bay is the main town on the island, and we had gone there hoping to pick up two packages that were sent general delivery to the post office. We waited in line forever. When we finally got up to the front of the line, the guy at the desk was very curt and said "Sorry we don't have it". He wouldn't look any harder for it and basically shrugged and said he couldn't help us. So we had no idea if it never arrived, or if it had arrived and had been sent back, or what. It wouldn't have been so upsetting to us if the mail package hadn't contained several of our last paychecks...a lot of money to lose track of! We walked over to a cafe and ate lunch while Kevin called our mail service who gave him the delivery confirmation number and said it had only just been scanned in on 12/21 (about a week earlier). So we knew it had to be there. We went back to the post office, stood in line for another forty minutes, and asked again. This time the clerk was a lady, and although she couldn't find any trace of the package she suggested we go to the annex building next door and look for it. The lady at the annex was the most unfriendly, unhelpful person ever. I politely said good morning and told her why we'd been sent over. She actually started yelling at me, saying that there was no way for her to find any package in the annex and that we should never have been sent to her. When we persisted, she said "what do you want me to do, look through every package in here? I don't have time for that! Unless it's in this pile waiting to be sent back, then it is probably not here!" We looked at the pile where she was pointing and I am not kidding you, our package was there, right on top, with the name "SALT" in big black lettering. We grabbed it, tentatively asked if she might know where our second package (containing a $200 part) was, and endured some more verbal abuse before beating a hasty retreat. At least we had the important package with our mail. At no point during any of our dealings with the Post Office did anyone actually look up the delivery confirmation number (which we knew) on a computer. And the USPS website clearly says that general delivery packages should be held 30 days so we're still confused as to why they were preparing to send it back so soon. We won't be sending anything else to St. John, that's for sure.

We've had a quiet week since then for the most part. For New Year's, we met up with our friends Linda and Steve on "Seaman's Elixir" and their daughter Katie and her husband Ryan, who were visiting from Colorado. We all went out to dinner in Coral Bay and then went to a bar with live music where we greeted the new year with champagne (yes, we made it to midnight!).