Month: November 2025

Mark fixed our dinghy on Nov. 28th. He took it back to the beach and ended up replacing the carburetor. Mark had bought a new carburetor for the motor last year but only needed it now. The new carburetor lets more fuel through so we now have a more powerful motor – cool!! Of course we had to take it out for a spin!!

It was too late in the day to go exploring that day, so after breakfast on Nov. 29 we took the dinghy out for a tour around. There are a few beaches in the area but probably this most popular is Green Cay Sandy Spit. (Not to be confused with Sandy Cay which is rumoured to have been featured in the helicopter opening scene of Gilligan’s Island.) This little island truly is just a spit!! Lots of sand and not much else except for a few palm trees. The cay forms a sheltered area between Little Van Dyke and Green Cay. Several boats were anchored around this area and the shallow water and rocky reefs helped control the wave action. It was pretty windy on Saturday and we saw a few people sailing west with the wind behind them. We sat in the sand looking west and watched the sailboats zoom by!! We also saw a few kite surfer (it’s basically a surf board attached to a sail) racing around, even in some fairly big waves.

When we left Sandy Spit, we were travelling with the wind and waves so Mark opened up the throttle on the dinghy motor and we had some fun!! Definitely there was more power coming from the motor because the new carburetor throttle actually opens more than the old one! We had a bit of fun zooming back to the boat where we picked up our snorkel geared and headed to a little bay nearby called Manchineel Bay. There was a nice beach for the dinghy and we snorkelled for about an hour. We saw a stingray, some new coral types and lots of fish.

Today (Nov. 30th) was a fairly quiet day. We had a slow start because we had a rainy night (lots of close up and open up – it’s too hot to not reopen some hatches and the dodger when it stops raining). One positive about last night’s rain – it was also windy!! We woke up with our batteries still well charged (nighttime is hard in our house batteries because we charge them (mostly) with solar so they discharge at night running the fridge and freezer). Mark did a few jobs including recalibrating the tachometer with the new pulley system. Our tachometer was reading high and now it’s much closer (but still a bit high – oh well).

Tomorrow it’s December 1st!! Crazy! We’ll be moving over to Cane Garden Bay on the north side of Tortola to do a bit of grocery shopping and maybe some laundry. All the islands are very close together here so it doesn’t take long to move to a new anchorage. The challenge is finding a place to anchor and not have to pay for a mooring ball.

One definition of cruising is fixing your boat in exotic places! Well that definition applies to dinghy motors too!! More on that soon! We ended up only staying one night at Little Harbour and moved slightly east to an anchorage between Jost Van Dyke and Little Jost Van Dyke on Nov. 27th. It was another protected anchorage with lots of mooring balls but we were able to find a good spot to anchor. There was a small craft weather advisory for Thursday (which means the weather and sea conditions will be dangerous for vessel like us) so we were very happy to be tucked in this little settled area. It was quite the day of sun and squalls!! We had one rain storm blow through with 30knots of wind – and our anchor held perfectly (always reassuring). We sat in the cockpit and watched all the charter boats tied up to mooring balls (all ahead of us) and hoped they were tied up correctly (everyone was!!). It was one of those open up, close up kind of days – as soon as all the hatches were open and we were relaxing, the rain would start and we’d run around closing up! We did manage to get some work done during the rain. We got our water maker running in the morning. We made about 40 gallons of water in an hour – it’s still so cool to be able to make drinking water from ocean water!!

Now back to the dinghy repair. As I mentioned in the last post, the dinghy motor started acting up when we were in Road Town Harbour. This morning (Nov. 28th) Mark loaded up a bunch of his tools into the dinghy and we headed to a beach nearby on Jost Van Dyke. As Mark worked on the motor, I explored the area. There’s a restaurant here called Foxy’s Tabboo (supposed to be very expensive), a Jost Van Dyke sign and a trail out to the bubble pool. It was great to walk along the shore and check things out. When Mark was done with the motor, we walked out to the bubble pool which is a tidal pool with an inlet facing the north. As waves roll in, water crashes through the inlet and makes a bubble bath kind of thing (just like Rachael’s bubble bath in the Bahamas). We splashed around for a bit and then headed back to the dinghy (but not before it rained again!! And we didn’t close up the boat before we left – oops). With fingers crossed, we pushed off from the beach and Mark started the motor. Unfortunately it was running about the same so more work is needed before the motor is happy again. That’s a job for later today. But at least we got to shore and had a nice few hours of exploring!

Our last grocery shopping was done in Soper’s Hole on Nov. 17th so it was time to head to Road Town – the only true city in the BVIs – to replenish our fresh fruits and veggies! We were definitely ready to leave Norman Island – the weekend was crazy busy – but we took our time Monday (Nov. 24th) and had a nice breakfast. We had quite a few things to put away and take down before we could pull up the anchor – not the normal routine stuff. Anchor was up and we were on the move around 9:30am. We didn’t have far to go (about 6 nm) so we didn’t bother putting a sail up – the wind wasn’t in a great direction anyhow. 

Grocery shopping was actually second on the list of things to do in for Road Town. Number 1 was to visit a machine shop to get some metal machining done on the new serpentine pulley system. It’s too long and complicated for me to explain the problem but boiled down it needed fixing with tools we didn’t have onboard! 

The Road Town harbour was super busy – 3 cruise ships, a cargo ship and many, many charter boats. We anchored near 3 other sailboats near the inner harbour in the most rolly spot imaginable!!! We were hoping to not have to stay long. We got the dinghy down and Mark left to chat with the machine shop person. He didn’t get far before the dinghy motor crapped out! He got it going but we had trouble with it the rest of the day (it still needs some tlc or maybe a big hammer 😁). Mark returned rather quickly – turned out that Monday was a local BVI holiday and the shop was closed. Okay we decided to try our luck at grocery shopping and buying propane (to cook with). We loaded up the dinghy and with fingers crossed tried to start the motor. After many pulls it finally woke up and ran okay for our trip. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at BVIs Charters which had a lot of empty dock space. Mark went to the office to see if we could tie up at their dock for the night and they said yes. So we took CK into this marina/dock and tied up to one of the finger docks. 

Tuesday morning (Nov. 25th) we walked out to do a little bit more shopping and while we were out, Mark found a different machine shop who said they could work on the pulley thing. So back to the boat we went and Mark removed the piece that needed machining. They were able to work on the piece that afternoon so we stayed a second night at the world’s most uncomfortable dock (we rolled and bounced continuously). By 5 pm Mark had the repaired part back onboard. 

There were a few positive things about being at the dock. We ran the air conditioning again which was lovely and we were able to get rid of all our garbage!! We got a walk in which was really nice and we visited a store called French Deli. They had some really nice sandwiches and quiches.

Today Nov. 26th Mark reinstalled the pulley system and we were off the dock a little after 9 am. It was a great day for sailing and we went with jib and jigger (mizzen sail). We had a nice sail west and then north to Jost Van Dyke Island. As we were getting close to the island, we had a little race with this show off sailboat named Inukshuk. We could see this sailboat from a distance, going back and forth between Jost Van Dyke and Tortola. This boat was 32m long and had a huge mast!! It wasn’t much of a race – they sucked all our wind with their massive sails 😁. Oh well we had a good sail!! We entered the main harbour just before noon only to find the place full so we went a little farther east to Little Harbour and picked up a mooring ball (with only 1 other boat). We’ll stay here for a bit now.

Can’t take credit for the witty title – Mark came up with that one – but the sentiment is spot on!! What a difference a day and bay make. We left Peter Island on Wednesday (Nov. 19) after a very long night of gusty wind and lots of rolling. We had breakfast, pulled up anchor and moved to the next island just west of us called Norman Island. We were both a little discouraged by our first anchorage in the BVIs and were hoping this new one would be better. Well – what a difference….

The bay we are in is quite large and full of mooring balls. We had to do a lap of the bay to find a good anchoring spot. We dropped our anchor in 40 ft of water but quickly backed up into about 25ft. We’ve got about 150ft of chain out and we haven’t moved in 2 days (always a good thing). Mark made an interesting comment that the anchor probably grabbed the bottom going uphill!! It would have taken a bit of time for the anchor to drop 40ft so by the time it was down low enough, we’d backed up into shallower water. Who knows – our holding is all good!!

We are definitely enjoying this new island anchorage for many reasons. It’s much calmer so we’re not rolling and the wind is not swirling around doing weird things!! It’s also lots of fun to watch all the comings and goings! This is a crazy busy spot!! Each morning all the charter catamarans leave and later in the afternoon, a new bunch all show up. There’s also 2 bar/restaurants here so those are busy with smaller powerboats coming from Tortola. Sometimes it’s a bit scary – yesterday a chartered catamaran came within about 10ft of our bow as they headed for a mooring ball. The folks onboard were busy looking at us and not where they were going!! Fun stuff.

We’ve also seen some wildlife around us. Lots of fish swim around the boat and everyday we’ve had a visit from sea turtles. They pop up near the boat and as soon as I get my phone to take a photo, they’re gone!! It’s still nice to see them!! We haven’t explored the area yet but we are planning to do some snorkelling at some point. We’re enjoying relaxing in the cockpit, reading, crocheting and going for an afternoon swim. There have been a few jobs – the forward head has now been totally rebuilt and is in fine working order. Today Mark is tackling the new serpentine belt pulley system for the engine. This has been an ongoing job for a few years now. The new system was supposed to fit our engine but it doesn’t so Mark has had to fabricate several parts to make it work! Again – never a simple job!

Here’s a bit of Island info for those curious folks – Christopher Columbus can be thanked for the name “Virgin” Islands. When he landed in 1492, he named the whole chain of islands “Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes” (Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins).

It was great that we took a mooring ball for 2 nights at Soper’s Hole. It gave us a day to explore the little port at the west end of Tortola. We went ashore in the morning and visited the grocery store which was small but well stocked. The wine, beer and spirits section was about 1/2 of the first floor (good thing there was a second floor with all the dried goods!!) and the rest of that floor was fresh produce and some fridge items. We managed to spend a bit of money in there (it’s a bit pricey here).

After stowing all our goodies, we decided to have lunch at the main restaurant. Again the place was small but the food was very yummy. We both had smoothies and they were delicious! We met a young man from Texas (Bubba) who was having lunch with his Father-in-law from Maine. Turned out that Bubba and his wife run a sailboat charter business so he had all kinds of local knowledge of the area. Mark exchanged phone numbers and we’ve already received some good info from Bubba!

As we were headed back to the boat after lunch I noticed there was another Canadian flagged sailboat very close to us. We went over to say hi! Turned out the couple live aboard their boat and travel up and down the Caribbean. They had just crossed from Curacuo (a 450nm trip) and were trying to get their dinghy running to go and clear into the BVIs. We ended up giving the man, Dave, a tow to the Immigration dock and then Mark went back over to help fix Dave’s dinghy’s motor. Our good deed for the day!

Today (Tuesday, Nov. 18) we decided to leave Soper’s Hole and head to Peter Island (about 10nm south east). The wind wasn’t the best direction for part of our trip but we did get a little sail in as we travelled south. We’re now starting to discover some of the negatives of the BVIs. Most of the good anchorages have been filled with mooring balls making it difficult to just anchor. We thought Peter Island would be good because it’s a private island and does have anchoring room but we’re still anchoring in 25 ft of water. We’re also seeing some strange wind patterns. The islands are very hilly and this seems to distort the wind direction. Right now we should be facing the island (wind direction) but current and funky wind patterns have us facing out (stern to the island). It a bit unnerving!! We’re hoping it’ll be a quiet night but so far we’ve had some crazy gusts and we’re bouncing around a lot. Might be a long night!!

It was another amazing day out on the water between Culebra and the British Virgin Islands. We were up early and on the move from our anchorage at 7 am. We were trying very hard to time our arrival at Current Cut for around 11 am. The cut is between St. Thomas and Great St. James Islands (USVI) and we were trying to hit an ebb tide so we could have the current flowing with us! With little wind and no waves, we were able to reach the cut with a wonderful ebb current that boosted our speed into the mid 7 kts range.

The terrain of the USVIs and the BVIs is beautiful. It’s very hilly with lush vegetation. I was very surprised by the amount of urbanization on St. Thomas – not much space left, even way up in the hills!! St. John Island seemed less populated but still had housing way up to the tops of the hills. Both were very picturesque!

We arrived at our destination – Soper’s Hole, Tortola, BVIs around 1 pm. We could tell from a distance that the harbour was very busy so we were prepared to have some fun finding a spot to anchor (we’ve done George Town anchoring so we felt prepared!!). We weren’t prepared for a harbour that was over 70ft deep!! How exactly do you anchor in that depth? We do have 250ft of chain plus a rope line but do you really want to trust that you’re secured in a harbour full of boats!! We quickly decided to pick up a mooring ball. That was a challenge – no wind all day and as we tried to pick up that ball, the wind piped up to 12 kts off to the side which really made things interesting. Unfortunately the line from the mooring ball (called a pennant) had many little barnacles on it and Mark cut his hand on them. He had to drop the pennant and we went around for a second go at it. No problems the second time (although it was a struggle with wind and a sore hand) and we were secured by 1:30pm. Mark went off to customs and immigration (crew is not allowed to leave the boat) and got us cleared in!! Now we’re in the BVIs for a few weeks!!

It was a glorious Saturday, Nov. 15th morning for Crimson Kathryn and her faithful crew!! We were up relatively early (a little before 7 am), had breakfast and started our pre-departure checklist. I always look after the breakfast dishes and securing down below (closing portlights, hatches, putting electronics away etc) and Mark does all the engine checks (which had already been done earlier this week). Instead, Mark went up to the office to return our passes and to let them know we were leaving. Our friend John helped us get off the dock and we were on our way by 8:30 am.

The weather was perfect – sunny, light wind from south east and fairly calm seas. The only negative of the start to our short passage today was all the power boats heading out of the marina for a Saturday jaunt! It was a continuous stream of them leaving before us and after us. It didn’t take long before we were far enough from the marina that the power boat wakes were not a problem.

We had a very easy motorsail to Culebra (about 25nm) and are now anchored in a bay called Puerto del Manglar. This must be a popular anchorage for Puerto Ricans because when we arrived there were about 15 power boats all anchored in the same spot. We chose to anchor across the bay from them – they will probably leave around dinner time so we’ll be out of their way!

This has been a great day – got off the dock; had a nice motor sail; and then had a lovely swim to cool off!! The water was wonderful! Tomorrow we want to be underway by 7am to make the roughly 35nm to Soper’s Hole (on Tortola), BVIs. Should be another great day! Cheers!!

That should be the motto for every sailor!! Each boat job seems simple on the surface but the reality is usually quite different. And so went some of our jobs over the past few days. FYI all of these jobs had a happy, successful ending but the journey was something else!

Let’s start with the infamous bilge pump switches. We’ve had issues with the switches that turn on our bilge pumps (they empty water out of the bilge – a rather important item on a boat) so one switch needed to be replaced. As well, Mark replaced the high water alarm to a better digital version. All was going well with installing the new switch and alarm until Mark got to the wiring of the alarm. The digital alarm had one more wire than the old one so he needed a third wire which (surprisingly) we didn’t have onboard. So off to the on-site marine store (which is extremely well stocked!). With wire in hand, Mark made the new connection and brought it forward. That sounds simple but to get that one wire from the aft head under the floor, it had to go through the engine room and the little cupboard ahead of the engine room. To get at the spot in the cupboard where the wire entered, the cupboard had to be emptied!! Connecting this new additional wire became a bit of a nightmare because all the wiring for that alarm had to be changed. It was a bit of a struggle but eventually we had two functioning bilge pump switches and a new high water alarm!!

Another job you think would be quick and easy was replacing the batteries in our little flashlights. We remembered to remove the batteries for storage but unfortunately left the batteries in their little holders (3 AAA battery holder). Over our storage period, those holders became corroded. They needed to be cleaned with baking soda or another alkaline substance (which we didn’t have onboard). A quick shout out to our friend John and we were in business. He had baking soda but even better he had an electronics contact cleaner. Mark made a trip over to John’s boat and cleaned away! 2 out of the three flashlights are now as good as new.

Today’s major job also had its challenges. Our forward head (toilet) has not been working well (letting water back into the bowl and not flushing well). Mark has been putting this job off for a good reason – it’s yucky!! Again in order to get access to the hoses, the upper cabinet had to be emptied and the door removed. It’s a very small space so working in there was rough! After lots of dismantling, cleaning a d replacing of parts, Mark discovered that the hose leading to the thru-hull (out to the water) was blocked. Okay so now this job included the main cabin floor to access this hose. The table had to be cleared and put up. The carpet pulled and the floor hatch removed. Now the hose was removed and taken outside on the dock for a good beating (loosening all the built up calcium). Once everything was reconnected, the toilet worked like a charm!!

Lastly, the boat needed a bit of cleaning up after living aboard for almost 2 weeks. That should be an easy job but you know what it wasn’t as easy as it should have been! The navigation table is our junk drawer (both on top and inside) so it accumulates a lot of stuff. Finding homes for all this stuff can drive a person crazy! This boat is big but not big enough for all our stuff. All I can say is that the V-berth is filling up!!

Job challenges aside, life here has been good and we’ve managed to get lots done. We’ve even had time to test our new Starlink mini. The wifi here at the marina isn’t great so we set-up our Starlink in a temporary spot on the rail and have been using it for our wifi needs. It’s working great and will make it so much easier for us to get connected as we travel through all these island countries. We are getting very excited to be leaving the dock!! Saturday and Sunday are looking good for our Culebra/BVIs jump. We’ve planned a dinner out with John on Friday and then we’ll hit the high seas (well hopefully not too high 😁).

The must be done jobs are now on a list and we’re starting to move slightly quicker because we’re watching a calm weather window coming up this weekend (Nov. 15 – 16). If the weather holds, we will be able to leave the dock and start heading east! This past weekend was very chill . We did a few things – put away all our items from shopping, engine maintenance items, laundry and a few other items. But for the most part, we took it easy.

Today, Monday Nov, 10th, we’ve found a bit of energy. We asked John to help us hoist Mark to the top of the mizzen mast so that was the main job for this morning. Mark undid the wind generator so it’s spinning happily now and while he was up there, Mark replaced the old topping lift for the mizzen boom. That line supports the mizzen boom and it was getting pretty ratty. Lastly Mark checked the aft deck light (which hasn’t been working for a while) and found it was burnt out!! Need to buy a new bulb for that one!

This afternoon was spent cleaning, cutting and placing the new carpet for the main cabin. We found replacement carpet at Home Depot and it needed to be cut into 2 pieces to fit under our table and 2 chairs. It was loads of fun (not!!) trying to cut this stiff carpet inside the boat. Last time we did this we had the luxury of the Reynolds pier to work on – oh the space – and the old carpets to use as a template. This time it was measuring and cutting in place. I’m happy to say the carpet fits well and looks great!! Good for another few years!

I’ve forgotten to mention some of the noises we’ve been experiencing down here. As you may be aware, the US has increased their military presence in the Caribbean and we have definitely heard and noticed it here. There is an old naval base and airfield just south of us and we’ve been hearing (and occasionally seeing) F 35 fighter jets taking off from the base. It’s a bit unnerving to have all this military around but hopefully we won’t encounter them on the water!!

Getting back to the calm weather window this weekend, it will allow us to head to Culebra on Saturday (about 25 nm east) where we’ll anchor overnight. The next day we’re hoping to make it all the way to the BVIs (another 45 nm) where we’ll clear into the country at Soper’s Hole. Fingers crossed the weather holds!!

Oh boy our Visa card is smokin hot after Friday’s shopping adventure. But before all that, Sundog (our friend John’s boat) was splashed on Thursday. In the heat of the day (around 2 pm), the travel lift brought Sundog down to the water. John’s boat is a bit smaller than ours – it’s a Catalina 36 – and it fit easily in the travel lift. Mark and I lent a hand to help John take his boat over to his slip which is 2 piers away from us. John did a great job getting his boat into a very narrow slip (if his boat was a foot wider it would have been interesting) and we had it nicely secured by about 3 pm.

We got going very early Friday morning trying to avoid a late shopping day. We had the car and were on the road by 8:30 am. We started our provisioning extravaganza with a visit to West Marina (a very popular marina store) and found the few items we needed (some rope and clips). That was probably our quickest stop!! From there we went to Home Depot (with a little visit to Starbucks – need that coffee for this kind of shopping), Walmart and Costco!! Our rental car was quite small so the packages really piled up!! It’s a good thing Mark and I were only shopping for 6 weeks (and John was only getting things for the next few weeks until his partner Sharron arrives) because we wouldn’t have had room for much more.

After Costco we went on a hunt for some aged rum. Puerto Rico doesn’t have many liquor stores because you can buy most alcohol in the grocery stores. We tried at 2 places that said they were “liquor stores” but they were more like bars where you could buy a bottle (if they had it). We ended up stopping at a grocery store that had a good selection of rums and bought one from Panama and a local Puerto Rican bottle.

The car was so full we decided to go back to the marina and unload. We certainly appreciated the golf cart dock service for this provisioning run!! We had one golf cart and 2 trailers to get all our goodies back to our 2 boats!! We quickly moved our stuff onboard, put away freezer items and went back out to the local grocery store to continue our shopping. By the time we were all done (3 grocery stores later), it was 6pm!!!! Our original plan was to celebrate with dinner out at a Mexican restaurant in Fajardo but we were all so tired (and hungry) that we just went to our on-site restaurant! It was a great meal to end a very successful shopping day. And now that visa needs a break!!