We had a wonderful Christmas holiday in Toronto. We spent time with both our families and had some quality time with Evelyn (Liam) and Caroline!! We arrived back at the boat late in the afternoon on Dec. 28th and all was well!
While at home we were watching the wind down here and saw a really good weather window to cross from the Virgin Islands to St. Martin but it started on Dec. 28th. We kept an eye on this window and sure enough it started to move a little later (Dec. 30 – Jan 2). We decided to make sure we were ready to leave the dock asap. On Dec. 29th we rented a car and did a major provisioning at Costco. We also stopped at a few other grocery stores so the boat is now stuffed full of food and drink!!
Early Tuesday (Dec. 30th) morning we started getting ready to leave the dock. Our weather window was now Jan. 1 – 2 with low wind and small waves predicted (a big 95nm motor). We were off the dock and on our way to Culebra a little after 10 am. The 22 nm trip was a bit rolly with a stronger south east wind blowing on the bow. This was our first trip was our new chart plotter and oh boy is it nice!! It’s super fast – zooming in and out is a quick turn of a knob. Setting a route is very easy and the display is bright and easy to read. All in all it’s a wonderful replacement! We had our anchor down by 3pm in the same spot we anchored in on our first journey to the BVIs.
Today (Dec. 31) we left around 9am and motored the 32 nm to Lameshur Bay, St. John (USVI). It was a much nicer trip because the wind was lower and so were the waves. We arrived at our destination around 4 pm and I started the process of clearing into the USVIs using the CBP ROAM app. If you remember my previous posts – clearing into the USA can be a tricky thing and you never know what kind of an answer you’ll get. Last time we went from St. Thomas (USVI) to Culebra (Puerto Rico) we used the ROAM app to report our arrival. After a short video conference with a CBP officer, we were cleared to enter the US. Okay so this time I tried to report our arrival in the USVI from PR but I couldn’t find PR in the list of “last country visited” section so I had to select something else. I figured this would initiate a video call but instead we got a phone call from CBP telling us to report in person at a port (Cruz Bay) about 1 hour west (not good)!! Mark explained our dilemma with the app and this officer told us we didn’t have to clear into the USVIs because we were coming from a US country 😳. By the end of the call we were cleared in and didn’t have to report in person!!
Tonight we rest in Lameshur Bay and tomorrow we’re off to St. Martin!! We’ll be leaving here around noon and making the roughly 95nm passage in about 20 hours. It should be a good motor crossing with nice low wind and waves. We should be anchored and cleared in by about 10 am Jan. 2.
Happy New Year!
Little St. James Island (near Christmas Cove), St. Thomas.
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 