Category: Caribbean Cruising Season 1

There is no better time of year to visit Christmas Cove than now! We left Francis Bay on Dec. 11th and moved down to Cruz Bay (St. John) to do a bit of grocery shopping. We had a nice windy day so we sailed jib only for the less than 5 nm trip down the west side of the island. Shopping was quick and easy in Cruz Bay but definitely not cheap!! Good thing we didn’t need much at this point.

We arrived at our destination for the day – Christmas Cove, around 1pm. This cove is at Great Saint James Island and it’s known for having a calm anchorage, good snorkelling and the best sailboat pizza restaurant!! We definitely had to taste that pizza!! We picked up a free mooring ball and ordered our pizza. We were very close to the boat/restaurant so we could watch people come and go. Mark dinghied over to get our pizza and we had a very yummy (although somewhat expensive) dinner!!

Our original plan was to stay at Christmas Cove for another night but we decided to move on in the morning of Dec. 12. Our wind apps were showing a very windy day on Dec. 13 so better to move when it wasn’t too bad. We were on the move around 9:30 am and heading the whole 6nm to Magen’s Bay – on the north shore of St. Thomas. We had quite a bit of wind (from the east/south east) so we only used the jib. At one point we saw 25 knots of wind and some interesting large waves (which were hitting us on the side – a bit rough). We had a nice sail going when our chart plotter suddenly shut off!! The plotter is our guide – it is a map of the area and shows our course, speed and water depth (plus a few more items). It has shut off before but usually turns back on. This time no luck!! At first it would turn on and almost load the maps before shutting off and in the end, it wouldn’t even turn on!! The plotter is 15 years old so it doesn’t owe us anything but the timing of its demise left a lot to be desired!! It’s a good thing we have backup for everything on this boat – including the plotter. My iPad has an app called aquamaps and it works just like our plotter. So we switched to using my iPad for the chart. What my iPad doesn’t do is depth – but we have a secondary depth sounder with our wind meter so we were good!! We made it into our new destination with only a bit of stress (can’t see the wind direction when the wind meter is showing the depth). We ordered a new Garmin chart plotter which will be delivered to Puerto Rico. An early unplanned Christmas present – the joys of sailing! 😁

So here we are in Magen’s Bay – apparently one of the 10 best beaches in the world. It is a very lovely long bay with hills surrounding it. The beach is very long and by the number of folks on it today – it’s quite popular. We had a lovely swim this afternoon and relaxed in the cockpit. Our plan is to stay here until Sunday and then head to Culebra. Without our plotter we’re trying to minimize the number of anchorages we visit between now and going into the marina. So we’ll stay here, go to Culebra (where we’ve already been) and then go into the marina on Dec. 17th.

Our clear out from the BVIs on Dec. 8th went very smoothly. We were able to grab a “first come, first served” mooring ball in Great Harbour (Jost Van Dyke) and it took less than a hour for Mark to dinghy over to the customs and immigrations office, get cleared out, pay our $15, drop off some garbage and get back to the boat. As I mentioned in an earlier post, you can pick up a mooring ball for a few hours for free so we didn’t have to pay for the ball!! We were sailing the 5nm to Francis Bay, St. John (USVI) by around 12:30pm. The whole journey from Lee Bay to Francis Bay (with our stop in Great Harbour) was only 17nm and we sailed the whole way!! It was grand!

We arrived at Francis Bay mid afternoon and found this lovely national park area was quite busy with sailboats on mooring balls and people on the two beaches. Most of St. John Island is part of the US national parks and in an effort to preserve the seabed (coral etc), the park has installed many mooring balls to stop boats from anchoring. The balls are cheaper than the BVIs, only $26/night so we’ll be secured to a mooring ball as long as we’re here. We also had to check into the USA when we arrived. Using our new Starlink for wifi, I submitted our entrance request using the ROAM app. The normal process for entering the USA (as a foreign boat) is to submit a request through the app and ask for a cruising license. The request is processed and then you have an interview – video call usually, and then your request is approved. Well that’s the normal way when entering mainland USA – all bets are off when entering USVI or Puerto Rico. Back to our request – it seemed to take a bit of time to process (maybe 30 minutes or so) but in the end we were approved – no video call and no questions!! We also didn’t have to request a cruising license because USVI and PR accept the boating decal. If you’re confused so are we all! It’s never an easy process and you never know how it’s going to go.

Today, Dec. 9th, we ran the water maker in the morning and Mark did 1 boat job. He installed a 12v usb charging station in our cockpit cubby so we can charge our communications headsets. In the afternoon we dinghied to the beach, had a nice walk and did a bit of snorkelling. It’s very quiet here today – many boats left and the beaches were not as busy, probably because we had quite the rain storm overnight and most of the morning. 

We’ll be exploring this side of the island (north and west) for a few days. There are some walking trails close by and a few ruins that are supposed to be interesting. We’ll check those out and also just relax in this lovely, calm anchorage!

The search can stop!!! We’ve found the perfect anchorage in the BVIs!! I hesitate to give you this information but I trust none of you will share this with cruisers headed this way 😉😁. We’re currently anchored in Lee Bay, Great Camanoe Island and it’s the absolute perfect spot for us! When we arrived here on Dec. 4th, we were the second boat here and then that boat left. Within an hour or so 2 boats had joined us. One of those boats we had met just the day before at the Baths.

Our first trip to the Baths on Dec. 3rd was done by dinghy. We thought we could go to a beach, leave the dinghy and check things out. As we approached, we discovered things were a bit more complicated so we went in search of some help. There was a couple sitting in their cockpit close to the Baths (on a mooring ball). Their boat looked like a Whitby (ketch) so we stopped for information. Turned out the boat (named Passage) was an Allied Princess 39 (ft) 1970s vintage and the couple, Marina and Hayden, were from Maui, Hawaii. Marina (the captain) was born in the BVIs but travelled all around the world first with her parents and then with her first husband. We had a nice little chat with them before returning to Crimson Kathyrn and moving the boat closer to the Baths. Fast forward to our perfect anchorage where Passage joined us. Mark and I had a great swim in the afternoon and Mark went snorkelling with Hayden. We invited Marina and Hayden over for happy hour and had a great visit (until 8 pm) with them. In the morning (Dec. 5th) we waved goodbye to Passage.

We have had a few days to enjoy this mostly secluded anchorage. There is no roll and because the land is low in front of us, we have a constant breeze keeping us very stable! Each day boats leave and new ones join. Friday night was definitely the craziest with 8 boats anchored here and 2 of them (chartered catamarans) rafted up together and had a party. Fortunately they didn’t keep the noise up for long and they were pretty far from us!! We’ve swam and snorkelled and today we went for a dinghy ride (plus more snorkelling).

It’s been so nice here that we’ve even managed to get a few boat jobs done!! The individual chairs in our main cabin were in need of new cushions so Mark and I took them apart and put the new foam in (for both chairs). Today we replaced the hatch we had installed in our cockpit last season. The not even one year old cockpit hatch broke at the end of last season so hopefully this new one will last longer. It’s slightly larger so some skill saw work was required to cut the hole larger. It was a bit of a messy job but only took a few hours!

In the morning (Dec. 8th) we’ll pull up anchor and make our way over to Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke. Mark will go back to Customs and Immigration to clear out of the BVIs. After that we’ll make the 5 nm jump to St. John Island, USVI and clear in with the ROAM app. Slowly making our way back to Puerto Rico.

“The Baths in Virgin Gorda are a famous natural attraction in the British Virgin Islands, known for their massive granite boulders that form a maze of grottoes, tunnels, and sea pools.” Thanks Google AI for this great description!

Okay so I had partly written this post in my head last night but after the most amazing downwind sail this morning (Dec. 4th), I have to adjust my tone (a bit). We’ve now been in the BVIs for 2.5 weeks and have seen beautiful scenery. Unfortunately the overcrowded anchorages full of mooring balls (that aren’t cheap) plus the on and off rain has kind of soured the place. And let’s not forget the crankorages we’ve had to endure!! I came up with this new sailing term to describe anchorages that are rolly and uncomfortable – they make you cranky!!

But yesterday we spent the morning exploring the baths on Virgin Gorda. What an experience!! First we moved CK from the anchorage near Spanish Town closer to the south end of Virgin Gorda near the Baths. This is the first time we’ve ever had to swim to reach our destination. We took the dinghy  to the designated tie up area (basically a rope line marking the end of the swimming area. From that point, we swam to shore – for me it was a one armed swim because I had to keep my phone out of the water (it does have a waterproof case but who wants to take a chance!). From the beach we took a really nicely maintained trail up to the top of the Baths and then back down to get to a second beach. The trail then led to the caves – this was the spectacular part!!! The Baths is made up of 3 beaches and these large boulders that make some super impressive caves. The path through the boulders was fun – over and under rocks plus walking through water pools! We climbed up and down steps and used a rope line to descend a little bit steep rock slope. The whole Baths walk took us about an hour (and cost $6) and it was worth every penny! Certainly redeemed the BVIs for both of us!

Today’s morning sail was awesome. We left Virgin Gorda around 9am and quickly put up all 3 sails. The wind was on our aft starboard quarter (behind us near the stern on the right side) and we had a nice smooth ride. We managed to sail the 6nm to our new anchorage in Lee Bay off of Great Camanoe Island. So far we’ve found a good spot – no roll and only 1 other sailboat (definitely not a crankorage). We’ll probably stay here for a day or so. We’re now on our way back to Puerto Rico with some stops in the USVIs. We have until Dec. 17th to get back to the marina (Puerto Del Rey) – lots of time!!

(PS – I have so many amazing photos of the Baths that I will do a second post with just those photos!!)

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!!