Headed back up the coast of St John to Cruz Bay to formally check out of the USVIs….  Didn’t used to have to do this when travelling on an ESTA but we do now that we have visas.   Process was simple and painless and we wandered around Cruz Bay for a little while – loving the Church no parking sign – before returning to Morpheus and headed over to Jost Van Dyke to enter the BVIs.   All done – all legal – drop one courtesy flag and raise another.  

Before we were going to head off to the Soggy Dollar Bar we decided to try and solve our IT problems – our new router will not create a boat hotspot as it is supposed to, the set up page refuses to open to change settings…..so spent a few hours in Foxy’s having a couple of beers while we took advantage of their wifi and power.   Grrrr….still won’t work…. even though I’ve done every fix that’s been recommended by the manufacturer – so it’s back in its box for another day. 

Too late for the Soggy Dollar now, so we carried on doing more boat jobs and then we headed to Corsairs for dinner and had a great evening – met some happy Pirates;  hanging out with some new friends  Audrey and Craig from Houston; and met the Movember boys from Tennessee who had decided to keep their whiskers for their holiday.    Had a great time – as always – fantastic food and great company with Vinny, Ghee and Roger…   Back to the boat late and heavily laden with Sauvignon Blanc – and another day is over.  

This morning we listened to the Caribbean Safety and Security Net for the first time on the SSB – huge interference from our refrigeration units and wind generator – so had to turn everything off to get good reception.  But at least it’s working properly now that the grounding problem has been resolved.   This morning having listened to the weather forecast, it seems that the bad weather threatened is now just usual Christmas winds – so we’ve decided to stay put, do more boat jobs, and head off to the Soggy Dollar later.

We did go – even though it carried on raining – and had a great afternoon socialising with Mick, Shaneek and Winsome.   Always a great welcome from these guys … and did manage to go bobbing (with beer) for the first time on this trip!   

Back to the boat before the sun sets – we don’t like to come round the point from White Bay to Great Harbour in the dark in the dink…especially in the confused seas we have right now.    Quiet night on board and so to bed.

Bye for now

Jan

Decided to stay here in Mahoe Bay, St John, USVI today and get on with some boat jobs.   Got quite a few done – including putting up our brand new barometer and clock – which look fantastic on the bulkhead in our saloon.   We also have ‘peek-a-boo’ blinds everywhere now for added privacy – they are fitted inside the ports and slide across to block out prying eyes, looking a little like vertical office blinds when open. 

After boat jobs we went ashore to have a look at the campground in the bay – think lots of trees, wooden hut type arrangements with outside viewing platforms nestling up the hill and loads of steps.  Had a walk up to the top of the hill to the camp’s restaurant – 219 steps, phew! – and took a few photos of the anchorage.

Nice views and all that – but really buggy here – so we retreated to the water and bobbed around for a while (this was beer-less bobbing!)…and then came back to the boat.    Was thinking of going back for dinner – but didn’t fancy the climb again even though was tempted by prime rib night.

People seem to really enjoy this back-to-nature stuff but I think the bugs would get me down personally… maybe that is why so many of them went off to do a sunset cruise on board Heron.

Quiet night in tonight – we are constrained by our need to return to Red Hook to drop off their outboard once we’ve collected ours from Tortola this coming week – on top of some bad weather forecast.   So not sure yet of our plans but tomorrow is a dead cert – check out of the USVIs and check into the BVIs in Jost Van Dyke for a Soggy Dollar afternoon and a Corsairs evening.  Well, it is the weekend….

Bye for now

Jan

We managed to get a hire car – only took a few hours of waiting around cos everyone is on Island Time…. and did all our provisioning (food and boat supplies) and managed to tick a few items of our boat stuff that we needed to buy or pick up as we’d already ordered it.   So we’re now proud owners of a gas BBQ for the rail and loads of storage crates along with some linen / towels etc not to mention bits and pieces of tools.   I’m constantly surprised by how expensive stuff is here….but it has to be imported I guess…and it is Christmas soon, so not really here at the best time for all this! 

But some really important stuff has been delayed coming down from the US – like our liferaft, another anchor, some rode – and one of our new sails was made wrong.  This was done by a Quantum loft in South Africa – so they are making a new one – and we are just hoping for an early delivery…   But we have been really impressed by the quality of the work done on Morpheus by Chuck (Sailmark Designs) and Neal (Tropicom)…   For those of you with any interest, I’ll post some pictures of these things at a later date.

So looks like we’ll be hanging around the BVIs and the USVIs until mid January at this rate – but hey ho, worse places to be!   We were also planning to run down to the Spanish Virgins – but there are 35 knot winds and big seas forecast for the next few days so that doesn’t look like a goer at the minute.  

Anyway, finally, we got off the dock today and ran down to Mahoe Bay, St John, in the US Virgin Islands. We’ve done our appeasement of Neptune as is customary when you rename a boat – although, technically, Morpheus remains Morpheus just had her hailing port added so becomes a very regal Morpheus of London.   We poured some champagne into the sea for Neptune and asked him to take care of Morpheus and ourselves, then poured some over the bow of Morpheus for good luck and then we toasted every god we could think of just to make sure!

We are really enjoying not being in the marina…although this means I have to cook tonight….  Really looking forward to our first sleep at anchor.

Bye for now

Jan

PS – love the new cushion – thanks Heather.

After a good night’s sleep we got up early, had a hearty breakfast, so now we’re ready for the Mall…. The hotel has a shuttle bus but we were so busy chatting in the lobby we missed the announcement!

Oh well, better get a cab then.  Which was our original plan anyway.  Arrived and were surprised by the ‘disneyfied’ main entrance – not sure what we were expecting, but that wasn’t it.  After much wandering we found what we were looking for – including another trolley bag as we were going to have to check another (making six in total!)…

Back to the hotel for a leisurely afternoon and evening – glad we remembered about the US portion size and shared one dinner between two.   Another good night’s sleep and the stress levels have reduced to normal.   This time we thought we’d have a look at the mall attached to the hotel – and found it was aimed at the Latin American market.  Everything was bling bling and some of the women’s clothing was verging on bondage attire – we did take photos but our camera seems to have it’s own censorship so we’ll have to leave this to your imagination (sorry guys)!

So now to the next stage of our trip – onto St Thomas.   At Miami fantastic service from a sky cap who dealt with our luggage and I was optimistic that this time it would all go smoothly.  Well it did for a while – then we were put in the wrong line (again…) and the business lounge experience was woeful – think dentist waiting room with vouchers for two drinks each and you’ll get the picture.  We decamped to the nearest bar and got chatting to some really nice people from Trinidad, who gave us their business cards and told us to look them up when we get there.    Hopefully not in an official capacity as one of them was an orthopaedic surgeon!

Time to board – business class this time as there is no first class on these flights – so we turned left again.   Oh dear…plastic glasses with champagne…and the normal AA chicken or pasta meal offering, although at least we got china plates and metal cutlery.  

Arrived safely in St Thomas and got to American Yacht Harbor around midnight.   Fun and games getting all the luggage down the pontoon and there was Morpheus of London proudly waiting for us.  Been sorting out boat stuff since we arrived, but here are some photos of our surroundings for you to enjoy:

Got to commission some systems on the boat for the next couple of days which is a bit mundane so we will be off line for a little while.

Bye for now

Jan