Arrived in Red Hook on Monday morning about 10, having motored straight across from St John.  Got onto the fuel dock at the American Yacht Harbor and went to check out where the slip was that we had been allocated.  

Hey, guess what, a boat is in it!   So off I tronk to the marina office and wait patiently for the young lady to finish her telephone conversation and her VHF radio call (and the chat with the guy in the back office).   I must be getting onto island time now though as it didn’t irritate me particularly – I just waited, smiled and watched CNN news on the monitor until she was ready to deal with me. 

After a little while we finally get it sorted that I want to stay for two nights….want a slip with a finger pontoon (some of them are just between pilings) and I don’t need power or water.   This took some time to organise and then she realised that we were taking up valuable space on the fuel dock while we were sorting it out….   So quickly it was all resolved and we were legal.   I was shocked, however, to find that ‘check in time’ at the marina is 2pm and that I would have to pay an additional night as I was going onto a dock at 11.00 am – my horrified look must have been enough – cos she softened and waived that bit!

We are on the fishing boat dock – think large luxury motorboats that you pay to take you out Marlin fishing – so pretty interesting watching the comings and goings.   The entry onto our dock also has a stuffed record-breaking Marlin on top of it.

Pulled into the dock and Richard and I went separate ways….me to do pink jobs – think piles of laundry – and him to do blue jobs while waiting for the guys to turn up on board to resolve our electronics issues.   Long story short but we ended up having to replace the windex sender unit (for receiving wind information from the top of the mast) and upgrade the VHF radio to resolve compatibility issues with the RAM mic in the cockpit. We’re convinced there is a BVI-triangle for electronics – everything seems to go crazy and act weird when we go there!  We also returned the outboard we had borrowed to Island Yachts.

While all this was going on, I carried on ticking off other jobs – going to the bank to get some cash and doing a bit of food shopping….   When I got back and the others had left, I hoisted Richard up the mast to put up some lines for courtesy flags and to check out his new climbing harness while in the safety of the marina.   Phew that was a workout for my right arm!   Hope I don’t have to do it too often….and we could both do with losing some weight…

That said – in the evening, we headed to Molly Molones (an Irish restaurant / bar on the dock) for a bit of dinner and a catch up with Sharme the top top bartender….   Although I at least had the relatively healthy stirfry while Richard had fish and chips….   It was funny to see Santa had turned up alongside Irish families / pirates and American memorabilia.   All looks a bit odd and definitely not making us feel like it’s Christmas yet. 

Not a late one – the heat and humidity on the dock had got to us both, and we turned in around 9pm.

Up early this morning for more shopping…..more crates / more domestic supplies and more items from the chandlery.  Every day we make lists and thankfully it looks like we are almost there…..and down below is less chaotic and more organised.   There is a huge amount of storage on Morpheus – but knowing what should be put where is going to be an evolving science I think.

This afternoon we took the ‘dollar’ bus downtown.   This is a hop on / hop off service for two bucks for any distance…. pretty good value although the experience can be likened to being on the tube in London on a hot day at times.  We planned to have a look around the posh shops near the cruise terminal – think Gucci etc – and we were amazed to see five cruise ships in Charlotte Amalie completely dwarfing the anchorage.   Even the marina was stocked full of very large megayachts of both the sailing and motorboat variety.    And, in the midst of all this, was the overcrowded dinghy dock from all the people who have come ashore from their boats in the anchorage.

Downtime was mad……people everywhere, including one very very large woman who tried to fall over me whilst protecting her rum drink in her hand.  I think she may have over-indulged!   We have never seen so many people – and so many ‘ushers’ around.    If one more person asked me which ship I was returning to; trying to heard me onto a bus back to the terminal; or usher me into a very expensive (albeit duty-free) jewellery shop then I was going to lose the plot!   What was that about I said about becoming more tolerant of island time?  I know many of our friends love the cruise ship experience – but even they would have been shocked at the chaos today.  It seriously could not have been a great experience for a lot of the people on board these huge ships this afternoon.

Didn’t buy anything – which our bank account was thankful for – and we’re now back in Red Hook on board.  Enjoyed a spectacular sky as the sun went down.  We’re both very tired and we’re chilling out – neither of us are hungry or fancy going out….so might just stay on board and have a quiet night in.

Bye for now

Jan

Quite a few people have been asking us what we have done to get the boat ready for our new cruising lifestyle.  So, in a nutshell, here is the list of the work that was organised by Island Yachts on our behalf.

A Kato arch with dinghy davits and outboard engine lift added to the stern – although dragging the dinghy around behind you like a dog on a lead is fine in the Virgin Islands, this isn’t the way to go when doing longer passages. Also this adds security as we can lift the dinghy out of the water at night.

The installation of the arch meant that our old bimini needed to be replaced, so we’ve taken the opportunity to install some sun screens at the same time.

On the arch we now have three 85 watt Kyocera solar panels and an Airbreeze wind generator – these help us to keep our batteries topped up without running the engine too often. We now have five house batteries as our electrical demand has increased – so we can also keep our fridge and freezer operational for 24 hours a day.

Kato also made us a bespoke stainless steel holder for the 6lb propane tank (thanks to Captain Blaine Parks for the idea) which feeds the new Magma gas BBQ to go on the rail.

We’ve had a Spectra watermaker fitted beneath the port side saloon berth which is capable of making eight gallons per hour which is plenty for us as we are quite frugal with water. We also have a Seagull filtration system (which is a standard fit on the Island Packet) which takes further impurities out of the tank water and means that we no longer have to buy bottled drinking water.

With regard to electronics, we had a problem with our two Garmin chartplotters and these were sent back to the factory. They kindly sent us two brand new units for the cost of the service! Very happy with this. We’ve also added AIS (which stands for Automatic Identification System) so that we can transmit and receive signals from other vessels who have AIS. This gives us their name, their MMSI number, their course / speed and will also sound an alarm if we are on a collision course. The MMSI number allows us to call them direct via the VHF radio if we need to.

We have also added radar which is overlaid onto the chartplotters – predominantly this is going to be used for spotting bad weather at night.

We have two GPS antennas which enables us to switch between units should one fail – no point having integrated navigational kit if the antenna fails, so this gives us some redundancy.

We have moved all the circuit breakers associated with the navigation equipment and the two radios (SSB and VHF) off of the main panel (in the saloon) and onto their own panel at the nav station. We have also had a new integrated panel installed at the nav station to take care of the wind generator, the house battery meters, and the main chartplotter – the one at the binnacle is a repeater. We now have a RAM mic at the binnacle so that we don’t need to go to the nav station to use the VHF radio. We’ve had some additional 12 volt sockets installed at the binnacle, in the saloon and the forward berth.

Our original sails were manufactured by Doyle and they claim to last for five years in the Caribbean climate – however this was not the case for us. They barely made four years. Island Packet were very good and got us a new set of Quantum sails at cost price less 40% from the South African loft which we are very pleased about.

Creature comforts – Richard has converted a 230 volt light to run off a 12 volt LED lamp which looks really smart in the cockpit. We have a combined TV / DVD player as we can’t spend every night in the bar – and we have 400 films on a hard drive ready to go (thanks Clive). We’ve also put up our beautiful new clock and barometer which were gifts from our sailing chums.

Other stuff – we have obviously got essential safety kit on board like an EPIRB, hand-held VHF, a new set of flares and are waiting on a liferaft to turn up. There are loads of other little modifications that we will do as we are running down island and we’ll blog about them as and when we do them…..

Bye for now

Jan

Did the immigration stuff in Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke, so we’re cleared to leave Sunday morning  …. and headed off (slowly!) by dinghy to the Soggy Dollar, as we’re running the new engine in.  Coming round the point we were met by the view of two cruise ships – one Club Med with masts and the other a Seabourne (I think).    But although the beach was busy the bars were not…..most of the cruise ship passengers tend to stick to eating / drinking the ship’s supplies (which are brought ashore with them) rather than frequenting the local hostelries.   Had a great time as always…including bobbing with beer.   While we were cooling off in the sea – an American lady dived into the water in front of us and came up with one of her nipples exposed.  Richard said he felt cheated could she show him the other one – and to my amazement, she did!   That made his day…..   

Also bumped into Tony and Mel from Utopia – haven’t seen them since March 2011, so great to catch up and looks like we’ll be seeing them around this trip…..  They are also going to let us have some hints and tips on where to go / where not to bother for the down island trip, as they did this themselves last year.  Richard is just keen to know how they manage to catch those huge tuna off the back!  Headed off back round the corner to Great Harbour to get ready for dinner. 

I know that this is the second visit in two weeks to Corsairs – but they really do have great food and just so happen to be convenient for the immigration office!    Had a fun time with Vinny, Ghee and Roger – although I think Richard should probably have called it a day rather than doing cinnamon whisky shots with Vinny…   Some other tourists came in hunting Absinthe…and guess what, Vinny has three types.  

And so to bed – another great day and another party – must have a day of rest tomorrow!

Got up early this morning, did boat jobs, and then headed off to St John to clear into the US Virgins.   Light airs so we had a slow meander across passing Carvel Rock and to the lush scenery of St John.   Through customs / immigration relatively easily even though there was a ferry load of people in line ahead of us.  

Coming away from the dock, we were hailed across the channel to a small bay by a crowd of locals who were racing model speedboats around.   Two of the boats had come to a halt and their dinghy was deflated – so we did our international rescue bit yet again.   Giving them back we tried to claim salvage rights and the group, luckily, all took it in good humour…..

Back on board and down to Mahoe Bay for the night – as it is quiet here and gives us a great jumping off point for getting into Red Hook (St Thomas) tomorrow morning.  We need to go in to return the outboard we borrowed and to get some electronic issues sorted out from the refit of Morpheus.   Hope to be there for a couple of days only then back to the BVIs for Christmas / New Year.   Still waiting on the liferaft and the final new sail (the staysail) … so looks like mid January is becoming a reality.  Oh well, worse places to be – we could be commuting to London in the snow!   (Sorry peeps….)

Oh yes, people have been asking us what we’ve had done to Morpheus to get her ready to go cruising – so watch this space for a separate blog to follow.  Non-sailors may look away now….

Bye for now

Jan

At last the wind died down properly overnight so on Friday morning we headed into Nanny Cay to pick up our outboard and other stuff that we had ordered. Arrived into the marina safely and tied up alongside a huge motor superyacht which threatened a puppy dog crew mutiny as they gazed into air-conditioned luxury!

After doing all our jobs we left the marina with our sparkling new 9.8 hp Tohatsu outboard engine which is kind of akin to a Skoda, so hopefully the guys down island will not try to liberate it from us. We didn’t get charged by the marina – even though we had been on a slip for four hours – as we had spent so much in the chandlery, result! 

We got the sails out and headed around the point to Cane Garden Bay seeing some great  boats along the way……

This is a favourite spot on a Friday night as we can catch happy hour at Myetts, followed by BBQ night at The Elm, with live music from the Elmtones. Well, it was three of them anyway (Steve, Piers and Mark)…still did a great set …and we had a lovely time as always, including hanging out with Magic Daddy. I’ll buy a Carib to anyone who knows what he sells!

We also bumped into Captain Jim and his guests on Blue Moon – these guys have been to hell and back this week, when one of their group drowned off Norman Island….he was only about 30 years old. So very sad and our sympathies and prayers go with them at this difficult time.

After a good night we headed off to Quitos to see Piers play again in the Quito and the Edge band … but it was soooo loud we left early. Are we getting old? My personal view is that we had had enough already and it was time for bed!

Up early this morning – this cruising life (although we are really on holiday right now!) makes you wake up with the sun as the light streams through the hatches – and to recover from last night’s excesses we ended up having breakfast in the Sailor’s Rest above Cane Garden Bay to spectacular views.

Onwards – and it’s Saturday – so back into Jost and another afternoon at the Soggy Dollar is planned – after a visit to Customs / Immigration to check out of the BVIs for our trip back to the US tomorrow.

Bye for now

Jan

Had a nice afternoon in Oceans 7 yesterday with other sailors escaping from the weather…. The wind howled all night again and the rain came down in stair rods…. This morning no change – the forecast remains poor- so, you know what, we’re staying put!

Finally….there was some improvement…and we had a lovely rainbow before the heavens opened again. We did some boat jobs: ran the watermaker for a couple of hours and it works great, cleaned the waterline of weed and some other general domestic duties. At last, the sun starts to break through, so we got ourselves ready and headed off to the Peter Island Resort. This is for the rich and famous but apparently they let yachties in to selected areas.

Went for a 10 minute hike and finally found the resort marina, the wedding cabana (which may be where Rio Ferdinand got married), and came across our first proper Christmas tree in the resort reception. Headed off to the beach and found the bar and had to stop for the obligatory local beer, Carib, only this time it was served in chilled glasses! Had a lovely relaxing afternoon.

Heading back to the dinghy we meet Conrad who is a resident between Sprat Bay and Great Harbour and we had a little chat with him and he told us the story of how he came to live here. He is almost blind and now makes a living from selling shells and postcards featuring himself to tourists who walk this trail. Of course we purchased a postcard and he did a great buy one get one free offer! He is a very sweet man.

Back on board now for a quiet evening. 

Bye for now

Jan

Left Jost Van Dyke to go over to the Bight, Norman Island on Monday morning. The plan at this stage was to head into Nanny Cay on Tortola on Tuesday to collect our outboard. But the weather forecast remains confused – with different models / sources giving very different messages. So heading out we are running down on headsail alone – and yes, the seas were getting up, about 6ft and running fast…with gusts of wind increasingly strong. Had a blast getting up to 8knts of boat speed…. Looks like a stormy night ahead whatever they say!

Rounding Steele Point on the West End of Tortola we spot this Beneteau Clipper doing weird manoeuvres in the channel – not a place for that type of thing with loads of ferries and commercial traffic coming through this smallish gap between islands. We go over to see if we can assist and it turns out the poor guy has no forward propulsion at all….although his engine goes well backwards. We hang around to see if we can assist but he manages to get into position to reverse all the way into Sopers Hole and presumably some assistance in the marina.

So we take our leave and head off towards Norman – seas and wind continue building – so this time, as we are going into the wind, we sail under reefed mainsail and staysail alone….a great combination which kept us relatively flat and comfortable and we made the Bight on one tack. We picked up a mooring ball close to the hill to get as much protection as possible and headed into Pirates as it had been remodelled since our last visit….. Very nicely done – but I think the white covers on the chairs may be a mistake. Can’t see them surviving many seasons with people sitting around in wet shorts etc… And no stage / area for dancing now – so I guess live music won’t be returning here….

New lunch menu too – much to Richard’s horror – as he had been salivating about their crab cakes all the way over, and had only had a yoghurt for breakfast in anticipation! We then recognised a couple we had seen sitting on their Island Packet as we entered into the bay…and it turns out they are the owners of Hometown Girl, a brand new entry into the Island Yachts fleet. What a small world!   We had a great afternoon with them and eventually took ourselves off to the Willie T for a few drinks.

Due to the weather conditions, the bar was really quiet – no naked dancing or jumping off – and we had a nice few hours speaking to a gang from Cornwall and some cruisers who had just come up island, so we gleaned lots of useful information for when we finally get going.  Back on board about 8pm for dinner and to bed.

Anyway….the weather forecasters finally got it right and agreed….and the wind howled, it rained hard on and off, and Morphie danced around all night…. The forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday was grim – with small craft advisories in place across the region with 25 knts winds constant and significantly higher gusts. Not something that bothers us, although when this happens with serious rain / white-outs / and large seas then it stops being fun. We don’t have to be anywhere.. so we stay put.  Another afternoon in the bar with the crew from Hometown Girl – and the rain came and stayed so that put paid to my ideas of swimming this afternoon.

Quiet night on board trying to stay dry….

This morning we decided to leave Norman and run down to Great Harbour in Peter Island so this gives us a better jump off to get to Nanny Cay tomorrow to pick up our new outboard. We arrived safe and sound – seas still rough out there – and the sun has finally come out so we’re off to make the most of it.

Oh yes, Richard Branson is having an End of the World party tonight in the BVIs being 12 / 12 / 12 – hopefully he’s got it wrong so you’ll be hearing from us soon!

Bye for now

Jan

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