We have enjoyed our first week of guests from home. Roger has known Jerry and Louise since the early 80’s and Lene has known them since shortly after she met Roger in 1997. Jerry is one of two friends who encouraged Roger to join the Harlem Yacht Club, a decision he has never regretted. Jerry and Louise operate a commercial real estate brokerage business and keep their Beneteau 43' in New Rochelle, NY.
We ran with the wind behind us from Spanishtown, Virgin Gorda to Roadtown, Tortola to meet them. We actually furled the genoa and motored the last hour with the wind strongly behind us. Conch Charters, which permits visiting yachts to use their moorings for the price of a donation to VISAR, the Virgin Islands Search And Rescue organization, continues to maintain that policy. But they had no available moorings so we anchored nearby, conducted a massive cleaning of the boat, shopped at the big newish supermarket to the right at the back of the Moorings charter fleet base to provision and then Roger dinked to the ferry to await the guests arrival.
Being sailors, they packed light, four small bags, all of which roll up, but after they cleared customs, the climb down into the dink from this high dock was too much except for a very tall person. So Roger brought the bags to the boat in the dink and the guests walked counterclockwise along the bay to Conch’s base where Roger met them and brought them aboard and they got settled in, selecting the two settees in the salon as their berths. The best restaurant in town is The Dove, across the street from the ferry dock, where we had made reservations. We enjoyed an excellent, beautifully served French style meal.
We spent the next night in Great Bay, Jost Van Dyke, after mostly a run in moderate wind with small sails, punctuated by a five minute torrential rainfall; but it dries so quickly as long as the hatches and ports are closed. Great Bay used to be an anchorage but it is too deep to permit enough boats to anchor so they put in moorings.
It is home to Foxy’s world famous restaurant, bar, and souvenir shop. Our dinner was served by Roxanne (Roxy of Foxy’s). Foxy who is an excellent entertainer, was not present except by his wax figure in the bandstand, and a rock band entertained.
Our next port of call was two nights at the luxurious and very expensive Peter Island Resort (considered one of the top 10 resorts in the world) – on Lene’s birthday. We had a fun reach back from Jost Van Dyke to Sopers Hole, Louise at the helm all the way, and then had our only beat of the week, up the Drake Channel to Peter Island. We stopped the fun and turned on the motor about five miles from our destination because we wanted to arrive sooner to enjoy the facilities.
Roger had shown the brochure of this resort to Ilene after a prior charter visit to this resort with the men of the Harlem. The resort had actually been a selling point in persuading Lene to accompany Roger on this Adventure. Rooms cost close to $1000 per night but dock rental, for boats of under 100 feet, costs only $125. (Electricity would have cost an additional $75 per night and water a dollar a gallon, but we did not need those.) We had the use of the pool with its great view of Tortolla across the Strait,
the clubroom, the shower house, the beach in Deadman's Bay and its chairs,
the hikes up into the hills, and the restaurants, all at ala carte pricing. Lene had planned to enjoy the Spa as well, but was turned off by the $120 price tag for a pedicure, and later had an excellent one in Charlotte Amelie for $30. And Roger found an alternative birthday present for her at Charlotte Amelie.
The place is very casual-elegant.
It was enjoying only about 1/3 of full occupancy and would have lowered its prices except that some of its regular patrons threatened to not return if it lost the exclusivity that it’s pricing creates. We met Jim and his daughter Isabelle at the pool. Mom was having beauty treatments and will soon be mom to Isabelle’s brother. Jim has a golden eye for upscale casual men’s fashions and, he said, is well paid to advise consortia of buyers what items will sell next season. He is from Michigan where the parent company of the hotel is headquartered.
“Ilene, our next door neighbor came up with her husband and met me on the pier to say, ‘I hope you like cats. My cats have jumped aboard your boat and are exploring.‘ ‘I do love cats and they can’t get into the boat as we left the hatch doors secured.’ When we returned later to our yacht, her cats had made themselves at home. The male was a rusty red color with white paws and allowed himself to be petted, rubbing against my legs. The other, a female calico, was very skittish and jumped off to the safety of the pier .
“We visited with our neighbors and found they have been sailing a 43’ boat from Grenada. He was a retired New York attorney, tall, handsome and slim. She has beautiful copper colored hair and they both exuded a warm happy loving glow and indeed this is the second marriage for both of around ten years. They had a nice couple from New Jersey aboard. I showed them pictures of my daughter Tracie’s red tabby kitten and Ilene said ‘She is even more beautiful than my dear kitty.’”
Kay and Robert are older than us (We both agree that Kay is a beauty.) and could be role models for us—a sailing couple who are aging with extreme grace. I encouraged Kay to share her “stories” with the world by blogging them, and introduced her to our blog which she said she enjoyed. I hope she enjoys my portrayal of them.
Unfortunately the battery failed in the camera so big vista photos from our mountain walk are not available. You have to either trust us or go to Peter Island yourself. One highlight of our stay was the dinner buffet, very expensive but a whole lot and variety of very high quality food. Jerry, Louise and Roger like rum and coke and did their lubricating before our dinners. Roger pigged out quite a bit while Lene, ate moderately. The other of our two nights at the resort we grilled steaks aboard.
Next we beam reached across the Channel back to Roadtown to check out of BVIs Customs, and while anchored there, bought more groceries and dinghy engine fuel. Actually the dinghy engine shut itself down while we were heading for shore but we were able to trace the problem back through the fuel line, expel the particle that had blocked the fuel and she started right up again. Then we were off again, on a broad reach from Roadtown for Coral Harbor in Coral Bay, at the east end of St. John, USVI. There, we knew from last year that Skinnylegs restaurant/bar had lots of TVs and we watched the exciting Superbowl. A lot of Patriots fans compelled us to roar back when the Giants did good things. And I’m sure our niece in Atlanta loved the half time show, being such a Madonna fan. The only difficulty for Roger was the hardness of the wooden bunches for the four hour show, not enough posterior padding.
Next day we circled more than half of St. John, clockwise, for a stop in Cruz Bay, the capital to check in to USVI Customs, before motoring east on the Island’s north coast to Hawksnest Bay for snorkeling and a delicious pasta bolognese aboard before a rolly night’s sleep, with the mooring ball bouncing against the hull. They do three things differently in the USVI at Customs: 1. All crew must be present for visual observation of each member of the crew against his or her passport photo; 2. No need to return to Customs to clear out; 3. A new law that requires all boats that have stopped in any foreign port to specially bag all garbage, take it to special centers and pay to have it specially incinerated. I’m afraid that this law may obtain less observance than prohibition did, but the captain has to sign a form acknowledging that he or she has been informed of this law and promising to obey.
Maho Bay was our final night’s mooring with Jerry and Louise, a most picturesquely beautiful spot on our second consecutive US Park Service mooring (pay by the honor system, $7.50 per night for seniors, by putting the money in an envelope and sticking it into a lockbox posted on a raft).
A look north to the cut between St John and Whistling Cay.
Here is a beautiful, very traditional Southern Cross 31' with tanbark sails, being single handed out of the bay.
A look north to the cut between St John and Whistling Cay.
There is a great “camp” for adults, located on the hill behind Maho Bay, entered from the beach by climbing about 160 wooden steps. No dock so you haul your dink on the beach. The camp consists of many small platforms, each with two solid walls, two screened walls, a canvas roof, a propane camp stove, electric lighting, a community washroom/toilet and a big cafeteria at the top. This was a hippie hang out back in 1970 and is now mostly patronized by aging hippies at $140 per night for a cabin. They call it eco-tourism. We had thought to dine at the cafeteria, but in the end, decided to dine aboard on marinated chicken, cabbage braised with raisins, garlic and onion, cinnamon flavored pumpkin, bread and cookies and coffee for desert. Louise said that the best part of the trip was not the shore excursions but living together aboard and swimming. Sunset at Maho.
On our last day we ran along the north coast of St. John, crossed over to St. Thomas, transited the rather narrow passage between Great St. James Island and Current Rock and continued into Charlotte Amalie Harbor. Roger took his Law School Admissions Test aboard the USS Hammerberg DE 1015 while anchored here in 1966 and has visited since on a cruiseship, during BVI charters and for a Bar Association meeting. But it gave him a thrill to sail his own boat into a “new “ harbor, all the more so because we beat out a 48 foot boat using only genoa compared with our using only main. Here we anchored in 35 feet of water on 120 feet of chain and took our guests ashore for a farewell luncheon before seeing them off in a cab to the airport and then reprovisioning and cleaning the boat.
A great week -- we got to know and like our friends a lot better – there is not that much privacy available on a small boat. And Roger got a chance to practice his amateur, unlicensed Charter Captain skills, though it was not a harsh test – with friends.
Posted from Charlotte Amelie, St. Thomas.
As usual, really nice photos!
ReplyDelete