Sailing to the Sale

We had a terrific 8 - 9 knot sail over to St. Croix and found our friends on Magic and Offline anchored in the harbor at Christiansted upon our arrival. We wasted no time in planning an on shore rendezvous as it was Super Bowl Sunday. We met that night at a local pub, which had big screen TVs, and cold beer and we had a fun night reconnecting and watching the game.

St.Croix was what we had been told: very laid back and friendly to us. As one of the American Virgin Islands, it has had a bad reputation for some time since an unfortunate confrontation about 20 years ago between some locals and some cruise ship people. Evidently, the cruise ship people were rather belligerent and the locals didn’t want any part of it, so there was some serious fighting including someone getting shot. Since this time, St. Croix was unfortunately labeled as “unsafe”. We, however, found the exact opposite to be true. Most everyone we encountered went out of his or her way to make us feel welcome. A good example of this was the night four of us ventured across the island to the other major city on the island, Fredricksted, to see a local parade.

We hopped a local $2.50 bus and arrived in good time to see the late afternoon parade and were told the busses would run late into the night for our return trip so we decided to have a sundowner at a neat bar which overlooked the main harbor and provided a spectacular view of the bay. Finishing up our drinks and appetizers around 6, we returned to the bus stop a few blocks away to catch the return bus. It happened to be across the street from another local pub, which was frequented by the real local trade and although not frightening, looked a bit on the shady side. Jake had been to this place on an earlier trip and pronounced it safe so we wandered in and bought a couple of beers to enjoy while waiting for the bus across the street at the bus stop. We waited and waited and no bus came by. Before long, we had made some conversation with some of the friendly locals who were hanging around the bar and they voiced a concern about the likelihood of a bus coming after 6. Our only other option was to get a taxi, none of which were sighted as well. So we sat outside the bar, finishing beer after beer, all the while hopefully waiting for the taxi or bus, which would take us back across the island to our boats. Eventually, one older gent whom we’d chatted with showed enough concern that he went back into the bar and tried to connect with a taxi driver to come get us. In the meanwhile, he seemed to serve as a guardian angle to our little group of “whities” in this sea of dark faces. Anytime anyone approached us, he seemed to step between them and us and shoo them away as if to say, “leave them alone.” Although we never felt threatened, it was interesting how this fellow seemed to take us under his wing as somewhat of a protector. At one point, several of the bar patrons we engaged in trying to get us a ride back to the other side by calling all of their taxi contacts. Eventually, a taxi arrived, and returned us to the boat harbor and we had gathered yet another tale to tell.

We stayed in St. Croix for only a few days but found it much to our liking. One day we were about to board the dingy to head ashore and another dingy came toward us. Once he approached us, and was grabbing onto the side to steady himself, he said, “I saw you are from Steamboat Springs. I lived there for 9 years.” Just about that time Suz cam out of the boat and they recognized each other as he, and a former wife, had been one of Suz cleaning clients. Another small world incident.

When we left St. Croix, we knew we were not only heading back to the USVI’s to deliver the boat to the new owners, we were leaving some very good friends for perhaps the last time. It was a bittersweet parting as we all feel we will be able to reconnect someday, somewhere, but sometimes those connections go unfulfilled. We hope this will not be the case with these folks.

Once back in St Thomas, we busied ourselves with any necessary last minute repairs and touchups as we prepped the boat for delivery the following Tuesday. Since we needed to get a short batten for the jib, which had jumped overboard a week or so earlier, we knew we needed to go back into the BVIs to our friendly sail maker shop. We got this done without problem and, while there, were able to find a replacement shower pump which had decided to die just the day before. We got these items installed and decided to spend our final few nights aboard near St. John, one of our favorite islands.

The night before we were to meet up with the buyers, we anchored in Christmas Cove, just off of St. Thomas and enjoyed one more spectacular sunset from the big back seat of the cockpit. We treated ourselves to a final boat-made “Cheeseburger in Pardise” and enjoyed lying on the trampoline viewing the myriad of stars, just one more time.

Next morning we hoisted the sails again and had an hour-long sail down wind to the big harbor at Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas. We kept busy all week boxing up all of our things which we needed to mail home once we got to the USVIs and the US Postsal Service. We had arranged for a slip at the big marina so upon our arrival, we grabbed a cart and as Rick went to the Post Office, Suz did the final clean up on the boat. It was a rainy morning which made us feel even more melancholy, but we knew we needed to bust through this transfer and move forward. The new owners, John and Sandy appeared shortly on the dock, and we welcomed them aboard their new boat. Since the paperwork had gone through that morning, the ownership had silently been transferred while we were arriving too meet them. They came aboard and we spent the next several hours going over system operations and giving them as much insight as we could about the boat. Suz and I later realized how much we had learned in the last two years since our purchase had taken place and felt quite proud and knowledgeable. About 4 pm we said our goodbyes, loaded our luggage into a marina golf cart and excused ourselves. We drove away feeling sad but grateful for this unbelievable experience. We thank the Big Guy daily for allowing us to enjoy this adventure and for keeping us safe while we learned the ropes.

We don’t know what our next land-based step will be but we can honestly say, we hope we have the chance to return to the seas for more of this lifestyle. We feel “bitten” and long for more. Hopefully, that opportunity will present itself to us and we will still be able to take advantage of it.

I hope to make one more entry in this blog before moving on so check back later for what we will call our most memorable moments and some “best of” pictures form the trip which somehow escaped insertion into previous blog entries. We hope these entries have been somehow inspiring and will allow those of you unable to “jump up and run” into an adventure like this, to at least enjoy it through our eyes and hearts. We have enjoyed feedback on these entries and welcome anything comments you’d wish to add, be sent to us via our regular emails at rick@allergictocities.com.

Until next time, we’d like to leave you with the words of songwriter Jesse Winchester:

“We waive bye-bye, we pray Godspeed, we wish for lovely weather, more luck than you need. We only sail in circles, so there’s no need to cry. No, we’ll see you, again one day, and then we’ll waive bye-bye.”