US Virgin ISlands

Greetings from St. John, USVI! We arrived in St. John on Friday and enjoyed one of our favorite anchorages, Leinster Bay. It was so pleasant just sitting on the ball that we actually stayed for 2 days. We spent time cleaning the boat bottom of barnicles and slime from it sitting at our dock space for the last several months. The bottom really needed some scraping as the buildup from algae and marine growth can really make a mess of it. It also will impede the boat speed so, as sailors, always seeking a bit more speed, we did a pretty thorough job of cleaning. We will still need to do it again next fall when we return for an extended cruise schedule, but, like any baby, it seems happier with clean bottom.

We are slowly making our way through the USVIs as we'll head over to Christmas Cove later today. This is one of our favorite places. Then it's a short hop across the way to St. Thomas. St. Thomas is the most populated of the USVIs and has lots of good shopping and boat fix folks. Our watermaker is still on the fritz and we need to get that fixed soon. We may not be able to get it done prior to putting the boat away for the summer (hurricane season) and may have to wait until we return next fall. So far we've just bought water at $.15/gal. We go through about 100 gallons a week so it isn't too bad, cost-wise. That allows us a nightly shower and plenty of fresh drinking water each day. With our watermaker working, we seem to use more since its so easy to make fresh water. So we're conserving a bit more this trip.

The generator is a continuing saga. It hasn't worked since we returned in March. The dang thing is always a problem. Fortunately, we have a pretty impressive solar array on the top of our boat that keeps us in good supply of power for our battery bank. We're actually considering adding some additional solar panels so we can have an even less reliance on generators. ONce we tire of St. Thomas, we'll head across the 40 or so miles to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands for a few days. We've enjoyed the little island many times before and its sister island Culabrita. We hope to be able to also check out Vieques, another Puerto Rican off-coast island. This island was once used by the US Air Force as a bombing practice target. There are areas which are off limits as there is potential live bombs still in the area. We'll stay out of those areas for certain. Another cool thing about Vieques is that certain areas around the island waters shine from marine bioluminescence. We're anxious to experience that, for sure. Maybe I can get a picture of it. After Vieques, we'll start working our way west around the south side of the island to our summer marina on the very west coast of the island. We will leave our boat there through the hurricane season, until we return in the fall to take up cruising on a full-time basis. I'll try to keep posting on this blog until we depart for our summer so stay tuned...