St. John, USVI
Leinster Bay
18.21.823N
64.43.376W

Happy 48th Birthday Gary. Hope it was a good one!

We continued on to Leinster Bay this morning. In years past this was another favorite anchorage. In fact, I used to have a poster of it hanging in my office at work.

Leinster is now covered with mooring balls as is all of St. John. This has pros and cons associated with it but the more I think about it, the more I’m leaning towards it being a good thing. They’re easy to pick up, even those with less experience who charter boats can figure out how to tie up to one. They allow more boats into the anchorage without the problem of having enough room to swing (although we have heard of an anchorage where this isn‘t necessarily so.) There isn’t the problem of those with less experience or just bad luck dragging into you. However, the major draw back is that you have to pay for them instead of dropping your anchor for free, and . . . They are supposed to be paid for in advance, and . . . There is no refund if they overbook.

We flagged down the Park Ranger and asked about how and where to pay for the use of the mooring balls. It’s a bit of a catch 22. You take a dinghy around the point to a mail drop along a path. The catch is that there is no place to land your dinghy. Dale found it easier to dinghy into shore where we were and walk the distance along a path rather than mess up our dinghy on the rocks. The Ranger also explained that you are obligated to take a mooring ball if one is available but if one is not, then you are allowed to anchor beyond the mooring field.

There are “bay sitters” as well. These are volunteers who make sure that everyone knows the rules and keep track of who comes in and out of ‘their’ particular bay. The Park actually generates spread sheets showing who is where and if they’ve paid or not. I think this probably works for the charter boat companies but we cruisers throw a monkey wrench into the whole mess.

Eventually we snorkeled Waterlemon Cay and found that the coral was doing much better but the fish didn’t seem to be as abundant. We had a good time anyway.

I think the most fun was when a rather well endowed lady snorkeling in one direction around the Cay tried to readjust her bathing suit, exposing herself completely to Mike who was swimming towards her from the other direction. They both looked up to see each and started screaming underwater, each trying to get out of the way of the other. What a hoot! They scared every fish and swimmer within ear shot.

Tom and Jordan on St. Christopher told us about a great snorkeling area called Booby Rock over by Salt Pond on the south side of St. John. None of us have ever been so we’ll head over in that direction tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what happens to Mike over there.