Charlotte Amalie,
St. Thomas
18.20.270N
64.55.61W

Normally, I start my post with a daily entry. However, last night after we went to bed we had a bit of excitement; other than what you normally find exciting in bed.

About 10:30pm a panga (a long, open boat, normally used for fishing) came into the harbor and zinged past us shining flashlights at our boat. Of course, this brought us both topside in a heart beat. Then it crossed the entire width of the harbor to the other side, again traveling much too fast in a darkened moonless anchorage shining flashlights at all of the boats as they went by. Jerry, on Summer Breeze was the farthest out and shouted his displeasure at their stupidity.

As learned in Trini, I grabbed our floodlight and lit them up as they came back in our direction again. There were at least 5 men in the boat speaking Spanish obviously looking for another boat. They came back across the harbor and eventually took the last mooring, right inside of us, then dragged a stern anchor to shore. Five men climbed out and started walking along the beach eventually making their way out past the reefs to the outermost beach that normally no one goes to.

Dale commented that it was going to be a long night, so I went below and came back up with a couple of blankets, binoculars, and nightscope but I couldn’t find the airhorn. Dale had already retrieved it. The long and short of it was: a boat full of men were certainly acting suspiciously, if only being stupid. However, for all of the noise and flash lights they had blazing, they certainly weren’t afraid of being seen. A couple of Homeland Security boats had been lurking in the anchorage earlier in the day, so it made us wonder what we had stumbled into. Dale felt that with me lighting them up, I had made us target. What I didn’t realize until this morning was, he had also grabbed our flare gun. So he was feeling pretty serious about the whole thing too.

In any event, we gave up our surveillance a couple of hours later when they were obviously having a hard time finding whatever they were looking for; clearly they weren‘t interested in us. In the wee hours of the morning, they left much more silently than they had arrived.

This morning, as Gerry would say: “at a sparrow’s fart” we got underway for St. Thomas. The seas were certainly more boisterous than we had anticipated and we slowed our progress to 4 kts to keep from pounding into the confused seas. Some were in the 6-8’ range with 18kt winds on the nose, of course. We entered into the lee of St. Thomas and once protected, picked up our speed until we entered into Gregory Channel. We tippy toed through the narrow and shallow Haulover Cut, then rounded into Charlotte Amalie Harbor with Gerry & Nicky right behind us. We anchored in 17’ of water and let out 100’ of chain; a nor’easter is due by the end of the week, so we wanted our hook well dug in by then. Dale completed this task by losing his hat overboard and had to dive into the less than sanitary water to retrieve it. He seems to be having a hard time keeping his attire on him these days.

After a couple of hot showers later, we lowered the dink and started into town, stopping only to say hello to Tom & Doris on Exit Strategy, whom we last saw at the Pitons. With Gerry & Nicky in tow, we made our way to the restaurant that made Roti’s, we had been told about in January. It was a tiny establishment with only 3 tables but they served quite possibly the best Roti’s we’ve ever eaten. Roti’s, by the way, are an Indian fast food. Curried chicken, beef, goat, or shrimp with potatoes in their own type of tortilla wrap. Definitely a lunch to clear your sinuses. Delicious!

With full tummies, we waddled into Liberty Jewelers for our Valentine’s Day presents. I found a pair of green earrings but Nicky didn’t see anything that grabbed her eye. The type of earrings that she had seen last year were nowhere to be found this year. With so many beautiful pieces, she felt overwhelmed. I certainly agreed with her assessment but I can usually force myself to focus in on something I like.

We finished our day by finding an internet store to buy some connection time, walking through the straw market, then making our way back to the boat by snore-o‘clock. All in all, a full day.