Saturday, April 4, 2020

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI
18.20.016N
64.55.440W

Looks like I was mistaken with my estimate of sitting for 10 days. 

I woke up about 5:30am this morning thinking I heard someone calling my name.  I crawled out and took a look around.  There were 6 boats in Cinnamon Bay.  3 were pointed towards the beach and 3 were pointed towards an islet of rocks between Francis/Maho Bay and us.  Opal was in the second group, we were in the first. 

It had been a rolly night but nothing we haven’t experienced before, in fact the night before we left for Cinnamon Bay in Charlotte Amalie was just as bad if not worse.  However, at a decent time later in the morning we checked with Opal and were informed that they were in the process of leaving; they were not staying there for another night.  I guess it was pretty bad for them.  They dropped their mooring ball and did a slow circuit around, Maho Bay, continued on through Francis Bay and then checked the 3 mooring balls on the opposite side of the Bay from us and found it to be worse than where we were.  By this time, we had secured our boat and dropped our mooring ball to catch up with them.  I tried radioing Texas Crewed to let them know we were leaving, as well as sending them texts and finally e-mails but without success.  We finally were able to send a message when we got to St. Thomas. 

We did slow circuits through, Caneel Bay, Cruz Bay and Christmas Cove but there were no moorings available anywhere.  So, as you can see, we made our way back to Charlotte Amalie. 

Gypsy Palace's Code Zero

On the way back, we had very light winds just a bit abaft the beam (a smidge behind our shoulders when facing forward) so we unfurled the Code Zero and sailed ever so slowly on our return.  Gerry took photos of us, we took photos of them. 

Opal

We arrived about noon, dropped our hook (a couple of times as someone came out and glared at us when we drifted back; obviously too close for his comfort) and then lowered the dinghy when we learned that Gerry was going to drop one of the head sails to make a repair.  We popped over and assisted lowering the sail and then went back to retrieve my heavy duty sewing machine to restitch some of the material starting to come unraveled.  Nicky said that it will end up in a sail loft in any event but maybe we delayed the inevitable a bit longer.  After we were done and the sail was hoisted and furled, we were all sitting in their cockpit quietly.  Too quietly.  If we didn’t move, and soon, we were all going to be snoring as we were exhausted. 

We decided to forego the sundowners and catch up again tomorrow.  As I’ve said before, fresh air and sunshine will kill you.