Charlotte Amalie,
St. Thomas
18.20.270N
64.55.61W

Once again Gerry began his day determined to buy Nicky a birthday/Valentine’s Day bobble and dropped by this morning to commiserate with Dale for a few minutes. A short time later, Tom & Doris (Exit Strategy) dropped by for a visit, so our morning was filled with visits from friends.

I dug out my paperwork on the new camera and found that it is actually easier to download the pictures from it than it is from our regular camera for the blog posts. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any good underwater pictures and once I figured out the workings, it was relatively simple to complete my posts.

Early afternoon, we made our way back into town to kill time until Gerry & Nicky’s friends Mark & Rose arrived. Once they landed, they were quickly ushered back to Orpailleur to their V-berth before joining us in town for dinner at the Mercury Café. Although a bit pricey, the food was delicious and certainly not the typical American menu that the Green House is known for.

I found Mark & Rose very friendly. Mark was described as being quiet but at a table with 5 gregarious people, I thought he held his own fairly well. Rose was sandwiched between Nicky and I, so she had no choice in joining the conversation with both of us bombarding her with questions. Since they have no sailing experience at all, I’m certain they didn’t realize that we were all teasing them unmercifully. Although, if the weather gets rough . . . .

We called it an early evening since Mark & Rose traveled the better part of the last 24 hours. We plan on meeting up again in the morning and depending upon how they tolerate the night on the boat, will take off for the rest of the Virgin Islands mid-day tomorrow.

Charlotte Amalie,
St. Thomas
18.20.270N
64.55.61W

Why is it that we have the hardest time with internet connections? Yesterday we had purchased some internet time but last night when we tried to connect, the signal kept dropping. We added our external antenna to boost the power, then all of a sudden, we couldn’t make the connection at all. We found out today that the internet provider takes an initial signature of the computer when you sign on. Any changes to the computer after that, ie, adding the antenna, changes the signature and therefore the provider thinks that you’re a different computer trying to use the access code. So now I have to sit in the cockpit to access the internet and keep playing with dropped signals. At least I can down load our e-mails rather quickly.

The rest of the day, we showed Gerry & Nicky around the area as cruisers instead of the guests they had been when they were last here. We walked over to the new Harbortown Marina looking for some logo polo shirts and a jib halyard for Orpailleur but they still aren’t completely up and running yet, at least not for those items. We walked up to the K-Mart for some items needed for the incoming guests. We picked up some fresh tea at the grocery and pointed out where the laundry was located. Then we headed back to town into jewelry central and walked up and down all of the alleyways looking at everything. Nicky and I had a blast just window shopping. Dale and Gerry were being very indulgent. Occasionally we would see a beer in their hands or some other frosty drink but they just followed us around and didn’t complain at all.

At one point, Nicky and I were talking with a woman about conch pearls. She had two and brought them out to show them to us. She told us what to look for and that the Japanese had purchased most of the conch pearls in the Caribbean area which had forced the prices sky high. Then she also showed us the most beautiful 3 carat yellow diamond that I have ever seen. Gerry walked in about the time she said that it would sell for $20,000 a carat. Gerry simply shook his head and left. The woman folded the diamond back into the paper from which it had come, placed it back into a box, closed the box and turned away from us. Nicky and I got the distinct impression that we had been dismissed. Well! We’ll just take our money and go elsewhere! Which we did.

Nicky finally found a slide that she liked to go onto a necklace that she already has. The only question was, would it fit. We’ll head back tomorrow to find out. I know I’m being petty, but I’d love for Nicky to put that necklace on, walk by the woman who looked down her nose at us, just to see the expression on her face. Kind of like the scene in the movie Pretty Woman, when she walks into the store and says: “Remember me. . . . Big mistake, BIG mistake.”

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.

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
18.20.257N
64.55.694W

Today, while the crew of MTNest went on a tour of the island, Dale and I tried to run a new spinnaker halyard. He hoisted me up the mast armed with the new halyard, a thin leader line with a lead weight, knife, scissors, masking tape, duck tape (you never know), and a wire cover (the last time he went up, he saw where one was needed). Everything went well on the trip up, except that once I made it to the top. . . the lead weight was too big to fit through the opening. The only place big enough to shove it through was where the wires were coming out at the top, an inch or two from where it needed to be threaded through. I figured I could thread the halyard itself from there then tie the two together.

Sorry to say though, the angle was wrong and no matter what I did, the lead weight and leader line would tangle with the wires part way down the mast and have to be retrieved. After about a hour and a half of dropping it in, bringing it back out, dropping it back down, bringing it back out, dark clouds started to appear coming over the mountains protecting the harbor, so we called it quits. However this time, the line wouldn’t come back out when I tried to retrieve it. Eventually, I pulled as much as I could get to out and cut the rest. You know that at some point, probably on a quiet night, that weight will finally free itself and fall to the deck and scare us half to death.
The rain started just as I was applying the wire cover and by the time I finally made it down the mast, Dale had his own wet t-shirt exhibition slip-sliding towards him.

We decided to wait until we got back to Roosey to try to do it again; next time with some other type of weight and a larger leader line that wouldn’t twirl around the wires already in place.
We caught up with Mike, Terri and the girls later and exchanged stories of how we spent our day. They had a great time exploring various beaches and telling us about a coral garden that was available at one of them while Dale and I had finished our day by exploring various sailing and pirate shops along the wharf.

We said our good-byes to them and promised to catch up again down island in a couple of months. If not, Minnesota here we come!

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
18.20.257N
64.55.694W

In spite of our 6:30 am attempt to leave Culebrita with the calmer seas, we had to collect the stern anchor. If you remember the last time we threw out a stern anchor, it took 4 dinghies to help dislodge the sucker. This time it was just us.

Once again, it wasn’t going to come out easily. When Dale told me that he was going to dig it out manually, I suggested dropping the mooring ball and using the windless to hoist it up . . . But no, he figured it was buried too deep and took a small hatchet (I don’t know, it’s just what he grabbed) and spent the next hour and a half diving down, digging, then coming up to get air. By the time he started to really show his exhaustion, he swam back to the boat to tell me that every time he dug the rope out, he’d come up for air and the wave action would bury it again. Then he got the bright idea that if we dropped the mooring ball, we’d could use the big boat to hold what he dug out from being buried again. Surprisingly enough, once I dropped the mooring ball and started to pull up on the anchor line, the anchor popped right out. He might be smarter than the average bear but he’s just as stubborn at times.

Two hours after MTNest left, we were able to follow them over to St. Thomas. The seas that we suspected would calm during the night did so while they crossed but were beginning to build again as we made our way across. Still, it wasn’t a bad crossing just a little more boisterous heading directly into it.

We met up with Mike, Terri and the girls for lunch at the Green House, a local restaurant then broke off to do our separate shopping. Dale and I headed back to Liberty Jewelers (my favorite) and the crew of MTNest headed to their favorite jeweler. I picked up a couple of pair of earrings and then turned our attention to searching out an underwater camera. Mona, at Liberty, told us of a place to check and sure enough, after doing a little comparison shopping, we ended up where she had directed us and got a good deal. I can’t wait to try it out.

We met on MTNest for appetizers later in the evening then called it a day. We were all exhausted; particularly Yogi.