First Part - USVI

Last year we planned on spending a few days in a resort type of hotel before starting our bareboat charter. After investigating some BVI options we decided, since we were flying into St. Thomas anyway, to stay for a few days at Secret Harbour.

We enjoyed the 3 days so much last year that we decided to expand it to 6 for this year. We had a first floor beach front suite, which I highly recommend. Stepping out from our patio onto the beach and then a few more steps to some of the best snorkeling I've ever seen, especially for a beach front location.

Secret Harbour is located near Red Hook, which is sort of a cross between a sleepy fishing village and Bourbon Street in New Orleans. The restaurant at SH has great food but dinners are expensive so having other options as close as Red Hook was great.

Since this was our 2nd trip to the USVI, I figured I'm now a pro at driving on the left (not...) so we rented a minivan. With 6 of us taxi fares would have been pretty steep.

We bought food at the Marina Market in Red Hook and ate some in the room, went to Molly Malones a couple of times for good pub fare, and Caribbean Saloon another time for pretty good food. Caribbean Saloon was too smoky and noisy for my tastes but we did get to see the 5th of July fireworks from their balcony which has a unobstructed view of Cruz Bay on St. John.

We paid a 2nd visit to Coral World which is a nicely done aquarium.

On the day after the full moon, Nutmeg (one of the TTOL USVI board resident experts) met us for a night snorkel to see the glow worms. For an SMU grad and former Dallasite, she's a pretty nice person <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />! The glow worms sort of reminded me of what the bugs shot into space in the movie Starship Troopers. Little lights erupting from the sandy bottom, spinning around on the surface and then disappearing.

A couple of our party went over to St. John for a day and had a bit of an adventure trying to get a bus / taxi back to Cruz Bay. We thought about going over on July 5 for the festival parade and fireworks, but opted to stay at SH and watch it on cable. Given that the parade lasted 4+ hours, I think we made the right choice. Watch the parade, go snorkel, come back and watch some more, go snorkel some more....

Other than that, we pretty much stayed put at Secret Harbour, swam and snorkeled when we wanted to, and often times just sat on the beach watching the world go by.

On to The Moorings

One problem of spending 6 days of doing nothing much but take it easy, is trying to get up the energy to make it to the BVI for the charter. Somehow we managed to do it and arrived in West End to find no Moorings taxi waiting for us. With their new voucher system, we were able to get another driver to take us to Mariner Inn so we didn't have to wait for someone to come out and pick us up.

Having been there so many times, the restaurant staff is like a second family. Hugs all around and then a nice lunch, where unfortunately I got the bad news that they had no Carib at the bar. The best improvement in the Mariner Inn bar after the fire a few years ago was the addition of a great refrigeration system which makes for a really cold Carib! Well perhaps the restaurant restrooms which have the coldest A/C on the planet may be the best improvement, but I digress. Apparently they haven't had Caribs for some time, but I had no trouble finding it at bars or other restaurants, so who knows. The Heineken was plenty cold and worked in a pinch.

As is our custom, we ate dinner there as well just enjoying the view, and the sounds of a marina at night. Food was good.

Day One

Bobby's delivered our food on time but it took some time to stow because we had ordered too much and the storage was tight on the 403. Went through the chart and boat briefings, and thought we were in pretty good shape for a 1:00pm start. Only one small problem: no dinghy. Apparently there was a dinghy shortage (how the hell can you not plan out your dinghy allocation???). Customer service offered to bring us one to our first destination but that seemed to be a waste of their chase boat and what was I going to do without a dinghy anyway? Swim to shore? After a couple of hours of asking when it was going to arrive, we had just about given up, when one of the dock personnel (I guess a customer service type supervisor since he had a special light green shirt) got involved and found us a dink. So after a quick lunch and button down the boat, we headed out to The Bight.

Winds were fairly stable and the reach was an easy one, except for the occasional shower than came passing by. Slapped a reef in the main before the first one and we handled them fairly well. Grabbed a ball near Pirate's Bight, and paid the $20 fee. Ate on board.

Next morning wanted to take one member of our group over to the caves for a snorkel but couldn't get the dink to start. Put a "gosh I feel stupid" call into customer service who explained that the engine had a kill switch that needed to be in place to start the engine. (So that's what that curved thingy on the lanyard is for!)

Day Two

Started our long trek up the channel towards Gorda Sound with a beat to Cooper. Winds had picked up some and had some real trouble getting everything balanced out. My main criteria for a well balanced boat is to be able to steer with one hand while opening a beer with the other. Couldn't seem to get rid of enough weather helm to accomplish this.

Got to Cooper and ate for a second night on board thinking we'd be back later to eat on shore (never did make it). Some jellyfish in the water so we didn't do much snorkeling.

Day Three

Continued our trek up North, using the typical long tack approach. It's tough to tack without spilling a beer so I tend to take long ones, you know, go from The Dogs to Anegada, and tack back to North Sound. Kept them a bit shorter than normal because the seas in the open were a bit boisterous. Finally got the boat balanced so I wasn't struggling with a weather helm.

Went for a ball outside of the Bitter End near the channel, which is always a challenge to catch because of the breeze. Provided entertainment for the surrounding yachts by taking 5 passes before grabbing it. Being such a crack crew we don't yell at each other, much, but some of our hand signals degenerate quickly to the obscene in these circumstances.

Decided to eat dinner at Saba Rock. The pub menu and buffet give good choices for the kids.

Day Four -- the adventure continues
We were already into our second (and last) water tank, so since we were heading to Anegada, we needed to get a water fill. Maneuvering these big monohulls into docks is never one of my favorite tasks, but we planned it out and headed for BEYC's fuel dock. After waiting a bit and having a powerboat cut in front of us, I decided to motor across to Leverick's, where we planned to spend the night, and get their free water and ice.

Here is one of these stories that I'm not afraid to tell on myself because when it comes to sailing, I have no ego. When we arrived at Leverick, the fuel dock person was out to lunch. No problemo, I was sure we could do it on our own. First approach was ok, but at the last minute I didn't like our angle so I told my 'step off' crew person (my sister-in-law) to stay on board while we made another pass.

For our second pass, my wife and sister-in-law, both got in position for a step-off. Bad idea. Brought it in at a good angle, they both stepped off, but there wasn't anyone in position to throw the forward line. Bow started to fall off from dock and no one had wrapped the stern line around the dock's bollard. Thinking that it was wrapped, I tried some forward thrust to pivot the bow into the dock. This ended up with the boat pulling one way and my two adult crew members on the dock trying to hold the boat with an unwrapped line. Fortunately I yelled at them enough to let go the line so that no one was hurt and no one was in the water, but I was now motoring away from the dock having left my 2 most senior crew members on shore.

My wife went and got some help for the poor incompetent captain, and I quickly instructed my two surviving crew members in the fine art of heaving deck lines. Third pass, with 5 people now helping on the dock, was successful, but boy I felt pretty stupid. No one laughed too much at my incompetence. I tried to fill the tanks but apparently due to lots of air in the tanks, wasn't getting them full, as we found out when we ran out of water again 3 days later at Anegada.

After the fill we left Leverick to spend the afternoon on the beach at BEYC. Nice shaded beach, and we love the cuban sandwiches from the pub. Returned to Leverick for the night but didn't make it to shore for either food or laundry.

Louis from Houston