Sorry this is so late, but this is literally the first weekend we have been home all weekend since returning. This is our first few days when Misty and I are aboard our short charter w Capt Peter Branning.
Tuesday May 13th was a rough travel day from Denver through 4-5 hour delays in Dallas and into SJU around 11ish, nothing interesting here except we believe the AA Admirals club one month membership was well worth it!
Wednesday May 14 – Arrive @ EIS, we were the first ones in line for customs! But it turns out Chris needs to learn how to better fill out customs forms! The customs woman, while demanding, was patient and pointed at the boxes she wanted additional information. Walk 200 yards to Trellis Bay to try and meet our Captain. His name is Peter Branning and he is to be on a light blue 40’ mono Hanse named Lightheart. We quickly recognized him at the little market at the north end of the Bay. After introductions the three of us had chicken rotis and discussed our sailing experience (none) with Capt Peter, and what we would like to see/do in our 48 hours on the boat. For those of you that don’t know, the reason for this short charter was to test Misty’s sea legs as we had a very bad experience in Barbados some years back on a fishing excursion. There was quite a bit of weather and wind so we had come to the conclusion that we were not going to try to get over to JVD this eve, but if the weather broke we may change our minds. So, full moon party in Trellis Bay it was going to be. Perfectly fine with us. We load our luggage into Peter’s dinghy and he took it out to the boat then returns to pick us up. Peter gave us a tour, the safety talk, and we stowed out luggage in the spacious cabin in the bow. After this hour or so of getting familiar with the boat, the weather broke a bit and we decided to do a little sail….off to Cane Garden Bay it was! We picked up a ball and jumped in the water for a bit and had a few rum drinks. It turns out Peter is quite the free diver so he took the opportunity to do a little diving and worked on cleaning the growth off the bottom of Lightheart. He stated that the marina he keeps his boat in St Croix does not have much water movement, so growth occurs quite rapidly. After cleaning up a bit, Peter took us in to shore and turned us loose with a radio to call him when we were ready to be picked up. We had Caribs at Toms? the Elm then a BOGO drink special and some conch fritters at Quinto’s from the Drinking Mans Guide….the bartender also wrote a nice little welcome note while signing our book! We were tired from travel and many beverages so we called Peter for a ride back to the boat. We had rain that night but nothing too bad.
Thursday May 15th – After a great breakfast of eggs, fruit and toast we were off the ball at 9 am. The plan is to head west around Tortola and grab a ball in the Bight on Norman Island. We had only been underway for about 30 minutes when Peter noticed something amiss in the slidey thing that only allows the boom, to go back and forth so far? No idea what this is called. Anyway, it turns out we had sheared off a bolt and a tiny part of it was still holding the pulley system together. We dropped the main and Chris motored us around for a while as Peter found some spare parts to fix the problem. Sails back up and we headed west! Through the cut/pass between Tortola/Great Thatch/St John was about the only area that Peter was actually at the helm since it was a little crowded, the rest of the time letting Chris take the helm while Peter would tend to the sails. Being a 40 year sailboat racer, he was constantly tweaking them! When we reached the mooring field we moored on the opposite end from the Willy T as Peter had a ball close to the T a month or so earlier and hadn’t slept a wink! We took the dinghy around the corner to the caves for a snorkel and watched Peter do some free diving…I don’t know that I can hold my breath that long! Back to the boat for lunch then we snorkeled the shoreline from our mooring out to the edge of the Bight. I am not sure which direction this is but if you were standing on the beach at Pirates, it would be up the shore on the right hand side. We cleaned up a bit and Peter took us over to the Willy T for a few drinks. It was only about 3 in the afternoon so it wasn’t too rowdy (except for a group of Swedes that kept singing “Sweet Caroline”)! Anyway, even though we weren’t WELL lubricated, Chris still decided he may get hit by a bus once back in Denver and never get the chance to jump off this damn thing again. So after a few other jumpers he climbed out and threw down his best rendition of his award winning 8th grade can opener. Another beer to dry off with, then we radioed Peter to pick us up. He took us over to Pirates for conch fritters, lobster wontons, a few drinks and the best cloud covered sunset you ever seen. We called Peter once again and he picked us up and brought us back to the boat….we had another round or two while chatting with our new friend Peter.
Friday May 16th – Up fairly early and somewhat packed our bags as our destination today is Spanishtown, VG where we will spend another 12 nights in a villa at Leverick Bay. It was about a 4 hour sail into the wind. Chris turns out to be a fairly good sailor (per Peter!) and seems to have a good feel for what the boat is doing for being such a greenhorn. We dropped the sails outside of the VGYH and Chris motored us in, with Peter taking over for the final docking. Peter had to turn around and sail to St Thomas where his wife was flying in and they were taking a party of 8 out on a catamaran for a week…he was going to have a long day! Over all our sailing experience was great and we look forward to doing longer trips in the future! Next, our first few days on VG and the random offline meeting of many TTOLers at Hog Heaven!
