Bill
07/01/2012, Francis Drake Channel

You may think these photos of her at the wheel are posed... they are not. She has been very excited to take the wheel... and seems to have recently started to understand it. The attention span isn't there for much more than a minute at the helm. In this case she took the helm so I could run up on deck to put a reef in the main. I have just returned to trim the sail. For more see video below!

As we entered Virgin Gorda Sound, we followed a little boat that was clearly not a charter boat. You can tell: they were sailing, they had a self steering Monitor on their transom and it was not a typical charter fleet boat. It seems that we see a lot of huge Catamaran sailboats from Moorings, Sunsail or Horizon Yacht that motor around at top speed. A very few sail and all of them compete for the closest mooring to the island restaurant or bar.

So... we saw this cutter rigged boat with a windvane and followed her. We anchored near each other. As it turns out SV Solstice is a sail training vessel. They have a beautiful website. Since "class was in session... so we didn't get to chat more than to say a quick hello.

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kids on boats

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Bill
07/01/2012, Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI

After our post office visit we wandered into the Michael Banzhaf Studio which was near the Sun Dog Cafe...

Michael and Claudia are wonderful people with a wonderful art and jewelry gallery. Michael does produce some of the most beautiful jewelry. Isobel was very interested in trying on the 2" gold bracelet that was encrusted with diamonds... I suggested that she get a job...! Not a great photo... but you get the idea! It was great to meet them

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Bill
07/01/2012, Cruz Bay St John

One reason (other than the generally greatness and beauty) for hanging out in St John was to wait for our new WiFi antenna. For those of you who follow our blog, you will have noticed that we haven't been posting regularly for weeks. Thanks to Towndock.net we have had this NanoStation wifi antenna which allows us to pick up wifi sites on shore.... and this allows us to blog, check weather, email and surf the internet from the comfort of our boat.

Being the great guy that he is, Keith also included a couple cool gifts for Isobel... he knew well that if I were getting a present, she would need something too! Thanks Keith!

This post is late because we had so much un-expressed blogging to do and photos to post...

Cruising lifestyle

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Lara
06/30/2012, The Baths, Virgin Gorda, BVIs

Isobel was getting impatient waiting for us to load ourselves into the dingy so she was perched near the top of the ladder reminding us that she was waiting, waiting, waiting...
She accidentally dropped what she calls her "buggy" board down into the water between the boat and the dingy and proceeded to quickly climb down the ladder to retrieve it before it floated away....her feet were in the water and she was leaning over to grab the board when a large remora suddenly came into view from beneath the boat, seemingly very interested in Isobel's toes. I was really impressed with the girl's reaction. Yes, she made her way up a rung lickety split, but with very little drama- closer to a "WOW." I saw it all happen and the thing was as long as she is tall and at first glance looked like a little shark darting around.
What weird creatures. They have this sucking disk on their head that allows them to attach to other larger fish. I think they're probably pretty harmless, but their look makes you imagine the worst.

kids on boats

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Bill
06/30/2012, Virgin Gorda Sound

After a great morning at the Baths including snorkeling and bouldering we had a late start to the north end of Virgin Gorda. The plan was to sail up and anchor off Necker Island to take a nap and organize the boat... Well, we arrived at Necker Island around 4:30 pm which was when we should have been sailing to St Martin... the boat was not in shape and we had not napped (except Isobel!).

Even with the wind slightly north of east, which would had made for a more direct trip... we called it a NO GO and sailed into Virgin Gorda Sound. We hope we will have another opportunity like this one... typically the wind is on the nose and would require tacking to St Martin.


18 29.980'n:064 23.429'w

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
06/30/2012, The Baths, Virgin GOrda, BVIs

after spending a rolly night at Cooper Island jammed in amongst the partying Charter boats, we left early to be at the Baths on the West end of Virgin Gorda. We went in early to have great snorkel, a wonderful walk through the caves, pools and caverns of the jumble of Granite rocks that the Baths are so famous for. There were four boats when we arrived at 0915. When we returned to the boat at noon, eatery mooring was full maybe 30 boats and the beach, rocks and pools were crawling with people. The early start was worth it!

We will head up to Gorda sound this afternoon to see if we can get a good nap...

I will post photos when we pick up some internet. We can't wait to try out our new WiFi antenna which was sent to us by our friend at Towndock.net. Thanks Keith!!

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06/26/2012

go back a bunch and look at the new photos loaded!

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06/26/2012, Francis Bay, st John, USVI

What a sunset.

We have noticed that there is lots of brown dust here... maybe making the sunsets nice. someone said that it is Sahara dust....

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06/26/2012

The guys get reorganized and put to bed.

I know there was a reason that we kept all those hats... so they could be beds for guys. I guess they don't mind taking a nap in a fleece hat when the temperature is 85 in the shade!

kids on boats

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06/26/2012

Isobel is a great help hanging the laundry...but she gets a little too excited about taking it down. She runs back and forth bringing items back to the cockpit that are not quite done baking yet!

Cruising lifestyle

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