We're now in the US Virgin Islands anchored behind an island in Christmas Bay as the winds blow outside. If you read my last post about us leaving early on Thursday afternoon instead of early on Friday morning, it worked out just fine. As a matter of fact, it was a good thing we left early as the winds were lighter than expected and the speed we were doing just wasn't fast enough to get us here in daylight. We'd have been here about midnight and that's not a good time to come into an island we have not been to before. Since we were not going fast enough, we had to slow ourselves down by reducing our sails till be were only doing just over 4 knots instead of the 6+ we were expecting. While we now travel quite fast when on a beam reach, down wind not so much. In the end, we had just a reefed main up with winds sometimes at 5 knots and some times at 15 knots. We left at 1400 on Thursday and got in here at Crews Inn at about 0800 today, Saturday. We anchored outside the harbor as we'd heard it had a very muddy bottom and we didn't want all that mess to come on board. With the anchor down in 60 feet of water, we headed into the bay in Puff to get checked in with Customs and Immigration. We also needed to stop in at the US Parks Service and get our passes. The Parks Service charges each boat $26US to spend a night on one of their mooring buoys. If you are old like us(over 65) you can get a pass that cuts that charge in half. Customs and Immigration was a snap as were the Parks Service. We still needed to get a simm card for the phone so after asking around, we found a mini mart that carried them and we hike out(a couple of miles) to the store. Unfortunately, we made a mistake and got the wrong size chip for the phone. It's too small so we will need to go in on St. Thomas and get a new one. With tomorrow being January 1st we will have to wait a day or so to get it replaced.

Once we were all checked in, we took off for the eastern side of St. John to sit out the coming storm. Reports we'd gotten in Antigua had a big blow due late today and it showed up right on schedule. For those of you that have read earlier posts, you know we've had an intermittent problem with our engine over heating. As we headed out into 15-18 knot winds on the bow, we gave the engine a bit to much power and after about an hour, the warning buzzer went off. Temps had climbed to over 205 degrees so we had to shut down the engine and reverse course for a different place to a couple of days and Christmas Bay, which we had already thought of was our place of choice. We had to sail through a narrow pass to get here but no problem and enough time had passed since we had turned off the engine that when started, the buzzer alarm kept quiet. We dropped the hook on the outside of where 20+ boats were either at anchor or on a mooring buoy. We found that some of the boats had dropped their anchors inside the mooring field, a big NO NO in the cruising world. Anchoring in a mooring field can lead to problems should your boat swing and the chain snatch at line and chain that goes to the mooring ball. It can make a big mess once you try and get your anchor back. We just got close and dropped the hook in 30+ feet of water and let our over 120 feet of chain and snubber. Don't think we are going anywhere but I set the anchor drag alarm just in case.

With tomorrow being a holiday, it may take us a few days to get a simm card that works and find a mechanic to fix the engine. I've done all that I know to do(checked a topped off the coolant, pulled the end caps off the heat exchanger(like a tubular radiator) and they were all clear, checked all the hoses(no kinks) and all the fan belts. The "raw" water that is pumped into the engine that is to cool the engines coolant is coming in just fine after checking it's filtration system. Water ∏∏s coming out the exhaust just fine. We'd thought it might have been one of the sensors was just bad but I used my infrared temp gauge and it showed the engine at over 205(not a good thing) so the mystery continues. We can run the engine with no problems as long as we keep the revs low so that at least gives us the mobility we need. Now we need to find a good mechanic that can work on it and make arrangements for be in a marina for him to do the work. We don't want to be in a marina and sit waiting endlessly for him to show up but that's to be done another day.

We've now spend a day here in Christmas Bay and have seen something we've never seen before. A takeout Pizza shop sitting here at anchor. It's called ∏ or PI to stand for Pizza Pie. A 16 inch pizza runs about $28US plus they have jalapeno poppers(cheese filled jalapenos covered in pizza dough and baked). They do a pretty good business with everything from dinghies to big power boats stopping by for a pizza. You can call them on the VHF radio or by phone. Several different types of pizza. They even deliver via their own dinghy!! Opwn 365 days a year from mid morning to early evening, boats are coming and going away happy. What a great idea setting up a 36 foot boat as a take away restaurant sitting out on a chain at a popular anchorage.

Today, we rested up and played some more Mexican Train dominoes(Tracy kicked my butt again) and took the old mainsail out of the bag it's been sitting in and stripped off all the old hardware. Every sail slide and ring, right down to the lines inside the leech and foot of the sail, it came off. Should something happen to the existing hardware on our new sail, we'll have a ready supply of new bits and pieced. If the wind ever slows down enough, we want to take a chunk of the old sail and make an awning for the stern deck but we need it calm enough so we can take measurements and take the sail someplace where we can lay it out to get what we need off it. There just isn't the room on board so we need some shore time and the sail is heavy enough, it's going to take some work. We've used the old style aluminum/plastic tarps in the past and while they have worked, it's time, since we have the fabric to make something better.

Boat come and go here in Christmas Bay. We finished out yesterday with 21 boats. Throughout the day, boats came and left and tonight, we have 28 so it's a busy little bay. All the moorings are taken and some more boats have gone inside the mooring field and dropped anchor there to get out of some of the winds and fetch that runs through the bay.

Tomorrow, we are off for Charlotte Amalie to see about finding a mechanic that can fix poor Zephyrs engine or at least diagnose what may be wrong. Plus we need to get the correct size simm card for out phone.

It's now Tuesday and we are now over at Charlotte Amalie safely at anchor after motoring over on Monday. It was a rolly trip over(a whole 7 miles)with swells and waved from passing boat smacking into our port side throwing us back and forth like a cork floating on ticked off water. We pulled in and dropped anchor in a nice place in the bay. It surprised us that the bay wasn't really that crowded. Lots of space for many more boats. Once anchored, we went in search of the correct size Simm card for our Samsung phone. We'd gotten one that was too small. The man at the AT&T stand inside K Mart got us taken care of and didn't charge us for the replacement card. Only problem was that it didn't work!!! We didn't boot up the phone til we were back on Zephyr. We were greeted by "no service". I got on the phone since it would let me talk to Customer Service and after an hour and lots of tinkering with the settings, we were up and running. Here's where it goes sideways. This morning, it wasn't working again and there seemed to be no way to raise the dead. Back to K Mart this morning for another go at it. The clerk changed out the Simm card and tried to get it to work. No go! I made calls to technical services, both beginner and advanced and all with the same thing. Our phone that we bought in South Africa and have used in a good 8 countries doesn't play nice with AT & T. In the end, we didn't even have any kind of service at all!!! It was dead and no one could raise it again now explain how they got it working last night and couldn't do it today. In total, we spent over THREE HOURS at the store and got nothing to show for it except that since we'd signed up for "prepaid" service, we would not gat our $80 back!!! There is small print in the contract that AT & T doesn't guarantee that all phones will work wit their system and if it doesn't, well we get to KEEP ALL YOUR MONEY!!!! In the end, we had to but another phone(it's only money after all) just so we didn't loose all our money!!! What a rip that is. SO DON'T SIGN UP FOR AT & T!!!! It's not worth the grief!

On our way back to Zephyr, we stopped at McDonalds and had a disappointing lunch. The Big Mac just doesn't seem to be what it used to be. Sad really. We got in touch with a locally recommended mechanic and while he was said to be "reasonable", his rates were $98US per hour plus he charged more if you were not tied up to a marina dock. He wasn't big on being ferried back and forth to the boat and would charge extra. We checked with a local marina and they only was $4.80 per foot per night to stay there. That's only $216US per night!!!!! Far and away the most expensive place we have ever seen--ANY WHERE!! Even if the mechanic charged more, there was no way he could cover the extra for staying in a marina. Tracy had put our a question on the Virgin Island Facebook page about recommendations for local mechanics and after the first one was so high, we went to visit one that came recommended. He works on the tourist "Pirate" style boats in the harbor. We dinghyed down and had a nice chat. Very nice guy. His thoughts were that we were getting air into the raw water coolant system and it wasn't allowing enough water into the coolant system to cool the engine. There maybe a small hole in one of the hoses and it's allowing air in so tomorrows job is to start replacing hoses, one in particular that brings water in from the through hull. I've seen water inside the engine room and I think it way be coming from that hose once the engine is shut off. I'll also be checking the raw water impeller just incase it's gone bad. Tomorrows going to be a fun day.