We escaped from Charlotte Amalie, USVI
26 January 2017 | Little Lamshur Bay
Bill/ partly cloudy
We finally did it!!! We left Charlotte Amalie late this morning and headed out for St.John. To be specific, Little Lamshur, a small cove next to Greater Lamshur along the south coast.
Before leaving, we went to shore where I walked up to K Mart to see about getting our phone redone as it expires on the 31 and we don't plan on being in Charlotte Amalie then. From what the sales person told me, yes we can put the money into our account but because it's five days before it can be applied, AT&T will take out a bunch in taxes so there wouldn't be enough in the account when it came time to renew. We have to come back around the 31 to get the account up and running again as that's the day it ends, both phone as well as internet. We still have 1.6 gigs left so we're fine to the end of the month.
Once I was done with AT&T, I hiked up to the post office, gave them my name and the tracking number for our package and waited while they fetched it. I'd been in yesterday but they couldn't find it. This time, with the tracking number they could and they did. It had been miss filed. Away I went with a nice new raw water filter for Zephyr. It was time for a new one and the current just wasn't doing the job. Tracy had stayed behind at the Pueblo Super Market getting some last minute provisions. We got back together and headed back to Puff for the ride home.
We stowed everything and unbowed the new raw water filter only to find that the plastic basket inside it that actually filters the water was broken. I called Defender(company we bought it from) and they asked for a picture and it would be taken care of. In the end, about an hour later we did get notification that they were sending out a new filter basket and we should have it in about a week. It may say "Three Day Priority Mail" but you don't come anywhere close to the three days they "promise".
Any how, we pulled up the anchor and took off heading east, pretty much straight into the wind(about 8 knots) and a foot+ swell. Little Lamshur is about 13 miles east of Charlotte Amalie so with the winds and seas against us, it was going to take about 3+ hours to get there and that's exactly what happened. We had snacks along the way to stave off the hunger.
Being in a National Park in St.John, we have to take a mooring buoy instead of anchoring as it's not allowed so as to protect the coral and grasses that grow on the bottom. We're not a big fan of moorings but they get regular maintenance so not that big a deal. Since we were not using our anchor, it was the perfect time to install a new anchor swivel I'd ordered in. Made by Mantus, it's a great piece of engineering. We've had the same steel swivel on the anchor and chain for years but felt it was time for a new one. Our home depends on the connection between the anchor and the chain so should it break, we could loose it. Not a good thing. I've been looking at the Mantus swivel for quite sometime. At $85,it's not cheap but if it will protect our home and allows the anchor chain to swivel easily(taking out the kinks) we finally bought it and had it shipped in. I've just been waiting for a few days for when the anchor was up and I could install it. I've posted a picture of it to this post and will add a few more of the earlier swivel we've been using. It's put up with a lot from us and has never fail other than loosing a cotter pin that I quickly replaced. It's going to be interesting to see how it works once we get to anchor again and that probably won't be till we get back to Charlotte Amalie in a few days.
There are three other boats in our little cove but just about everyone moves every day or other day as it costs $13.00 per night to stay on the mooring. I expect we will stay one more night and then move on. We have to go the the next cove(Greater Lamshur) to pay for our stay but that's for tomorrow.