We feel that it’s been so long ago that we’ve posted anything but then we look back and see it was just two weeks ago. Just seems that so much of nothing has happened in two weeks. At our last blog we were still in Leverick Bay enjoying the deserted beach on Mosquito Is. while Moma Cal had gone to Nanny Cay to have their fridge looked at. The next morning as we left our anchorage we learn that Moma Cal has already left for St. Thomas so we sailed to Roadtown instead where we needed to do some provisioning. The sail over was a great downwind sail and several boats of all descriptions on the move to various destinations.

We take some time to get a good anchorage in the very small inner harbour in Road Town. We catch a glimpse of Sir Richard Branson's huge catamaran Necker Belle, docked at the marina. Road Town is the home of the Moorings, Sunsail and Footloose boat charters and there are literally hundreds of boats with there blue sail covers lined up like foot soldiers ready to be sent out.

The next day had us heading around the south side of St Johns...our destination St. Thomas. Taking the south side exposes us to open breezes on the Caribbean side and hopefully some more lively sailing than the more sheltered north passage. As we head out we come across another Corbin similar to ours and heading the same direction. After about 20nm of sailing, we choosing the outer line and he going more a direct rump line down wind our paths cross within 100’ as we enter the harbour of Charlotte Amalie. There are two cruise ships in town today and the IGY marina is full of privately owned mega yachts including Sea Wolfe, a 190ft renovated ocean tug owned by Ottawa entrepreneur Michael Potter who dropped by our boat later the next day to say hello to fellow Canadians.

Doug and Cherry are expecting his brother and his wife (Jim and Elaine) to join them for a week but a freak winter snow storm in Atlanta, Georgia has them delayed a day so off we go and explore the shops in town. They even have a good music store and I’m able to pick up some new books. When Jim and Elaine arrive they’re ready to make up for their lost day and off to Blackbeard’s Castle we go. We do the entire tour including the 99 steps and the rum tasting. Somewhere between our 2nd or 3rd rum drink we decide that it would be a great idea to go to Culebra, Puerto Rico for a few days so we can visit with and take advantage of our friends Bob & Judy’s excellent knowledge of football to watch the Superbowl.

The next day we head out, dead downwind in about 10ft seas. I try not to think about the trip back...that’s for another day. Today we are looking forward to surprising our friends we haven’t seen for a few weeks as we sail into the bay with horns blasting. Bob is still installing his watermaker and I spend the entire next day over at his boat to help out. It’s always fun drilling holes in other peoples boats and leaving without doing a final cleanup.The Superbowl game was a bit of a bust for our friends who were cheering for Denver but I won $125 on a $5 pool so we were happy with that. Of course we couldn’t leave Culebra without spending one day at Flamenco Beach. As the eight of us are sitting on our lawn chairs looking out at the bay we see our friends Brett and Theresa on Seismic Wave and Richard and Jen on Our Rose sail by on route around the island.

The next day after saying our goodbyes once again, but not before Richard of Our Rose generously came over with his scuba tanks to change my zincs below the boat, Moma Cal and ourselves headed out to the island of Culebrita. This is a nearby island that we had hoped to visit last time we were in this area but missed. We took the only two mooring balls available in a sheltered bay on the west side of the island. Almost immediately the landing party of six were out exploring the trails that lead to the abandoned lighthouse. As hikes go it was a easy one to the top of the hill which gave us a tremendous view all around the island. It’s sad to see what was once a splendid lighthouse be allowed to deteriorate to this state. The light is now replaced with a solar powered flashing LED which tower we hadn’t even noticed until later that night while back at the boat looking up. We all agreed we are lucky to have seen this historic site now since we’re sure it won’t last too much longer.

The next day it was off again, this time with a packed lunch, in search of the bubbly pools at the north/east corner of the island. These things are lots of fun as we wait for the huge waves from the Atlantic to come crashing over the rocks and fill the shallow pools that we are in. On the way back Donna and I notice some concrete foundations and pay them no attention. We arrive back where our dinghies are and wonder what is keeping the others. When they arrive we learn that Super Doug has been in action once again, this time rescuing three goats from the bottom of the foundations! Apparently Cherry had gone over to look down into the foundations when she saw the poor things stuck at the bottom and unable to get out. One was completely tangled in vines and near suffocation. Of course Elaine and Cherry photographed the entire rescue for proof.

Finally the dreaded trip back against the wind came the next morning. Luckily the wind was somewhat down and the waves were no larger than 6 or 7ft. Still it made for a lot of bashing and we were happy to be back in St. Thomas once again.

As Doug and Cherry said goodbye to their friends Donna and I settled in to some much needed maintenance work on Kathrian. Stainless cleaning, hull cleaning, fix the watermaker part that broke during the crashing, fix the leak in our dinghy, refill our propane tank and buy a new second tank, laundry, buy and install a proper fuel filter for the dinghy, was all on the ‘to do’ list. By Monday night we were fed up with that and we provisioned and made plans once again to leave in the morning, this time to St. Croix. We are hoping for a 35nm beam reach to the island least visited of the USVI’s. As we leave in the morning we soon find the wind and waves have us at a very close haul. Even though the wave height and wind is down we don’t look forward to 5-6hrs of into the wind sailing and we tack off to a new destination of ‘somewhere’ St. Johns.

As I write this blog and try to remember all the nothing we’ve done over the past couple of week we are on a mooring ball in a small bay with 5 other boats. NO beach bars, NO hotels, NO houses, NO cruise ships, NO anything but 16’ of crystal clear water and some of the largest turtles we’ve seen yet bobbing up for air as they swim by.