St. Thomas
31 January 2014 | USVI
. We met a very nice couple on the dock, Ilda and Doug from Vancouver last night in Nanny Cay.
DAY 31 - January 27th 2014 - Nanny Cay
Ilda came by in the morning for a chat, about their travels, where they live and what they are going to do from now on. They have sold their boat which they normally keep in Trinidad where she is from and are planning on traveling further afield. Got stuck into work and did not raise my head until about 6.30pm, my eyes were sore and I was tired but had completed everything I needed to. This afternoon our friendly Fridge guy Alfred dropped by and worked with Doug on our fridge, keeping our fingers crossed that we may have solved the problem. Later we went off for a walk to stretch and ended up at Mulligans, a beach bar just outside of the marina gate for a snack, they had a great big TV screen set up on the sand, note a great place for Super Bowl coming up.
DAY 32 - January 28th 2014 - St.Thomas - USVI 18 20.262N:064 55.683W
Doug thought it best to check out of the BVI at Sopers Hole, our month is up and we have to get to St. Thomas to pick up Elaine and Jim tomorrow. A quick motor round the corner and we were at Sopers which as usual, is another place that I absolutely adore but the mooring balls are hard to come by and the anchorage is too deep for us to throw out the anchor. After hanging around and a few others jumping in and grabbing balls that should have been ours, we notice one free but out of nowhere came a Catamaran with four seniors aboard heading for our ball, well the annoyance in Doug came to a for, he put the pedal to the metal and he jumped up and yelled "excuse me". I was on the bow and told them that we had been waiting for an hour and this was ours. They graciously backed away. Wow Doug angry, not often seen but funny. Grabbed our mooring ball and relaxed. After a while the ever aware Doug who had noticed this boat with all women on still trying to find a ball, Doug to the rescue, hopped into dinghy and headed out to show them one that had come available just by us. Then he dropped me off to get groceries while he went over and checked out. When we got back on the boat, Doug said we may as well head over to St. Thomas to avoid paying for a mooring; we have not paid for a mooring ball since being in Cooper Island. Another great sail past St. John and as we rounded the East end of St. Thomas the rollers and waves got quite large, so nice to be going down wind. A few came up behind us as high as the barbecue, obviously they do not go over us but they lift the stern up and we surge forward. Dinghy had a great time, once she actually overtook us as she surfed the waves, once into the channel we doused the sail and anchored in about 17 feet of water. We decided not to try and check in tonight in case the office was closed..
DAY 33 - January 29th 2014 - St.Thomas
The main harbour at Charlotte Amalie is very rocky with all the ships, ferries and wind but we still had a quiet night, Doug was up at dawn to watch three ships dock. We headed over to immigration by 9am and were chatting to the officer there who we remembered from our March 2013 time here when In came a girl who wanted to check in a freight ship, after a while I mentioned that Kellie was doing the paperwork on freight ships now and low and behold this girl knew Bill who Kellie works for and was just checking in a ship that had been sent over from Puerto Rico, another small world moment. Back to dinghy all around Charlotte Amalie, dropped by AT&T to top up my account and then over to cruise pass the three ships, one being the Disney ship Fantasia. As we passed the mega yachts we could see this young lad up on the bow cleaning this huge silver Phoenix, which was the boats name and is owned by a Polish Millionare. Alongside we were able to look in the garage, there must have been three tenders all about 25ft to 30ft tucked very nicely in there on conveyor belts, amazing. Once back on Moma we heard from Elaine and Jim about their flight changes. Atlanta was snowed in and they had to fly to New York and would be here tomorrow. Donna and Jack arrived about 15.00pm; we had not been with them for a few days and it was good to see them again.
DAY 34 - January 30th 2014 - St. Thomas
After our morning coffee, a quick tidy up of Moma Cal to prepare for our guests and then we headed ashore to go to the airport. At the dock we grabbed a Safari Taxi which is supposed to take us very close to the airport, only a five minute walk. It took about 15 minutes walking along the side of the runway where we saw the Delta flight arrive and we waved just in case they were looking out of the window which apparently they were not. Then caught another taxi back (without the walk) and Elaine and I stayed ashore while Doug and Jim took the bags back to the boat.
DAY 35 - January 31st 2014 - St. Thomas
We had walked up the 99 steps (really 103) to Blackbeard's Castle back in April last year and it was closed, so we thought we would try again today. It really is a very pretty walk up the steps and the castle was open. We enjoyed the view across Charlotte Amalie by the pool, (who knew that Blackbeard had a pool) and waited for Donna and Jack to join us and then took the self-guided tour back down through the homes and museums of pirates and ended up at the Hotel 1829 to sample rum. After sampling a few shots a walk downtown through the cobble streets trying on diamonds for the girls while the boys headed to Blackbeard's Pub. Donna and I bought new hats, very smart we were.