As planned we stayed Sunday at Esperanza, doing odd jobs, cleaning, swimming & Steve had a couple of surfs on his new board which he says is excellent – good news!
Monday we had a long walk on the beach beside Esperanza around Sun Bay – lovely walk & lovely water in the bay. This is a popular camping spot too... it was great to see tents pitched under the palm trees. We headed out of Esperanza & along the coast to find a new anchorage. We only went a couple of miles to an anchorage outside Puerto Mosquito – a phosphorescent bay. This Mosquito Biobay is renowned for the density of bioluminescent plankton in its waters so we decided to anchor here & wait for dark before we went into the bay to have a look at the colour. Waited until about 8.30pm then took Mr Slappy up into the bay. Once you enter the bay no motors are allowed so we had to row the last 100 metres or so. There were definitely green sparkles in the water, but not as much as we had hoped! It was fun fluffing around for 30 minutes or so anyway watching the sparkles off the oars & the outboard as we rowed around. Back to Pannikin then to discover our anchorage had become very rolly. We decided to head up the coast to Ensenada Honda a really large bay that is secure in all weather conditions. It took us about one & half hours to motor up there, but was well worth it. This is the first anchorage in a very long time where Pannikin has not been affected by swell of some kind. It is a lovely spot.
Tuesday we stayed at Ensenada Honda – we had the whole bay to ourselves – it is very tranquil & remote. Lots of jobs were done – cleaning & changing water maker filters, defrosting the fridge, cleaning & mopping Pannikin and a general tidy up under the lounge where things always get stashed for want of a better place to stow them and again trying to find leaks in Mr Slappy. We are having not much luck in getting him to stay pumped up for long periods of time. Burgers for dinner with Steve’s homemade buns – they are becoming a favourite! Especially when we have found canned beetroot!
Wednesday we were up early & heading out of Ensenada Honda at 8am back to St Thomas. We had a great sail arriving at the anchorage off Crown Bay Marina at about 1pm. Ange managed to polish nearly all the stainless steel on the way – another good job almost out of the way. Caught 3 barracuda on our way across! We took Mr Slappy across to the marina & did some laundry... it’s nice not having to do sheets & towels by hand all the time! We spent the afternoon having a swim & watching the two huge cruise ships tied alongside the wharf preparing to leave. One was of the “Princess Line” like The Love Boat & they played the TV music as they left – it was pretty cool.
Today we are stocking up on groceries & drinks & will probably head to an anchorage somewhere on the west coast of St John as the wind is predicted to blow from the ENE at 25 knots for the next day or two. Then onto the BVIs again for a while.