Departing the Caribbean
30 April 2010 | 18 25.6'N:064 36.6'W, British Virgin Islands
John & Mary
A local we met during one of our hikes.
Our time in the Caribbean is rapidly coming to an end and we are now focused on the next part of our journey, the Atlantic Crossing. We did, however, get out for one last cruise around the islands, including exploring the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. We sailed first to St. John in the USVI which is primary a US National park and is kept in immaculate condition with lots of small bays and white sandy beaches. There are well kept hiking trails with great views across to St. Thomas (also part of the USVI) and the British Virgin Islands. We then sailed across to Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas, where we ended up staying much longer than planned while we had our dinghy outboard motor fixed at the local Yamaha dealer. We had been warned about the high crime in St. Thomas and had heard about many dinghies being stolen a short time before we arrived. We were, therefore, much more careful in locking the boat up when we left her unattended. We enjoyed meeting other sailors in the anchorage and joined up in some of the early morning walks up to the top of the highest point of St. Thomas and back down followed by coffee (or tea) and exchanging experiences. We got a quick introduction to the best places to shop and how to get around cheaply on the "safari" buses and managed to purchase a number of items we needed for our upcoming Atlantic crossing.
We then left the harbour of Charlotte Amalie and headed for Puerto Rico. We had a good following wind and it was not long before we could see our intended destination - the island of Culebra. We located the narrow but well-marked entrance channel which took us around the reefs and finally into Ensenada Honda sound. We followed the Sound to the end and then anchored close to the town of Dewey. We cleared through customs and were a little surprised to find that customs wanted to know what food and drink we had on board as both Culebra and St. Thomas are US Territories, and we were only traveling between the two. The next day we walked around the town and enjoyed a great local bakery and a small fish restaurant. This was the first island that we had visited where English was not the first language which was a pleasant cultural change for us. We would have liked to have stayed much longer and toured the whole island but our time was running out and we needed to get back to Nanny Cay Marina in the British Virgin Islands to prepare for our departure to Europe. We are now back at Nanny Cay Marina and are frantically preparing for our Caribbean departure on the 6th May. Our planned itinerary is as follows:
6th May depart British Virgin Islands for Bermuda
19th May depart Bermuda for Azores
12th June depart Azores for Lagos, Portugal
All the boats taking part in the Rally will report their boat position in daily and it will be posted on the rally website. Therefore, anyone wishing to follow the boats progress across the Atlantic can log on to www.worldcruising.com/arceurope/. Then select the fleet viewer.
Hasta Luego