Monday

Happy Birthday to MO...on the 22nd!!!!!

January 25, 2010
Christiansted Harbor, St. Croix

It's been a long, long, long time since I've updated the blog, huh?  Maybe we were having toooo much fun????  Maybe sailing way toooo much????  Not really.....just doing what we do all day long on the boat and on the land where the boat just happens to be anchored! 

We arrived in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia  , on 12/29/2009  ....just in time for New Year's celebration....fireworks everywhere!  There are a zillion resorts along the shore and they all had some sort of fireworks display.....the only bad news is we happened to be downwind and caught alot of the debris on our deck....but no fires!
We did catch a big wahoo enroute to St. Lucia......not much of a fight after it nearly took the entire line on the first bite!  But we've enjoyed many dinners and still have some left in the freezer!
There was a big brush fire in the park involving the fort, but luckily it looked controlled by the local fire department and they just let it burn out. 
We met up with some friends that we met last Spring on "Unchained" , Susie and Bill, and also met some new friends on "Silk Pajamas".  The six of us went out for drinks and dinner at a little tiki hut restaurant on the grounds of the fort/park.  Nice people and again, a great time!
We hiked with "Silk Pajamas", Kristen and Terry, the following day....just up and around the hill on the South end of Rodney Bay.     Jim and Kristen were excited when they both saw the rare smallest snake in the world, the St. Lucian Thread Snake, slithering by.....I just jumped up on one leg and scoured the ground for more!!!  Luckily the snake was too fast for Jim to touch it! 
We said good-bye the following day to both boats....."Unchained" was going to hang around for another week so Sue could go on a "zip line" in the forest....one of her lifelong dreams!  What a cool woman!

Had a great sail to Martinique and anchored in Fort de France.  We had been here twice before, so it was familiar and easy to get around.  We did mostly provisioning and window shopping.  We did meet up with friends on "Tabby Cat", Sue and Mike.....we last saw them the day before we left Grenada.....they pulled in to the anchorage here in Martinique the day before we were leaving for St. Croix.  But we did have them over for cocktails, watching a beautiful sunset and sharing/swapping sea stories....until a rainstorm put an abrupt end to all the fun and we said our good-byes rather quickly!

We left Martinique on Saturday morning, 1/9/2010, to sail to St. Croix.    The weather was predicted with good winds from the East, but decreasing by Sunday evening.  That's exactly what happened....only a little earlier....and we ended up motorsailing Sunday night into the morning, arriving at St. Croix around 1030.  It was a nice sail....doing 3 hour watches during day and night.  I ended up with the 2100 to midnight and 0300 to 0600 shifts at night....which wasn't bad at all.  I had my nano IPOD playing pretty loudly.....even woke Jim up once from my horrible singing!!!!
Our autopilot stopped working Sunday morning.  It had been making some noise, especially coming back onto course after surfing down some waves that were hitting on our starboard stern. Luckily we had our windvane rigged and ready to go.....we just hadn't tried it yet.  The windvane is a long story........it's a Monitor windvane and I bought it years ago and had it on MURPH (my Bristol 32........)....but when I sold MURPH, I took it off and brought it along to put on Bees Knees.  We had it stored on the deck for a few years....then when Jim was in VE for the summer of 2008....he secured it to the stern of Bees Knees.    The past year we've been trying to figure out the best way to run all the lines to the steering wheel (not touching the teak!!!) and finally put all the extra stuff on when we were in Martinique!  It worked like MAGIC!!!!  It was quiet, didn't use any electrical energy....and was wonderful.  Until the wind died that evening and we had to hand steer all night into the next morning!
We fished the entire way, but didn't catch a thing....did lose one lure to a BIG fish (according to Jim!).  Sunday morning I enjoyed my sunrise watch with coffee and a huge pod of dolphins.    They were surfing on our bow wake, turning over and showing me their white bellies, jumping clear out of the water and just having fun.  I took way toooo many pictures, but alot of them are a blur.  No matter how many times we see them it's still pretty amazing!
On Monday morning we had another group come along also......zooming over, playing, then leaving us in their wakes!
We didn't have any problem entering the channel for Gallows Bay in St. Croix....even though there were publications warning about the reef that several boats had struck recently.  But in daylight hours, the reef is really visible and easy to avoid.  We checked into Customs by phone....and it's that easy...we're back in the USA! 
Not alot of cruisers make it to St. Croix and it's probably the best kept secret.  There seem to be alot of expats here....those that came and never left.....and not as much tourism as the other islands. 
We have been here two weeks today......moving from Gallows Bay to Christiansted Harbor and a day in Frederiksted. 
There is a nice bus system here ($1.00 for a ride)....and they have "taxi buses" ($2.50 for a ride).  The bus system has a schedule, but according to the locals...is not very strict.  But it's a nice ride, get to see the island, and it's cheap!  The taxi bus is hailed on the side of the road and costs more, but it's faster, not as many stops, and more direct route.  They also have taxis, but if you schedule a pick up, or go to a taxi stand and hire a taxi, it costs the standard rate which we've been told could be $40.  So....since we're not in a hurry....we ride the bus and occasionally pick up the taxi bus. 
So....we've been getting around the island pretty easily. 
Lucky for us....because we had to get a spare part for the autopilot!  There's a great company that makes beautiful catamarans for charter and crusing/racing called Gold Coast...and they make them right here on St. Croix in Salt River Bay.  So....Raymarine was to ship the part to them....which was a bit inconvenient for us...having to make two trips there by bus...but Jeff, the man who seemed to be in charge of finishing the beautiful catamarans, took us on a tour of their factory and was very helpful in having our part shipped quickly to their facility.  Jim had already fixed the broken part before the new part arrived.....but at least we now have a spare!
The other boat project included replacing the brushes on the generator.  We bought the generator from NexGen and they recommend checking the brushes every 500 hours for wear.  Ours were at a point to replace them.....again, an all day project.  But that's running smoothly once again!!  Whooohooo!  The other wonderful thing about NexGen is their tech support by email and phone....they are outstanding!
The Caribbean sun is getting to our stitching on the sunbrella that covers the bimini!   I've had to do some repairs....then more repairs....then a few more.  So...that's becoming an ongoing issue, but I try to reinforce the entire seam if it starts to tear out.  Luckily we purchased a Sailrite sewing machine last year and it makes the job soooo much easier!

We did make it to the Cruzan rum factory the other day.    Jim was a bit disappointed to find out that they don't use local sugar cane in their rum.....and since Jim Beam bought the company over 10 years ago....the full-strength rum is shipped back to Florida, diluted, bottled, then shipped back to St. Croix!  So.....it's brewed here, but not local product, and not local water and not bottled here.  But, we enjoyed the tour and had a few rum drinks at the end! 

We visited the Botanical Gardens in the "non rainforest".   Took alot of photos, once again  , and saw the leaf-eating caterpillars that I initially saw in Grenada a couple of years ago.  The woman that works in the gift shop gave us a lift back to Christiansted when she saw us standing at the bus stop!

We've had quite a nature adventure here.  We saw swimming horses in Gallows Bay....they have a racetrack here and they exercise the horses on hot days by swimming in the sea!  We're not even close to the horse latitudes!
We also have a resident perigrine falcon that visits nearly every evening....  sitting on our spreaders and making all kinds of noise!  There are also alot of turtles swimming around eating all the thallassia grass on the bottom of the sea!

Back in the USA and back to USA prices!  It's amazing how much more expensive it is here!  We're finding what everything costs in EC in Grenada, it costs in US dollars here and $1.00 = 2.68 EC.  So...we've gone out to dinner once at a Mexican restaurant, had lunch at a little dockside restaurant...and had breakfast in Frederiksted Sunday morning.  Otherwise just having great dinners onboard, eating outside in the cockpit, watching the sunset.
The only downside to this anchorage is the loud noise from the seaplanes departing and arriving and going right off our stern!  Kinda cool the first time, but really is loud at 0600 every AM. 

So.....we plan to head off to St. Thomas tomorrow, weather permitting.  Jim's daughter, Lauren, is scheduled to arrive on Thursday for a long weekend....and will probably head to St. John's and back over that time.

Hope you're all staying warm in the tundra regions of the US!!!!! 

Bye for now!