Trip to Virgin Islands - conclusion

I had planned to write this blog post in ‘real time’ as we were crossing the 500 miles from Turks and Caicos to the Virgin Islands. It turns out that the seas and winds were such that using the computer wasn’t really part of the daily activity. Down below, the movement was such that if I were to focus on the screen, I would certainly get sick and up in the cockpit, the conditions were not the type that you’d want to take a computer that you’d care about. There was a lot of salty spray. So, here I am, in St. Thomas – sitting in perfectly flat water – writing the blog entry.

When I got up on Friday morning in Turks and Caicos, our plan was to leave on Saturday. Knowing that weather changes often, I’d suggested that we do our provisioning on Thursday in case the weather were to change to a favorable departure for Friday. We did this, so when I discovered while online early Friday morning that the weather had improved and that we should leave soon – all we had to do was settle up our marina bill, fill the water tanks and get the hell out of Dodge.

Since the entry into/out of the Turtle Cove Marina is a winding, 9 turn 2 mile trip over and through coral that was only partially marked, we had a ‘pilot’ lead us out. By 11am EST, we cleared the coral reef and were on our way.

We would need to spend the next 12 hours going around the northern end of Turks and Caicos before we were able to set our course for St. Thomas. Looking at the weather, we weren’t sure if we’d be able to take a rhumb line (straight) course to St. Thomas or if we’d need to head to Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico to get out of big seas and strong winds. The decision to try the shortest course to St. Thomas and then be prepared to run downwind to safe harbor - if necessary-was made.

Around 11pm on Friday night, we made our last waypoint off the northern tip of Grand Turk island and headed the 400+ miles – straight line- to St. Thomas.

The winds at this point weren’t too strong – probably hanging in the 10-13 knot range, but the seas were certainly rolly – with occasional swells reaching 8-10 feet. For those reading this who aren’t familiar with the way open water seas work – it’s not at all the way it looks at the beach. A 10 foot wave at the beach is a destructive force because its energy is being concentrated into an upwelling oval by the shape of the bottom of the sea near shore. Out in the open ocean there’s nothing to change the shape of the waves – until the wind starts to pickup. When the wind picks up, it makes the shape of the wave change. Depending on how much it picks up, the ‘downwind’ side of the wave can turn very steep. At this point in the trip, this was not the case and we just motorsailed into the wind and seas. It was not uncomfortable for the most part, but with the combination of the boat rolling from side to side and up and down, you couldn’t move around anywhere in the boat without holding tightly onto something.

Our first nigh out of Turks and Caicos, we had the full moon. It was an especially large moon because it was the closest that the moon gets to the earth in it’s orbit – while still being full. It made for a very enjoyable first night – there was no time that we couldn’t see the waves.
The sunsets every night were awesome!!

As we continued the passage, over the next 3 days there would be conditions ranging from 6 foot seas with 10 knots – to 10+ foot seas and winds in the 20-25 knot range. At no time did we have any conditions that were dangerous or even bordering on dangerous, but for most of the trip, it was just uncomfortable.
I tried very hard to get a photo that would show the size of the seas that we were in. None of them really do, but if you notice in this photo, you can't see the horizon - that's because the 10 ft swell that's coming toward the boat.

As mentioned in a previous post, Bill had given me the master berth for sleeping. The master berth non Prana is the V berth in the very front of the boat. With the conditions we were in for 3 nights, it was not the place to be if you wanted to get sleep. The Beneteau slapped the waves pretty hard as the bow pitched on the backside of the wave and it sounded like someone was hitting the underside of the boat with a large sledge hammer – over and over again all night. Along with the pounding, I was getting weightless in the V berth as the bow of the boat would fall from wave top to trough. It was nearly comical – if I hadn’t been so tired. Pretty much the only sleep I got during this passage was in the cockpit or on the settee berth when Bill was on watch and not utilizing it. This made for a tiring passage.

When the sun came up on Monday, the tall mountains on Puerto Rico was visible off of our starboard side and by 9 am, we could see the outline of St. Thomas out in front of us. We entered the St. Thomas waters on the NW side of the island around 1:30pm and it took us a couple of hours to get around the island – moving counter clockwise and into the Charlotte_Amalie area where we tied to the seawall and walked to Customs and Immigration. It was after 4 by the time we were done there and we then motored over to Crown Bay to get into a slip. After tying up to the dock and plugging in the power, then turning on the air conditioning, we went to ‘Tickles’ for burgers and drinks.

As I fell into the berth that night – with the low humidity of the a/c running and the lack of motion of the boat, I slept better than I remember in a long time.

Tuesday morning, we took care of washing the boat down to get the salt off of it, taking the head sail down and taking it to the sail maker for repair, plus Bill needed to go to the Port Authority to register his new dingy.

3 of the 5 cruise ships that were at dock in St. Thomas

Around 11:30, we cast off the docklines and headed for St. John (the next large island to the east) where we stopped by the National Park Service dock in Cruz Bay so that Bill could get his boat inspected. Bill is going to be a ‘Bay Host’ in the VI National Park this season while he is here, so he has some hoops to jump through to accomplish that. A nice fellow named Dave – complete with his full ‘batman utility belt’ – with gun, mace, tazer, radio, handcuffs etc came aboard and made sure Bill had all the necessary safety equipment.

Heading into Francis Bay
Afterward, we headed on around to Francis Bay where Bill will be based out of for the season. After grabbing a mooring and putting the outboard engine on the dingy, we headed over to a really cool place called Maho Campground. It’s a campground built into the hillside with rigid framed tents erected permanently on platforms with decking style walkways heading out to each camp area. At the top of the hill is the main area where there are a couple of gift shops, a provisioning area, some working areas and a very interesting restaurant. We had dinner at the restaurant which was very good and reasonably priced. The view from the restaurant was quite panoramic.
This is the beach at Francis Bay.


This is taken from the deck of the restaurant which is probably about 400 feet above the beach>

After dinner, I stopped into the art gallery and bought Jan a sea glass necklace. As we started down the hill, I notice the working area and that they were having glass blowing demos. This glass blowing area is actually a revenue making place and they are happy to let you know what and why they are doing as they make things to sell all over the island out of 100% recycled stuff. It was neat. Jan is really into glass blowing and I know she would have really liked seeing it.
Glassblower at work.

After that, we started down the hundreds of steps to the beach, but it was pitch black and you couldn’t see anything. Luckily, I remembered my camera in my pocked and I was able to turn it on and use the LED viewfinder as a dim flashlight to light up the steps. If I hadn’t had the camera with me, I think we may have been working on way down those meandering steps until sunup.

Getting the dingy beach started in the total darkness was quite a job. We had some small breaking waves on the beach, and I needed to stow my camera before we started pulling the dingy into the waves, so it was really super dark. Bill and Gene got into the dingy and Bill was trying to start it while I was holding it pointed into the waves. It was a little while before we got it started and the dingy had a bit of water in it before we actually got underway.

Wednesday, we got up and Gene fixed breakfast. We just hung out in the boat while Bill tended to some boat stuff. Around 1:30p, we headed toward Red Hook on the East end of St. Thomas. We tied up to the fuel dock and fueled Prana. Afterward, I said goodbye, caught a cab to the airport and then caught a flight back to the states.

This is the first boat delivery I’ve been on. It may sound funny, but there’s a difference between a delivery and a sailing trip. A sailing trip is about fun and exploration. A boat delivery is about getting a boat from point A- to point B. A normal trip of this sort should be done over the period of 2 months to 2 years – depending on how in depth one wants to get to know an area. Of course, a sailing trip is more fun, but I was very happy to be a part of the delivery of “Prana” from Florida to it’s new home in the Virgin Islands!

Here's 4 short videos from the passage: