At anchor in Coral Bay
May 28: It's 5:45am, and we're at anchor in Coral By, St. John, USVI as I write this. Jean and I sailed over from St. Croix yesterday. We left Salt River about 9:15; that was a late start, but traffic was jammed by two accidents in the eight miles between home and the kennel where we left Edgar. In any case, we were here before 5pm. It would have been sooner, but I made an error programming waypoints into Alec's GPS and we made a detour almost to Virgin Gorda. Fortunately the resulting run down the south side of the BVI was gentle and we were able to relax. The beat NE from St. Croix had been much more strenuous. Although the winds only clocked 12-14 mph, there was white capping and a short swell -- not at all the conditions the weather report led me to expect. We averaged better than 7 knots of boat speed with the 155 genoa up. Jean and I took turns steering. I got a little seasick going below to figure out my navigational error; I felt better after Jean told me where we were.
At anchor in Coral Bay
We anchored in shallow water on the east side of Coral Bay, near a beach if we decide to go ashore. It would be a long walk around the bay to the small commercial district. I don't see any docks where we could tie-up even temporarily. Jean heated up chicken and pasta for supper and I found a bottle of Jack Daniels someone had left on the boat. We made cellphone calls to Valerie and to Roger and retired quite early. There was a pretty good band playing somewhere on the other side of the bay, but they shut down when a thundershower rolled through. I was awake to close the hatches, but some of our hanging laundry got a fresh water rinse. So did I, for that matter. The sun will be over the hill soon, and I think I'll take some pictures. Plans for the rest of the day are open.
Jean sailing out of Coral Bay
May 29: The winds were fresh, ESE, in the Bay but more easterly in open water. We took only a short sail, main only, past LeDuc Island and almost over Eagle Shoal (which showed as green water and was marked with a small red bouy) and around Ram's Head to Lameshur Bay. There was only one other boat there, so we had our choice of Park Service moorings. The water is deep until you're close to shore, and then it's coral and large rock. Definitely not a good place to anchor.
I took two long swims and a shorter one with Jean. I saw a ray, a turtle, starfish and a live conch. We napped and read for the rest of the day after setting a rainfly for shade. After dark, Jean noticed tiny phosphorescent fish around our boat. They looked like fireflies! When we shone a light into the water a three foot fish (nurse shark or tarpon?) came up from under our boat to strike at it.
I had to get up in the night to snub some noisy halyards and didn't sleep that well.
Our "crowded" mooring in Lameshur Bay
May 30: We left Lameshur Bay at 8:40 this morning after motoring to the Park Service dock to pay our mooring fee. The men repairing the research station there let us put our trash in their dumpster, and there are no other facilities. The direct course to Christiansted was 190 degrees, and I'd hoped for a broad reach, but the wind was a little south of East and we were beating obliquely in rather confused four foot seas for the first four hours. The ride was smoother when we went down to 210 degrees, which took us right to Salt River. It was not quite 2:00 when we entered the channel -- 38 miles in 5:20.
We unloaded the boat and went to Columbus Cove for water, frozen drinks and lunch. After giving the boat a cursory rinse, we drove home for a dip in the pool and a three hour nap. We drank over eight quarts of water plus all the soda we had on board; we had more water on board and should have drunk it. Jean and I again took hourly turns on the helm, checking the GPS every half hour. That worked well. We didn't worry about dishes, laundry or cooking on this short trip, but it still counts as our first passage, and we know now that we can take the first step to the rest of the islands!