November 21, 2006
Tuesday
Christmas Cove, St.
James Island ,
USVI
18.18.629N; 64.49.987W Sailed
440NM
First, a few final thoughts about Bonaire . It is by far the cleanest place we have ever
visited. You do not see even a cigarette
butt on the streets. The local people
are nice and friendly. The water is
unbelievably clear and clean. We would
recommend Bonaire to anyone who has thoughts
of visiting that area.
Now, our passage from Bonaire to The Virgins:
Thousands upon thousands of gorgeous boat stars, a tiny
sliver of moon, Milky Way so thick that it looked like a cloudy white ribbon
draped across the sky – it was a great passage!
We were able to make the trip on one straight tack from the northwest
tip of Bonaire to St. Croix on a course of
048, sailing the entire time with double or triple reefed mainsail, genoa and
mizzen. Winds were sustained 20 knots
for the entire trip – except for a few 35 knot gales which we managed just
fine. Waves and swell were mostly only
6-8 feet, with the occasional 15-18 footer about every tenth wave. The seawater splashing over the starboard
side of the boat began to get pretty annoying.
The winds were consistent from 106 (ESE) all the way until
7:30 p.m. last night, when they clocked northerly by about 5 to 10 degrees –
just enough that we had to motorsail about half of the night. But we would have had to motorsail during
that period regardless of wind direction because we dodged squall after squall. We were close-hauled as tightly as possible
for the entire trip up until that point; the needle nestled firmly in the
bottom of the green indicator.
The radar reflector broke loose and destroyed our flag
halyards. It was banging against the
mast and probably chipped the paint, but that was during a gale and we weren’t
about to go out on deck just to untangle and remove the radar reflector. After the winds calmed back down to 20 knots,
then Bill went on deck and retrieved the radar reflector without incident.
The only other “issue” during this passage was that the
water sensor in the front bilge went off 4 times. Bill had installed this water sensor as soon
as we moved onto the boat. This forward
bilge is part of a watertight compartment and does not flow to the sump
bilge. We wanted to know if any water intruded
into the front part of the boat before it reached the level of the cabin
sole. Well, this little water sensor
really works! It is extremely loud and
persistent. Each time there was only a
few tablespoons of water in the forward bilge; Bill solved the problem by
packing the area with disposable baby diapers.
Now we need to find out where this tiny amount of water is entering from
(two possibilities: the seals around the bow thruster or the through-hull for
the depth sensor). According to our Amel manuals, there is an
adjustment for the bow thruster height when it is raised to seal; and we
probably need to adjust this a tiny bit higher for a tighter seal. We replaced the seals last May, so we know
the seals are not worn. BTW, the last
two homes that we owned had wooden floors in the kitchen; and we used these
same type water sensors under the kitchen sink areas. Would recommend these sensors to anyone
either in a boat or in a home with any type floors that could be damaged by
water intrusion.
We reached St. Croix about 7:30 this morning, and we could
have forced onward to Tortola . But Judy was really tired of having her world
tilted 25 degrees, so Bill agreed to change to an easier course (beam reach)
and tilt the boat only 10-15 degrees; and we anchored here in the USVI at
Christmas Cove at 2:30 p.m. Trip total
was 61.5 hours; 440 NM; average boat speed 7.15 knots. Not bad for sailing against the wind.
We gave the deck and all the stainless steel a quick fresh
water rinse with our extra long hose just before we reached St. James Island . While
doing this, we discovered two flying fish that Judy is saving in the freezer to
use as bait the next time we trail a fishing line. That explained the thumps that Judy heard
last night during her watch from 8:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. We did not trail any fishing lines on this
passage because neither of us wanted to deal with cleaning a fish. It is great to have a large capacity
desalinator watermaker so we can use water this way. The boat was not the only thing coated in
salt spray. Our first showers since
Saturday night were so, so nice in the air-conditioned comfort of our boat at
anchor. Bill turned on the
air-conditioning as soon as the anchor was down. We want to sleep in comfort tonight!
One thing that we learned from our first multiple day
passage is what to do about food next time.
We need to have very small servings of bland foods ready to put into the
microwave without any preparation required, no even mixing two things
together. Just put it into the microwave
and eat single small serving from the same container. Neither of us wanted to eat more than about
four bites of anything at any one time.
Also, yogurt is a great food for passages. Definitely need to bring more yogurt. Also need to bring plain cookies and
crackers, in individual serving packets.
Two cookies or crackers would be all that either of us would eat at any
one time. The motion drastically reduces
your appetite.
Sailing to windward is not the most pleasant point of sail. The passage would have been far more enjoyable
if we had gone to Puerto Rico or Dominican Republic (beam reach),
but we prefer to be in the USVI and the BVI for the next couple of months or
so. So we toughed it out and did the
close-haul route.
We paid a temporary import fee last January 24th
or so which allows us to have our boat in BVI waters as much as we want for one
year, instead of the normal time restriction.
So we plan to clear into the BVI with an anticipated clearance date of
about January 24. That doesn’t mean we
will definitely stay in the BVI that long, but it at least gives us the option
to do so if we choose. We really want to
spend months in the French islands before next hurricane season.
We have always liked Christmas Cove. We think it is possible that this might have
been our very first anchorage way back when we first started chartering boats
down here in the 1980s. We definitely
remember that we anchored here on our final night of that first charter. We also remember that we went on the left
side of the rocks in the middle of the channel in front of Christmas Cove when
headed north, which was the WRONG thing to do.
You should always pass on the right side of the rocks when headed north. We are including a photo of a boat wrecked on
these rocks (we did not take this photo).
Every years several boats are lost on these rocks when people try to
pass on the wrong side. We were very
lucky that we did not go aground in that charter boat.
All in all, we are very glad to be back in this area for
awhile. We know this area so well that
it is almost like coming home.
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