The Adventures of the Peeps on Andromeda of Plymouth: April 2014

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Swans to the left of me, Oysters to the right...........

Swans to the left of me..... Oysters to the right ....Beneteaus stuck in the middle with .........
(courtesy of Gerry Raffety).

We have missions to follow, and, yes, the world is a little more orange!

So with the auto-pilot installed and the alternator fixed, we planned to head off to the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands before heading north once more. We had eventually set off from Trinidad with the idea that we would spend at least a month in the Virgin Islands, 4 weeks cruising then at least a week in Tortola before leaving for Bermuda, in the meantime we had spent 3 weeks in St. Martin....... However we also hadn’t planned on lunch – well, several actually. We set off for a provisioning shop and ended up having a delicious and enormous smoked salmon salad with Chris and Sharon – that took out the rest of the day! Three of us had the Norwegian salmon and each was presented differently, a very nice touch, but much, much bigger than anticipated – this was in Mark’s Place on the way to Phillipsburg. Ok, next day we’ll try again, and less on the lunch.

On a final raid on the chandlers we saw two very nice orange chairs for the cockpit that had just arrived in Budget Marine – they must have known we’d be around.

Then strong winds combined with a large northerly swell were forecast, well we have things to do...... ok, we’ll try tomorrow. Next day called by Chris and Sharon who said that as we actually hadn’t gone yet why not join them for lunch in Marigot on the French side of the island – ok, sounds good. Second call, Piano (Sue and Malcolm) are here and they are coming too. Buses were caught, radios used and we all met up-it was good to be together again. Malcolm and Sue were here for some batteries and had just sailed up from St. Lucia. With winds still high and swell fairly steep, we decided to wait until Monday, when after another lunch, (we are now “cruisers wot do lunch”!) (), we cleared out, paid our dues and with the excellent assistance of the dock crew left our B15 berth in a bit of a stiff wind. We pottered around the lagoon for a short while before leading the charge through the 4 o’clock bridge, out of the lagoon, off into the sunset and the Virgin Islands.

Chris and Sharon are meeting friends in St. Croix, the southern most of the US Virgin Islands, Malcolm and Sue head back to St. Lucia to meet their third guest of this season, while we planned to head overnight for St. John, reputed to be the most scenic of the islands and mostly a nature reserve. We hope to meet Quicksilver once again before our early May departure from Nanny Cay on Tortola.

The trip to the Virgin Islands began quite smoothly but before long the sea was rolly again, we had the genoa out and the mizzen up and were making steady progress. It was a much busier night too, there were vessels passing us in all directions, it felt a bit like Piccadilly Circus. During the night a bird (we think it was a booby) attempted to land on the boom several times. It came and went and came and went several times and then things quietened down. That it was a bird we were quite sure about but the colour was difficult to determine. Anyway on we sailed and thought no more about it. Then, just off Virgin Gorda (at dawn) our passenger decided to leave us – it had been roosting on the boom, but we could not see it. The cheek of it – all the way from St. Maarten to the Virgin Islands and not a word of thanks nor payment for the passage – just a bit of poo on the deck! Outrageous! We shall be writing to our MP about this as long as Susan doesn’t delete the response, again! Wrote to Mr Sharma a while ago only to find that Susan, in a fit of house-keeping (mail wise) had deleted his response!

We made for the Round Rock passage into the Drake Channel and calmer waters, a relief after the rolling, with the added advantage that we would see quite a few of the islands as we headed down to St. John. We passed Ginger, Cooper, Salt, Peter and Norman Islands on our port side with Tortola on our Starboard. Sailing along the north coast of St. John we could see Great Thatch, Little Thatch with Jost Van Dyke behind and in the distance were Great Tobago, Little Tobago, Hans Lollik and Little Hans Lolllik and of course St. Thomas. We arrived before mid-day in Cruz Bay.

The anchorage in Cruz Bay was full and we needed to clear in – bit of a problem. After several circuits of the bay we decided to head out and pick up a mooring in the previous bay (Caneel) , after asking some very friendly National Parks officers, who said this was ok and we could legally do! Excellent – nothing in the pilot books about this! We snagged a buoy first time again, this time without the benefit of an audience and in no time at all had the canopy up, the dinghy launched, the outboard ready to go and we were off to clear in. The customs and immigration folks were really friendly as well and after having our fingerprints scrutinised and our passports inspected, with the comment that is was a very good thing that we had our American Visas, we were welcomed. Lunch now beckoned and we found a restaurant overlooking the dinghy docks and enjoyed a snack whilst engaging in the very pleasant pastime of people and boat watching. It was then back to Andromeda to relax on the very nice NPS mooring - $15 per night, and recover from our trip up.

Caneel Bay is quite large and has several different white sandy beaches, we were opposite the middle one and our buoy was on its own well away from any others. We had a very nice peaceful evening and night was with the occasional roll about but generally being very stable and flat, no untoward bangs or sliding sounds as something escaped below. We were also treated to a lovely moon and bright stars for company.

Wednesday morning Andrew did some hull and prop cleaning – barnacles are persistent little beasts – and the conditions in the lagoon in St. Maarten were ideal for them – three weeks there giving them time to latch on despite all we spend on anti-fouling. Once out of the water it was obvious that he had scraped his legs, yet again, barnacles do fight back you know and he was greeted by “stop bleeding on the deck” – not it should be pointed out by unguents, lotions and bandages and a concerned partner, so was left to figure out where to go and what to do – blood, water, ah sharks (not that we have seen anyway, but then once you get a picture in your mind............) or a verbal telling off – hhhmmmmm, difficult one this one. (and don’t believe a word of it- well the bleeding yes). Anyway he eventually stopped bleeding and so we headed back to Cruz Bay to explore the place and chill a little. We had a nice wander round and what do you know it was time for lunch again, this time in a restaurant that we particularly liked the music in.

We are enjoying the longer days this far north but find ourselves starting our days earlier and earlier as we get up when the sun rises, well before 6 now, then it doesn’t get dark till after 7. A consequence of this is that by 9 o’clock in the morning we are already thinking about lunch.

Thursday morning we left buoy no 205 and headed down the Pillsbury Sound towards St. Thomas and Charlotte Amalie and by 12 o’clock had our brand new anchor down for the very first time, carefully checking she was dug in. The rocna was doing its job well yipeee!

Charlotte Amalie is the capital of the US Virgin Islands and is a busy place. There were 3 huge cruise liners on the dock with boats going to and fro. The anchorage itself is lovely and spacious no worries about bumping into anyone else or them into us. We had great views of the seaplane taking off and landing as well and the sights of lots of other water traffic.

We have bought guides to all the places we have visited so far and usually find them very informative and helpful – especially the Leeward, Windward and Trinidad guides written by Chris Doyle. The Virgin Islands have been covered by other people and just do not have the detail in them. No information on dinghy docks, serious provisioning or wifi availability and as for the order the coasts are covered – it’s baffling. As a result of this we were carefully watching the dinghies heading into shore to work out where we should go.

Friday morning we headed in for a look round. Charlotte Amalie has the most traffic we have seen outside of Trinidad. They also drive on left in the US Virgin Islands, curiously, in part due to the Danish heritage no doubt, but the vehicles are all left hand drive, including huge monster trucks, so it’s quite an odd sort of place. We didn’t see any fast food outlets either! It has a European feeling but is not necessarily a place we would want to return to. Wandering around the small streets we found myriad places selling much the same stuff – jewellery, perfume, electronics etc. So many that you wonder how any of them make a living but the sometimes there are 5 cruise ships in at the same time – so the potential for thousands of customers heading their way. We just had a little mooch until Andrew spotted a lovely ORANGE hoodie for Susan, just the thing for the colder climes we are heading to (we must be mad!) Then at the market Susan just stopped stock still. Bag stores were all over the place, not only that, they were all sporting a selection of orange bags in different shapes and sizes. We sensibly stumbled on and across the road found “Jen’s Place” with conch chowder on the menu.....the best we have ever tasted, yet another lunch was had! Afterwards Andrew steered Susan back to the market to choose a bag as we couldn’t really leave without one, could we.

We met Walter from Portugal at the dinghy dock who was really friendly – he is heading down to Trinidad and Peakes for the hurricane season for the first time so we gave him all the info he may need. He is sailing a very fast MacGregor 65 – wow, he’ll be there in no time.

Saturday morning it was time to leave St. Thomas and we went to fuel up at Crown Bay Marina. A bit of fun was had getting on the dock and with a last minute change of approach, Susan was racing up and down the deck repositioning fenders and lines but we were soon tied up securely. We have been led to believe from a few people that this was the place up here to get fuel, the price was good, well just to let you know, on extensive investigations we have found the price of fuel to be very much of a muchness throughout the islands, certainly we have paid between 75 – 77pence a litre wherever we have got fuel, the difference mostly being what the exchange rate is doing and I think it will be similar here. The only really cheap fuel we have seen is in Trinidad where the locals pay the equivalent of 15p per litre but for cruisers it is around 77p. We now have full tanks and all our Gerry cans are filled too so one less job for when we get to Nanny Cay.

Heading up towards St. John, Andrew asked “How is it wherever you would like to go, the wind always is on the nose?”, it’s a real mystery to us but very true, we might set off in great conditions but a lot of the time the wind swings round and is on the nose yet again.

It took us two hours to motor up to Christmas Cove – a distance – let’s be generous here – of about 7 miles – but it’s a gorgeous little bay and it had a buoy just waiting for us. After getting settled we took our new seats on deck and had a delightful lunch with a beautiful view followed by some great snorkelling and a swim.

And now to the missions! Well, we have two actually. One is ARC Europe, naturally; the second is the recipe for the Andromeda cocktail. Yes – Crews Inn down in sunny Chaguaramas, Trinidad have created a cocktail called Andromeda and its “orange” – check out the picture. Marilyn and Martin from Rocking Horse have the recipe and we are in hot pursuit! They are having the boat shipped to the UK from the Virgin Islands, so we have to meet them before too long – apparently the cocktail is yummeeeeee! We may or may not share the recipe but are very much looking forward to trying one, or two, or..........!

Cruising up to Nanny Cays and the beginning of another adventure

Christmas Cove was recommended by several of our boaty friends and a good recommendation it was too, we really enjoyed the small un-crowded bay but then of course we have to keep moving. Having watched the tide for a couple of days we worked out that it would be good to head back up to St. John quite early before there was 4 knots against us and so that is what we did. We moored in Caneel bay again, but this time at the other end and thinking we had to clear out of the US islands we decided we would make a day out of it and caught a ferry across to Red Hook to spend another enjoyable day ashore. It was nice to arrive on a big boat for a change and after wandering around we went to lunch in Senor Frogs, where the lobster bisque was superb and the Pina Colada very tasty, it’s a good job Susan had only the one. Arriving back in Cruz we walked to the Immigrations office only to be told there was no need to clear out, we could just go when we liked......good news for us as there were several other bays we liked the look of but we didn’t have the time to go and come back again.

Water Melon bay was our final stop in the US islands and another delightful place, the buoys are well spread out and we enjoyed some snorkelling in the crystal waters as well as watching all the folk coming and going. You can only get to the bay via the water or a longish walk, but that didn’t put people off and there was a constant stream of people going along the shore to enjoy the sea.

Now for the British Virgin Islands, our original plan was to head to Soper’s Hole but a wind shift decided for us and instead we motored up to St. Thomas Bay on Virgin Gorda to clear into the islands, and thankfully we didn’t need any clearance papers from the US ones. It was rather nerve racking watching Andrew go off to the authorities wondering whether he would be castigated for not having cleared out, but apart from a wry smile there was no other comment and so a big sigh of relief was had by us both. We had a bit of an interesting night though as due to a wind shift we ended up much nearer one of the channel markers than we would have liked and were glad when first light arrived so we could set off for North Sound and Bitter End where we were hoping to catch up with some friends.

Bitter End is a very popular anchorage crowded with many moorings packed close together and at first we thought we were too early to find a vacant one, then after going back and forth we spotted one, just as our friends came out on the deck of their boat, on the very next buoy, and so we moored right next to Rocking Horse. Marilyn and Martin (the guys who have the Andromeda recipe) had arrived late the previous day and were going to provision and then move further up the bay, we settled down for a couple of hours sleep after our buoy watching the previous night and then moved up the bay too, and amazingly managed to get a buoy right next to Rocking Horse again. That first day the anchorage was completely full, then with it being near the weekend and change-over day it emptied out quite nicely. We had sundowners on Saba Rock with Marilyn and Martin both evenings and we were given that all important recipe for the Andromeda cocktail. We also saw the tarpon fish that live off the dock being fed, these fish were huge, the biggest we have seen anywhere so far, and no wonder with the amount of food they were given. We had a long walk round the bay to explore Birras Creek and take refreshment at the Fat Virgin Cafe, before heading over to Saba Rock and those sundowners again – pain killers are their speciality.
Saying goodbye to Marilyn and Martin the following morning, we headed down the sound to Leverick Bay for laundry and provisions. We really liked Leverick Bay, though once again we had 30 knots of wind when we were catching the buoy. Laundry and food shopping done we enjoyed a delightful lunch and a dip in the sea before heading back on board for another windy night. Leverick is a very pretty place with its own red telephone box (minus door and phone) on the main dock – a little bit of England.

The sail to Trellis Bay at the north end of Tortola took a couple of hours and we were back once again into a much more crowded mooring field. Going ashore was a real treat though with all the craft workshops to visit, there were many lovely things to tempt people with a house, probably a good job that we don’t have one. Walking along the gorgeous beach we saw several conch and bright red starfish, and had a really quiet evening for a welcome change.

Our time in the Caribbean is drawing to a close now and we had two more stops to make, first of all a lovely sail across to Cooper Island for a couple of nights in this little anchorage, swimming and snorkelling and enjoying the shore-side shops where for the first time we were tempted into buying a piece of art. Postcards were written and deposited in the little English red mail box, not sure when they will arrive though.

And so now to Great Harbour, Peter Island where as it happened we enjoyed the best snorkelling we have had anywhere so far in the Caribbean. Wednesday we thought things couldn’t get any better after the lovely sight of so many fish on the coral including an enormous shoal of small fish, there must have been several millions of them, swimming over the reef and around us but on our last full day after had we moved to different mooring (and in hardly any wind at all) we went out again and were treated to the sight of a hawksbill turtle swimming slowly below us, sedately grazing as he went. Brilliant!

Friday morning we set off for Nanny Cay and taking a roundabout route so we could have a play with our big ORANGE (well it had to be...thank you Clint) sail, great fun and we are hoping to use it again very soon. But all too soon it was time to head into the marina and the hustle and bustle of getting ready for our next big adventure.

Photos are from US Virgin Islands.

Friday, 4 April 2014

Continuing North and a little bit West - this time.......

Now it’s time to start making sure we are prepared for ARC Europe, getting ourselves ready in terms of safety, provisioning and of course mentally. We will be two up for this trip so it’s going to be a little tougher than the crossing west in 2010. We did several long passages two up before we left on the ARC, so we should be ok, but the conditions will be different in terms of the weather and sea, therefore we will be taking all the advice we can get. Of course it will be getting colder not warmer as well, however the days should get longer as we travel north and that will be a bonus after the 12- 12 ½ hour days we have out here all year round.

We enjoyed our few days in Jolly Harbour, visiting the chandlers, the wonderful Epicurean (though no pork pies or proper back bacon to be had this time – outrageous or what, but the sausages were great!) and we patronised the new Greek restaurant located in the marina complex. Wow, we have not had such good hummus and tzaziki since we were last in Greece. It was really wonderful and worth a visit if you happen to be in Jolly Harbour! We caught up with various folk in the marina, Jeanie from Island Time and Patti and Gary from Native Dancer and enjoyed a Sunday afternoon game of...yes, you guessed it, Mexican Train Dominoes. We managed to fit in one trip to the gorgeous beach about a 15 minute walk away and Susan enjoyed a brief dip in the water before we headed back to get on with various chores.

Our intention was to sail our next passage overnight so on Tuesday 18th March we treated ourselves to lunch in the Greek Restaurant and full of pork and mint burgers (yum!) we headed off towards St Bart’s and St. Maarten late in the afternoon. Conditions were good to start with, but with a wind shift, we dropped the main and continued under genoa and mizzen. The wind was good and the sail plan was good, but the swell was horrible. Essentially we cork-screwed the whole way, just under 100 miles, the swell being on the starboard quarter – not what was forecast it must be said and not our best sail by any means, hard on the muscles and the spirit! Passing St. Bart’s at dawn we decided to press on to St. Maarten to get the alternator and auto-pilot sorted and were rewarded by a small pod of dolphins swimming alongside for a while as we approached the island – that was brilliant.

Heading towards the cut to take the 11:30am bridge lift into the Dutch side, we were hailed by a huge “gin palace” who asked us to make sure we went straight ahead and not dawdle, as they needed lots of room to have enough way on to go through the bridge – well I said, you’ll just have to be patient as I don’t have a lot of room either and we don’t go very fast under motor – the cheek of it. Anyway we made it through without being run down by the big beastie and tied up in Simpson Bay Marina with another warm and friendly welcome. We were staying in the marina as Electec, the best electrical guys on the island, don’t visit anchored yachts, and any Raymarine autopilot installation recommends being securely alongside!

Andrew cleared us in with the authorities whilst Susan put Andromeda to rights before we had a little siesta waking up in time to hear a knock on the hull. It was Steve and Ann from Receta, they had heard us talking to the marina on the radio and came over to say Hi. It was so great to see them and we arranged to meet up later in the week.

An early meal was followed by an early bedtime too, then bright and breezy on Thursday morning we went to talk with Bert at Electec, to be informed that it would be early the following week for the alternator fix. Checking with Budget Marine about the cabling for the auto-pilot replacement we were sent to Atlantis Marine – they were closed. Friday we managed to catch up with them, and none too helpful they were too, so back to Budget we headed to order a unit. There we got the news that it would be another week or two or so before they had a delivery, however we could go and check on Tuesday. Getting on with a few bits and pieces we waited for Tuesday and returned only to be told by someone different ‘Ah, if you want one quickly we can get it Fedexed in 3 days’. Great, let’s do that as we are on a tight schedule. 5 hours later the phone rang – ‘Ah, it might be a week or two before we can get one, Raymarine have them on back order’. Ho hum. Such is cruising.

Just in case they had any units in stock we checked with other Budget Marine stores in the US and British Virgin Islands, but the costs were significantly greater than the quote we had in St. Maarten, so we decided to wait patiently.

Meanwhile the alternator had been tested, removed and returned with new rectifiers and was working! Hurrah! Thank you Brian, though it did take quite a few hours to re-install.

In the meantime we met up with lots of different boaty folk. Chris and Sharon on Quicksilver came over from Marigot Bay (the French side) and we had a nice lunch (twice), Barb and Chuck on Tusen Tak II, popped by and left a wonderful orange necklace for Susan– a really kind thought and it goes so nicely with lots of her outfits. Nancy and Dave from Fawkes spent Friday afternoon aboard and we caught up with Trini and cruising news. Saturday lfternoon we had a game of Mexican Train Dominoes at Lagoonies with Robyn from Heidi, Taryna from Heymede, and some other cruisers we hadn’t met before. Later we had a really, really great evening with Steve and Ann (Receta) at the local yacht club – the tapas style snacks were wonderful as was the company. A similar sense of humour and great stories were shared with much laughter. Steve had the script printed out to the ‘Life of Brian’, though Ann thought she may have thrown it out earlier this year, Steve however is sure he saved it from the discard pile! Great fun.

And as we are in St. Maarten, and it’s all duty free, the chandlers were stormed again and again as we sourced replacement flares and man overboard kit, (both ARC Europe requirements,) winch handle pockets, a couple of new dock-lines, a replacement bilge pump, a new Rocna anchor (yes, we have succumbed and Budget Marine gave us a mini one that doubles as a bottle opener-very handy and a good talking point!), oil for the engine and a wifi booster. Reliance and availability of wifi is becoming a real need in order to both stay in touch, through e-mail and Face Book, and also get anything done in terms of ordering kit, arranging engineers, etc. etc. not forgetting trying to keep track of funds. So we have a Bad Boy unit – and our very own hot spot and very good it is too! (PS Nick, Chris, Phill and Jen – it was a Mother’s day gift, Dad will be seeing you later)

Friday afternoon we got a surprise call from Budget to say that the auto-pilot had arrived! And only four days after ordering it! Amazing – they did have one in stock after all!

Saturday morning after much studying of the manuals (yes we do read them sometimes) Andrew started the work to replace the defunct autopilot. Installing the major units and cabling took all morning followed by a break with a trip to Lagoonies for dominoes – it’s hot down below!

Ginny from Wind Shepherd was at the game this time and it was great to catch up with her, she also gave us some useful tips on where to go in the US Virgin Islands. The big surprise of the afternoon though was Susan’s score 180 – not quite the record (69) achieved by Maggie from Jezebel in Trinidad but Susan did score 0 on the last 6 rounds........

After the game we went to meet Lee and Sharon from Allegro before they headed off south to Antigua and Classic week, where they help out each year - moving yachts about and serving at the bars and parties. They had just arrived from the US Virgin Islands as well so we were keen to get updates on places to go and see. Lee was a font of really useful information concerning St. Thomas and St. Johns, provisioning, fuel etc. Lee and Sharon had also arranged to meet other friends of theirs for dinner after our drinks and they turned up at the Yacht Club and joined us. After introductions – Steve and Maria (Aspen) - noticed Andrew’s Andromeda polo shirt and commented that they knew some people from the Midlands who had a boat called Andromeda. That turned out to be Sandy and Dave (Andromeda’s previous owners) who they met in Trinidad 2005/6 during Andromeda’s first trip to the Caribbean. Not only that they were also on the Blue Water Rally 2009/2010/2011 and are great friends of Glenda and Ian from Lucy Alice – amazing! A very nice couple of hours indeed exchanging stories.

Anyway, back to the autopilot – Sunday morning after further checks etc Andrew switched it on and it worked; well, all the shore side checks are fine, so it’s now down to our first trip at sea with the new unit – it looks very nice, though. Sunday was also Mother’s Day in the UK and Susan had a great time skyping with the family, the little ones are growing up so fast now.

Sunday afternoon whilst relaxing in the cockpit we noticed a large aluminium yacht with a Maltese flag approaching the marina. It was Patricia and Patrick from Rhi Malti, who had just come up from St. Bart’s where their boat designer was racing – we do know some interesting folks! Rhi Malti is a custom designed, aluminium 50+ft yacht built some three years ago. Anyway, they came here because Patricia has to return to Europe for family reasons, but we hosted them for sun-downers and nibbles – a nice evening under sad circumstances, with the gin bottle taking a significant hit.

Monday (31st) morning arrived and Chris and Sharon hailed us on the radio and we arranged to go into Philipsburg for the day. We managed to pick a very good day, the weather was fab, there were no cruise liners in, (there were 5 due in the next day) so the beaches and streets were empty. It was very pleasant to wander around the shops, stopping to have elevenses and lunch before heading off to the equivalent of Price Smart/CostCo and then Grande Marche for some shopping, where a few bargains were picked up.

Tuesday we met Chris and Sharon again and after another lovely lunch took a bus down to Maho beach, where as you will see from some of the photos, you get a very close view of planes landing and taking off. It was quite busy as well because of those cruise liners. We walked down to Mullet Beach, an altogether much quieter place by the golf club though sitting on the chairs in the sand was interesting.

So with about 4 or so weeks to go before the start of ARC Europe we are getting ourselves sorted; well, we plan to. In the next couple of days we shall do a bit of provisioning and should head out to sea on Friday. Today (Thursday) we went on the bus to the big Grande Marche and filled our bags with some treats and essentials. We were with Chris and Sharon again and Chris spotted a nice little restaurant nearby – Mark’s Place – where we had a really superb meal. Susan, Andrew and Chris opted for the Norwegian smoked salmon salad which was so big but presented so beautifully, each of our plates decorated differently – Susan thought hers was the best as her salmon was styled into roses. The meal tasted as good as it looked and set us up for the rest of the day. Tomorrow there will be the last foray to the chandlers as we now know things will be much more expensive in the Virgins and then it will be getting ready for sea again, all that stuff we have managed to get out will now have to be stowed back in its proper home ready for the trip.

We hope to enjoy a little of the Virgin Islands on our way north and west.......and then on to Bermuda and points east.............