St Croix

Since we weren't going to have any visitors for a few days we decided to hop over to St. Croix since we hadn't been there yet.  I guess it was a little more than a hop, about 40 nautical miles with a eastern wind at about 17 knots so we had a really good sail all the way over.  It took close to 8 hours but we left early Thursday morning and are spending three nights here.  We anchored in Gallows Bay which is next to the channel leading into Christiansted.   We decided to rent a car so we could tour the island and we took the dogs along, which they loved it.  The island is about 80 square miles and actually bigger than St. Thomas and St. John.  It has some fairly nice beaches and a rain forest.  There are really only two main towns, Christiansted and Frederiksted.  I guess Frederiksted gets cruise ships in once in a while but there weren't any while we were there.  Last night there was a live band in the gazebo in downtown Frederiksted which we listened to for a little while, while we watched the sunset.  While we were driving around we thought it didn't seem like we were on a tropical island but then you would go around a turn and there would be a beautiful beach.  There is a reef that goes almost around the whole island and I guess the diving is awesome (we didn't try it though)  but there  are probably about 80 different dive sites marked on the local map covering the North and West side of the island
We stopped for lunch at Coconuts in Frederiksteda and we met this young couple and when we asked them where they were from the girl said Loveland, Colorado.  We couldn't believe it but it was actually George Lundeen's daughter.  Crazy small world we live in.
We will be heading back to Charlotte Amalie Sunday so we can get ready for the Crowell's visit, then we have Wes's sister and her family coming down, so we will be pretty busy the next couple of weeks

Downtown Christiansted

The Fort in Christiansted

Downtown Frederiksted

The furthest Eastern point of the US

 

Another beautiful sunset over the water

Oh and we got our new trampoline put on.  It only took me three days to get it strung but it was worth it.

J and Anne came for a visit

We had J and Anne down for a week and they are going back today. We did the BVI's and also stopped at Hurricane Hole on St John on the way back. We had never been there so it was nice to go  someplace new. There is a town over on the east end of St John that I didn't know about.
Where we stayed there wasn't much around. We were the only boat there and the star viewing was pretty good.
I think J and Anne had a pretty good time. They got to snorkel quite a bit and J and I dove the wreck of the rhone. That is my favorite dive in the BVI's. When we dove I couldn't get my BC to inflate so I had to kick the whole time we were diving, but we still had a pretty good dive and saw a turtle under the water.
I think it will take a week to get the dogs back to normal. J and Anne spoiled them the whole week.
Max and Lexie always got a little of J and Ann's dinner and they could always go to them for some attention.
Anne developed a taste for Bushwhackers and Velvet cinn. But we told her they only taste good down here.
When we got back to St Thomas we got our new trampoline for the front of our boat. We will be putting that in this week.
Other than that, we have March Maddness this week. I plan on spending a lot of time at Hooters.

                                                           J and Ann on the boat

Sunset at Cain Garden Bay

A tall ship at Norman Island

                                                       J Driving the boat

A little boat work

Its been a while since I blogged so I thought I would take a little time and let you all know what I have been doing on the boat. As Karen said in the last blog we got our new head sail. We should get a chance to try that out tomorrow. 

I also put two new screws in the stays for the mast. The old bolts just rusted off. Then I put some shims in the strut that holds the cutless bearing. This is under water so I got on the tanks and worked under water. That was a new experience. But it really quieted down the port side engine.

I got the water maker working. It was so great to be making water. We needed to get the pump fixed and I got that in the mail on Monday. Now that I have it in, the water maker is working great. I still need to pump the exit water out of the boat but I will get that done today.  

I also started working on some little projects that I haven’t had time for. Like getting all the outlets working. Some of the 12 Volt outlets were only putting out 11.2 Volts. So I ran some new wire and now I have 12 volts on them. I built a little dam to catch the rain water and funnel it into the water tank. That was an easy job but it took a lot of time because I widdled it. 

The engines are running great so in general we are in much better shape than when I bought the boat.

The two bolts with the auto seal on them I replaced. Also I build the dam and the dam on the side to catch water

This is my water maker.

Wes's Parents Visit

Wes's parents visited last week and I really give them big kudos for staying on the boat for a full week after staying at a nice resort in St Thomas for two weeks. See, they are both in their 70's and not as mobile as they used to be and it's not the easiest thing getting in and out of the dinghy and walking around the boat when it's bouncing all over the place. We decided to take them over to Culebra, which is one of the Spanish Virgin Islands  but you have to travel about 18 miles of open water and we had some pretty rough water going over.  His mom got sea sick a couple of times and his dad fell getting in the dinghy when we picked them up at the airport but they were really good sports about it all.
We did manage to have some fun though. We rented a golf cart and showed them the island and visited three beaches and spent a few hours at Flamenco beach, which is really nice.  Wes also gave them snorkeling lessons.

When we got back to Charlotte Amalie our new jib sail was waiting for us - YAY.  So we got that put on.  We haven't had a chance to try it out yet though.  We are thinking we might head over to Christmas Cove or Honeymoon Bay for a couple of days until our next guests arrive next Sunday, which are a couple of places we haven't been to yet.  Honeymoon Bay is on Water Island, which is just outside of Charlotte Amalie and Christmas Cove is on Great St. James Island which is just off the Southeastern tip of St. Thomas.

Max of course had to help with the new jib sail