Leaving the US

We decided to head towards St. Martin this morning since the wind is perfect for sailing over there.  We were going to wait for our spare transmission that is being rebuilt but since they won't be able to get the parts for a month we decided to not wait for it and just pick it back up when we are back this way.  We really needed to head out while the wind was coming from the South-Southeast and the moon was almost full since we will be sailing overnight.  It's about 98 miles over there and only averaging 4-5 knots, it takes a while.
We had a really nice day yesterday with Sandy and her boyfriend Roger who I used to work with at the bank.  We sailed over to Trunk Bay on St. John and enjoyed some beach time, then they took us out to dinner, which was really nice.
Now it will just be Wes and I and the two dogs for the next several months so hopefully you don't hear any news about a man throwing his wife overboard somewhere in the caribbean.
Hopefully we will be able to keep up with the blog as we start heading down.  I hear they have pretty good wifi on most of the islands though.  It should be fun seeing some islands that we haven't been to yet.  Stay tuned.

This week is carvnival in St Thomas and they were having boat races in the harbor.  Lott's of loud music and partying going on that's for sure 

Having cocktails with Sandy and Roger

Our Last Visitors for a While

We had our daughter Jessica and her husband, Ryan, down for a week so we decided to take them over to the BVI's.  The BVI's seemed more their style with lots of beach bars, great snorkeling and nice beaches.  We took them to Jost Van Dyke to meet Foxy and of course he had stories to tell. Then we headed over to the bubbly pool on Jost Van Dyke which I think is one of Max and Lexie's favorite places because they get to hike with us to the pool then play in the water  Then we headed to Cane Garden Bay on Tortola and had dinner at one of my favorite places, Myett's.  Then the next day we of course had to head over to Norman to show them the Willy T, which was pretty hoppin'.  Then for the last night in the BVI's we stayed in Great Harbor off Peter Island but on the way over we stopped at the Indians for some really great snorkeling.

We had a really nice sail for the second to last day on our way to Cruz Bay on St. John and checked back in to the US then stayed the night at Frances Bay on St. John.
Then headed back to Charlotte Amalie to do some shopping and  because we were meeting our friends, the Kern's (who stayed with us back in December) and were back in St. Thomas for their Anniversary.  We had dinner at the Green House.  If your ever in St. Thomas it's a pretty good place to eat.

These are our last visitors for a while other than a friend from my work who is down here for a week but staying at a resort.  We plan on meeting up with her and her boyfriend and taking them out for a day sail.  Then we will be heading to St. Marten once we get everything ready and the winds are in our favor.  We plan on making our way slowly down to Grenada to avoid hurricane season.  It will be nice to see some different islands that we have visited yet.

Jess and Ryan driving the boat and enjoying the paddle boards.  Not bad for their first time at both

Enjoying an evening at Myett's 

The bubbly pool on Jost Van Dyke

Ryan toasting Wes for his birthday with a painkiller at the Willy T

Jess enjoying the floatie and a cold Carib

We had dolphins visit us in Frances Bay

Wes snorkeling through the hole at the Indians

Ryan snorkeling

A ray Ryan and Wes saw at Great Harbor off Peter Island

Another beautiful sunset

I think they had a really good time.

Down to Viques

We decided to sail over to Vieques on Sunday. The trip was 31 knots and it was down wind. I let Karen plan and execute the trip because  she really doesn’t get to do that a lot. I think she is a better sailer than she knows, but she lacks confidence. Hopefully if she can do more trips like that she will gain confidence.

Viques is an island off of Puerto Rico and it’s pronounced (B-a’-gus)  It and Culebra are the two Spanish virgin islands. It was used for a bombing range for the Navy during World War Two and some of it is still off limits.

They mainly speak Spanish here but so far most everyone we talked with spoke english. The island seems to have a lot of visitors. More than I thought there would be. The south side of the island is all beaches. They must have twelve different beaches and they all have 10 of 15 people on them. Just about everyone is a tourist and they are happy to talk with you. They also like dogs. Which is very different than St Thomas. 

Even though there are more people there are still a lot of places where you anchor by yourself. Most of the tourists go home in the late afternoon. So we are here by ourselves. That is kind of a nice feeling, having one of these beautiful beaches to ourselves.

The other night we spent the night at a bio-bay. The bay lights up at night when you disturb the water.  We disturbed it with our dinghy and the water coming off the prop lit up. We didn’t see many fish trails though in the water like the last time we were here.

Last night we had a fire on the beach. I always want to have a fire on the beach, I haven’t had one in thirty years because there isn’t any place to have them anymore. But last night I got some wood together and we had a fire. It was just Karen and I and it only lasted one and one half hours but it was fun. I started it with just one match and a little bit of paper out of our garbage can.  I guess that boy scout training payed off.

On the beach

The boat

Lexie with the Frisbee

Lexie and Max fighting for the frisbee

The walkway in Esaranza

A sunset

                                                              Viques's light house

Jen and John came down for a visit

We had my sister Jen and her family of 5 down for a week. There is Jen and her husband John, and they have three boys, Sean who is 10 and Aiden and Kevin who are 8 year old twins. That plus Karen, myself and two dogs made for a lot of bodies on a 32 ft cat.

That said they had a great time.

The kids were fantastic. Sean is a sports expert. He was very interested in the basketball tournament. We tried to find out the scores but didn’t find out until Tuesday.

Unfortunately both our brackets were broken. 

We took them to Culebra, which is one of the Spanish Virgin Islands off of Puerto Rico. There are some really great beaches there. The first night we spent in little Tortuga bay, which is a small island off of Culebra and means turtle in spanish.  And we saw some turtles. We also had a great time swimming to the beach and playing in the water around the boat.

The next day we went to the other side of the island and did some snorkeling, but there was some current. The kids didn’t do that well snorkeling here. Except for Aiden. Aiden apparently spent some time snorkeling in swimming pools and it showed when he got snorkeling in the ocean, so Aiden got some really good snorkeling in and the others had to wait until we got to start from the beach.

We also took a walk up to the light house. The dogs always enjoy that.  It looked like they were starting to refurbish the lighthouse because they had it blocked off where you couldn’t climb to the top anymore.

The next day we went to the island of Culebra, which has some really great snorkeling and you can start from the beach. This made for good snorkeling of all of us.

Next we headed to the town on Culebra. We took them into the town and ate at Zaco’s Tacos.

Since the wind was in our favor we decided to head back to St Thomas the next day.  We sailed over to Brewers Bay for one night and then Longs Bay for the next night. 

All in all it was a good week. Having little guys around was a lot of fun. You forget what they are like when you are not around them all the time. I learned more about video games then I think anyone should know. The details that they go into are incredible. I don’t think I paid that much attention to anything when I was that age. 

One other thing about having kids on board is they don’t need a lot of entertaining. Just find them a beach and they are entertained. They also love to play games. Go fish seemed to be a favorite.

I’m really glad they came down for a visit

Kevin ride the paddle board

Sean riding the paddle board

The kids playing

Aiden snorkeling

The whole gang having fun in the water

Jim and Sally visited

We had Jim and Sally Crowell down for a couple of days. I wasn’t sure how they would do on a boat because they had never been on this kind of boat before, But they did great. I’m always surprised when people don’t get sea sick and they weren’t sick at all. We really have only had four people get sick down here out of the 50 people we have had down.

Since Jim and Sally were only here for three days we didn’t take them far. We went over to Francis Bay on St John. We did some swimming and hung out on the beach.

The next day we did Trunk bay, which had some good snorkeling that day. While snorkeling I saw my first octopus. Those things really change color fast. It was a light blue color, then went to black then went to a brown when it moved next to a rock. It looked just like the rock.

Next we went to Cruz Bay on St John, then we finished by staying in Redhook.

I think Jim and Sally had a pretty good time all in all.

Jim Driving the boat

On the beach

Another beautiful sunset