It's said that there's a Chinese curse that goes, "May you live in interesting times". We have had some very interesting times these past couple of weeks, in all the bad sense of the proverb.

We were last in Leverick Bay on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, getting fined for not reporting to customs in a timely manner. We left Virgin Gorda and had a nice downwind sail to Road Harbour on Tortola, where we tied up at Village Cay Marina. We'd spent a couple of days in the marina last year, getting a leak in the dinghy repaired. This year we have a new dinghy, but there were some dings and scratches and cracks in the hull from shipping damage, so we planned to have the new dinghy repaired by the same folks. And given our "commuter vehicle" (the dinghy) would be out of service we had to plan to stay a couple of days in the marina.

It was an uneventful, albeit expensive repair. We've still not heard from the people who sold us the dinghy about reimbursement. Don't really expect to. Interesting to watch the repair process - next time I'll consider doing it myself as it wasn't difficult.

We also had our diesel fuel "polished" while in the marina. Recall that our engine had died between Sint Maarten and Virgin Gorda, requiring fuel filter replacement (and the customs fine!). We knew at least one of our tanks had gunk in it, so we had the fuel polisher come out to the boat. He has two very large, very small pore filters mounted on a cart with an electric motor driven pump. He vacuums the fuel from your tanks, strains it, filters, and returns it to the tank. Sure enough, the tank we'd switched to when the engine died was full of algae sludge (there's always some water in the diesel and the algae breed in the water). We got nearly a cupful of the black sludge in the fuel polisher's strainer. Another expensive procedure, but one we were very relieved to have done.

We needed to refill our scuba tanks, and found they were due for their yearly visual inspection. It was Friday and the dive shop couldn't get to the visuals until over the weekend, so we decided to spend the weekend out of the marina. We headed over to Little Harbor on Peter Island, but it was crammed full of boats (see companion posting on why so many charterers right now), so we headed over to Norman Island where we grabbed one of the last moorings.

We managed to snorkel the famous caves on Norman Island. They are really just 3 indentations in the rocky shore into which one can swim. The center one actually runs about 25-30 feet back, so forms an actual cave. Rumor has it that actual pirate treasure was found in the southernmost of the caves and they are quite a popular snorkeling destination. We'd tried snorkeling them several years ago when we chartered down here, but they were full of jellyfish; then last year the seas were too rough to do it. Unfortunately, the caves are being loved to death; there's just about no bottom life left and the water was extremely murky. The fish were plentiful due to people feeding them, but otherwise the caves were a bit of a disappointment.

The Bight on Norman Island is the home of the William Thornton, a permanently-moored 90-ft boat with restaurant and bar. We went over to the Willy T for sundowners before dinner. Last year we were surprised to find the party boat atmosphere had been completely eliminated with no more nude jumping for free tshirts off the upper deck. Despite that we headed over for sundowners before dinner. I first noticed the no diving/no jumping signs had been removed from the upper deck! And they'd been metal signs welded to the railing. We asked the bartender why the signs had been removed and his reply was they had typos and actually said, "No Diviing". I said it was still surprising to first see things toned down last year, then to see the signs missing this year. I mentioned the absence of the 2 photo albums they used to keep on the bar filled with pictures of naked young (and not so young!) ladies partying on the boat. The bartender reaches behind the bar and hands me a photo album with the title of "William Thornton, Family Photo Album". Inside were all the pictures from the old albums! Pretty funny, though there were young kids there for dinner with their parents; they would have quite the surprise from the "family" album. At any rate, apparently the Willy T is back to being a party boat, they just don't give away free tshirts for jumping nude from the upper deck anymore. Their idea of toning things down a bit.

Despite the restored party atmosphere nobody was jumping, probably the lack of free tshirts. We had our drinks and returned to the boat. Next morning we headed over to Peter Island where we spent the night in a rolly anchorage on the south side. The weather was really rotten all weekend, with grey skies, rain, and cool temps. Odd to be in the Caribbean with the temps in the mid-70's and wind chill dropping it to probably the mid-60's.

Monday morning we motorsailed the 3 miles across the Sir Francis Drake Channel. It was hardly worth putting up the sail, but the wind was up and the water choppy so we wanted to get across quickly. The engine died about 3/4's of the way across. No problem, thinks I, just ran out of one tank and need to switch to another. But let's not switch to the tank that had the sludge, just in case. In fact, let's just draw from all 3 of the other tanks. I turn the valves and the engine starts immediately. And dies almost as quickly. Uh oh, maybe we had sludge in one of our lines. Okay, we'll just sail into Road Harbour and drop the anchor right outside the marina breakwater. Well, other than that pesky cruise ship that's approaching from the east, as we're approaching from the south. The anchorage we want is just beyond the cruise ship dock, so we have to pass in front of them, or behind. Don't think we're going to win the race to go ahead of them, and 5 blasts from the cruise ship's very loud horn indicates he wants us out of his way. So we turn to another marina and anchorage that's out of the way of the cruise ship. Just as well, as the damn cruise ship is coming up fast and we don't want to be anywhere near them.

So we make a left turn, out of the way of the cruise ship. Now we've got 20-25 knots of wind directly behind us and I'm worried about an accidental jibe. That's when the wind catches the mainsail that's completely extended on one side of the boat, slamming it around to the other side of the boat, occasionally breaking the boom, tearing the sail, or even bringing down the rig. It is something best avoided. Okay, let's try to start the engine again. Ah, we can start it and run it just a hair above idle before it wants to die of fuel starvation. Let's take down the main sail so no accidental jibes and see if we can't limp to a shallow spot and drop the anchor. Quickly down with the sail and of course the engine then dies again. Now we're
drifting in 20 knots of wind onto a reef. Engine starts and runs long enough to avoid the reef, but then it dies again. No problem, we're in shallow enough water to anchor now, so let's get the anchor down. Uh-oh, the windlass doesn't want to run in reverse, letting the anchor down. This is a problem we've seen only sporadically, and pulling the anchor up a bit usually clears the situation. Only this time it won't. Now we're drifting quickly onto a cat that's moored just downwind of us. I'm flailing about with the windlass, trying to get the anchor down. Maryann calls the marina on the VHF, requesting assistance, but gets no answer. Luckily at this point a local guy in a dinghy shows up and pushes us so that we don't crash into the catamaran. Only now we're drifting straight into that concrete dock! Another guy in another dinghy shows up and between the two of them we manage to push the boat around the dock. At which point I finally get the windlass to cooperate the anchor goes down in 8 feet of water. You might not remember, but we need 7 feet of water before we ground, so we've got plenty. Hah! That means we have about 12 inches of water between our keel and the bottom. Not terribly reassuring.

At this point, one of the dinghies manages to tie off a line from our bow and between him pulling and the other pushing we manage to get the anchor up (fat lot of good it did us!) and then they manage to get us onto a mooring. After a little bit to let our heart rates to drop below 200, I change out our fuel filters again and switch to a single, known-good tank. And the engine starts right up and runs just fine. We're still not sure exactly what happened, but I think it's possibly a situation I've seen where I'm running the engine from multiple tanks and one of the tanks goes dry - somehow the valving doesn't smoothly start drawing from the non-empty tank(s) and the engine dies of fuel starvation. We were thinking clogged fuel filters and it was probably this latter situation instead. Of course later we find that we can't draw any fuel at all from the tank that had the sludge. Suspicion is that some of the sludge is blocking the fuel line, as the filters are working fine from the other 3 tanks. Later still, I blow out the hose that draws from the blocked tank and nothing but clean diesel comes out (spraying a bit about the saloon; oops). I removed the inspection port (losing a nut along the way) and there's no blockage to be found, anywhere. Weird.

Damn, isn't this cruising life exciting and adventurous.

We have an early lunch ashore, check out with customs and immigration (explaining our lack of proper forms was caused by the folks who fined us), collect our scuba tanks, and head for the US Virgins. We have a very uneventful and fairly pleasant downwind sail to Cruz Bay on St John where we check back into the US. First time the boat's been back in US waters since April last year. With all the hoopla about homeland security one would have expected a 3rd degree grilling. Instead, it's a couple of forms and quick, easy, and smiling checkin. Way better than a good many of the ex-English islands and almost as pleasant as going into or out of the French islands - better actually, as there's no need to check out!

Monday evening found us in Crown Bay Marina. We'd sped along from Tortola to St John (for customs checkin) and on to St Thomas so as to make the marina before nightfall. I thought we'd have our watermaker salinity probe (3rd time it's gone bad on us!) waiting for us and I'd replace Tuesday before Julia and Morgan arrived. Also expected a bundle of mail waiting for us. Of course neither was there. The mail did finally arrive just as we were ready to leave the fuel dock Wednesday morning, but the new salinity probe apparently didn't make it out of alpha test, so we're awaiting a 4th replacement of the old style probe. The watermaker can be run in manual mode, though it's a nuisance to do so.

One nice thing about St Thomas is how easy it is to get things done and get parts. Why I managed to spend $500 in no time at all! New horseshoe buoy to replace one that must have gone overboard somewhere, new floating painter for the dinghy, fuel/water separator and filter for the dinghy outboard, new zincs, new main engine fuel filters, etc. The list always seems endless, but at least in St Thomas that was all done by a quick walk to the chandlery in the marina and another quick walk to the local diesel and outboard dealer.

Tuesday Julia and Morgan arrived late in the afternoon. Wednesday morning we left the slip, took on fuel, and were on our way. Even managed quite well getting out of the slip and on and off the fuel dock despite the gusty 20 knot winds we've had the last couple of months.

Wednesday night found us in Soper's Hole at the west end of Tortola. We'd hurried along against a nasty chop and gusty winds so as to be able to attend the Full Moon Party at Bomba Shack on the north side of Tortola. Bomba built himself a surfside shack out of driftwood and other found material, supposedly in 1976. He's been selling drinks and collecting women's underwear (stapled to the rafters) ever since, but the highlight of Bomba Surfside Shack is his Full Moon Party with 'shroom tea (thought by some to be Lipton's, but boiled up in a 55-gallon drum over an open fire for the effect). And this past Wednesday was not only a full moon, but a total eclipse of the moon. As it turned out, the party was kind of dead, though not without some amusing people-watching (it was probably 3/4's cruise ship passengers who are always amusing after drinking too much). We left before the eclipse maxed out, hoping to catch totality back on the boat. Unfortunately, clouds kept us from seeing the moon totally eclipsed (well, that and sleep which claimed me). Still, an interesting night reading Bomba's hand-scrawled "philosophy" - for instance: "ladies be blessed if they give up their panties to Bomba". We missed Bomba himself, but word is success has reduced his personal appearances at the shack.

Thursday we headed over to Cooper Island for some snorkeling and some hair-raising moments when we played chicken with a power boat, both of us competing for the same (last available) mooring off the island. We'd cruised through the mooring field, noting one empty mooring at the north end. When we'd seen there weren't any more to the south, we turned around and headed for the first one we'd seen. It was a very obvious approach as we had to do the equivalent of a u-turn to come up on it. Apparently a power boat that had just arrived also decided to grab the mooring; they had to accelerate if they were going to beat us to it, so just when we're 20 feet from the mooring I see this power boat coming at high speed 90 degrees off our starboard! I yelled, "what the heck?" (or something similar) and the girl on the bow of the power boat tells the captain the mooring is already taken. But he doesn't slow down! At this point I had to do a full-throttle reverse to keep from t-boning the power boat! Just as I stop, he puts it in reverse and backs away. What a jerk! And it seemed to be a local captain with some day charterers. Normally the locals are much more polite. I have never seen such blatant discourtesy here in the BVI. And never a word of apology, not any word at all. Bizarre. They motored about for a while, waiting for one of the other charterers to leave at which point they picked up the vacated mooring.

Two near crashes in less than a week. Interesting times indeed. I shudder to think what would have happened if the engine had died when trying to keep from plowing into the power boat.

We snorkeled the aft section of HMS Rhone (see entry from last year from when we did 2 scuba dives on the wreck of the Rhone, an 1867 shipwreck of a 350ft British mail packet) and I'm happy to say I can still free dive to the (used to be) undamaged porthole, about 30ft down. The stern section isn't as impressive as the bow, as the stern used to be above water and was used by the US Navy for target practice around the turn of the 20th century. But the relatively intact bow is in 90ft of water and requires scuba while the remains of the stern can be snorkeled, though it's a deep snorkel.

After snorkeling we moved over to Norman Island and had late drinks on the Willy T. Lots and lots of folks there, so many it was difficult to move about. Still no jumpers and no naked body shots. We had a single drink apiece and retired early. Today Maryann, Julia and Morgan are off hiking the island while I babysit the watermaker and write this entry. We're heading to Cruz Bay on St John after lunch where we'll clear back in to the US VI. A couple more nights on St John and then Julia and Morgan return home. Maryann will flying out a couple of days after that to spend some time with her mom back in California, leaving me a bachelor for a spell. But there are at least 2 other cruising boats with friends that'll keep me company. I expect to work on the long-term project list while she's gone.

And a quick update - we spent 2 days on St John, one in Caneel Bay and one in Maho Bay. The latter was quite especially nice. Good snorkeling apparently (I was blowing diesel fuel through the pickup hose), and quite calm. Today the winds have dropped substantially, hardly even hitting 15 knots, and the seas are down as well. Maybe the Christmas Winds are leaving us? They're supposed to last until at least the 1rst of March, so it's about time. But it's hot again. I liked the cooler weather. Oh well, we'll have a nice steak dinner tonight and then hang out here in the marina until Maryann leaves on the 28th.