Hello Everyone!

Time to renew Ken's passport. That means sending the existing passport to the State Department and waiting for a new passport to be delivered. Without Ken's passport we cannot leave the US Virgin Islands. So, while waiting, we sailed over to St Croix, the largest and most remote of the US Virgin Islands.

Our passage to St Croix was one of the easiest we've done. The sea was nearly flat and the wind no more than 15 knots. Unfortunately the wind, as always, was on the nose so we motorsailed the 40 miles. We anchored in Gallows Bay, just off the town of Christiansted. Nice location, easy access to town and services within walking distance.

St Croix, has a feeling all its own. It is a quiet island not overrun by throngs of cruise-ship tourists. For almost 200 years St Croix was under Danish rule and their influence can be seen in the architecture they left behind. The buildings are lovely with pleasing lines and a thoughtful arrangement of space. The Danes designed their buildings with covered walkways which not only keep the rain off, but also add to the charm of the buildings. These lovely walkways, made of arches and paved with cobblestone are like the buildings they butt up against, painted in pastel colors of blue, pink, yellow and green. The doors and windows shaded by these covered walkways sport brightly painted wooden shutters which add to their charm. Colorful and airy, with views of the blue Caribbean peeking through the graceful lines of Danish architecture, Christiansted is a visually captivating historic town and a delight to wander around.

St Croix, 28 miles long and 7 miles wide, is worth seeing. So we rented a car and set off with our guide book and trusty map to explore the island. The driving was an adventure in itself as St Croix is a lefty island. One drives on the left. Fortunately Ken had driven on the left in Scotland, Africa and previously in the islands, so he was comfortable. Nothing to it!

Took me a while to think like a lefty driver. Whenever we had to turn right at a two lane intersection, it always felt like we should be turning left as we were crossing traffic to make the right-hand turn. We also turned left on red. Not sure it it was legal, but we did it. I'm glad Ken was driving.

It only took one day to see most of St Croix. We visited the easternmost point of the island, which is also the easternmost point of the United States. From there we headed west on the south side of the island and passed HOVENSA Oil Refinery the largest oil refinery in the Western Hemisphere. Much of the fuel for the eastern United States is refined on St Croix. Not very pretty, but a source of 5,500 jobs for St Croix and energy for many in the states. Next we headed down the only 4 lane highway on the island, Queen Mary Highway, to the Cruzan Rum factory. Unfortunately we missed the tour and so continued on to the St George Village Botanical Garden. I liked the botanical garden. Once a sugar plantation, the gardens now "serve to conserve the native plant species of St Croix as well as threatened species of other Caribbean islands." There is a bit of a wild feel to these gardens. The plants seem to grow in and around the ruins of the plantation rather than in any formal structured arrangement. Although there are groupings of plants--cactus & succulent garden, medicinal herb garden, tropical fruit orchard--there is a freedom to the garden that appeals. It is not manicured.

We stopped at Fredricksted, the other town on the island, for lunch and wandered along a lovely but deserted waterfront park. We ate lunch at Blue Moon, an inviting cafe with a surprisingly delicious caesar salad. The owner must have lived upstairs as the restaurant bathroom also served as a personal laundry! Clean clothes were hanging from a pole overhead, detergent and washing supplies were on the shelf and the washer was free for the next load. The islands are relaxed like that.

From Fredricksted we took in one more tourist site, the Whim Plantation. A restored 1700 sugar plantation complete with a Danish great house, windmill, cookhouse and several other historic buildings. The great house was nicely restored with beautiful furnishings. I've included a photo.

As we drove east back to Christiansted we passed but did not stop at the Mt Pellier Hut Domino Club where one can purchase beer for the beer drinking pig and engage in a game of dominos. Could have been amusing, but it was time to get back to Aurora, so we just took a peek but didn't stay.

We kept the car for a second day and returned to the Cruzan Rum Distillery for the tour we missed. This facility fell between the very sophisticated Puerto Rican Bacardi rum tour where according to their sophisticated ad visuals drinking Barcardi will get you invited to the most amazing parties where you will be young and oh so sexy and the earthy River Run rum tour on Granada where nothing had changed in well over 200 years and the rum was raw and powerful. The Cruzan tour was fun and interesting. What struck me is that each barrel of aged rum was opened and emptied by hand. That's a lot of barrels to empty manually. Again, I'm surprised at the lack of mechanization in the islands, especially on one of the US Virgin Islands.

On our second day touring, we stopped for lunch at the Columbus Cafe at the Salt River Bay Marina. It was just off of Salt River Bay where Columbus landed on his second voyage to the Caribbean in 1493. Well, Columbus himself didn't actually make landfall, his crew did. This voyage was made up of 17 ships.

Later in the week we did a SCUBA dive along the wall that drops down to 2000 plus feet just off the coast of St Croix near Salt River Bay. Lots of beautiful corals.

We never made it over to Buck Island, a national monument. We had planned to snorkel there, but the weather didn't cooperate. It was quite blustery with 8 foot swells the week we were anchored off of St Croix. In the protected harbor it was rolly. We figured, in these conditions, it would not be fun to anchor and then dinghy over to the reef to snorkel. So we passed on Buck Island.

An historic sloop, Roseway, sailed out of Gallows Bay each morning and returned each afternoon. Tourists spent the day sailing on her. I enjoyed seeing her set sail in the morning with her 4 sails and endless lines of rigging. Quite lovely.

We returned to St Thomas on Sunday. The easy passage across was not to be repeated. This time the wind was on the beam, which is good but the seas were 6 to 8 feet and coming at us on the beam as well. Thus we rolled side to side for the duration of the crossing. Not a good feeling. Ken spent the entire crossing below. Fortunately with the wind on our beam at 18 to 22 knots, we made good time. We spent the night anchored in Lindbergh Bay, a quiet anchorage not far from the St Thomas airport.

After another very rolly night and with the realization that the dinghy ride to local services (laundry, shopping, etc) was going to be very wet, we decided we'd leave Lindbergh Bay and head over to the more crowded but calmer Long Bay anchorage. Should be easy, weigh the anchor, motor over to Long Bay, drop the anchor. Right? No. We live on a boat and things break. This time it was the anchor windlass (the winch that brings up the anchor chain) or we thought it was. The windlass would start and pull the anchor chain up, but not turn off. So as Ken was bringing up the anchor he couldn't get the windlass to turn off. After several tries, he hurried back to the cockpit, down the companion way and turned it off using the nav station breaker. What to do? Can't easily anchor if the windlass is busted. We decided to take a slip at the marina for the night and see if we could figure out what was going on. Turns out the problem was in the windlass bow switch and not in the windlass. This was good news. The windlass still functioned. We have a windlass switch in the cockpit as well as on the bow, so we'll just use the cockpit switch for now. Not a problem. Ken ordered a new bow switch and it will be delivered soon. So after our night in the marina, we left and anchored in Long Bay.

No passport yet, so we decided to find a quieter anchorage. One where we could clean the bottom of the boat in relative comfort, i.e., with calm, clean water. Christmas Cove on Great St James was close and met our criteria. Using the cockpit switch we anchored, no problem. Although it wasn't that crowded, Christmas Cove is the destination for several tourist boats that bring over large groups of folks to swim and snorkel. There must be 30 or so people on each boat. And there were at least 3 boats that make the trip twice a day. The boats come, provide instructions over a loud speaker, folks get in the water and snorkel around, get back on the boat and leave. The cove is calm, but there is nothing to see when snorkeling. The bottom is covered with sand and sea grass. Occasionally a few fish swim by. There are much more beautiful snorkeling spots in the islands, in fact there is an interesting spot just on the other side of the cove. It is also the destination for the group-inflatable outing. About 6 inflatable boats arrive with a leader. The folks get out swim around, get back in their inflatables and return from whence they came. Fun to just watch all the activity. Glad I'm on my own boat and not part of a group event. The next day we spent the afternoon under the boat cleaning the hull and scraping barnacles off the prop. A chore the groupies don't have to do!

Turns out the Rolex Regatta, an annual three-day sailing competition, was starting the following day and Christmas Cove was filling up with boats, some competitors, some viewers. We decided that we didn't want to stay with the crowd, so headed back to St Thomas. Still we saw part of the race while at anchor again in Long Bay. It was quite something, 90 sail boats racing. Each one sailing into the bay, around the marks and then out of the bay and back into the channel. Some of the smaller boats sailed right into the anchorage. I thought one was going to ram us! But they tacked just in time and headed out again.

The passport arrived! As did a part to fix the salinity probe on the water maker. So we headed out of St Thomas. Spent two nights in Maho Bay on St John where Ken replaced the salinity probe and I polished the stainless. An endless battle! I also snorkeled around a small reef in the bay that turned out to be a wonderful little snorkeling spot, especially early in the morning with the sun shining through the water. Lots of small colorful reef fish along with a very large barracuda who was just watching all of the little guys. He must not have been hungry.

With Ken's new and quite lovely passport in hand, we motored across the channel to Soper's Hole on Tortola in the BVI. Unfortunately the weather has been nasty, winds gusting up to 35 knots and rainy. We've not done much here but hang out on the boat. We did get to the grocery store yesterday, but that's it. When the weather calms down, supposed to next week, we're going to sail to Anegada. It's not far, only about 14 miles, but no fun in 30 knot winds. We're in no hurry, so we'll wait for calmer conditions.

Ken's whipping up chicken enchaladas tonight. I love it that my husband cooks!

Fair Winds,

Maryann


And Here are some photos....


Such lovely lines. Aesthetically Fort Christiansvaern was a delight. I enjoyed just wandering around and looking at the structure. Even the dungeon ceiling was constructed of multiple arches.























A quaint little hotel we spied while wandering around Christiansted, St Croix.

























Millennium Monument on Point Udall, the Easternmost point of the United States. St Croix, USVI.


















Strange looking plant. Reminded me of an octopus! St George Village Botanical Garden, St Croix, USVI.

















When the Cruzan rum was fully aged each barrel was opened by hand and the rum released.



















The Christiansted scale house was the place where cargo was weighed before customes fees were collected. A lovely view of Gallows Bay through the window.

















A beautiful St Croix sunset.