We arrived in St. Thomas on the Saturday beginning
Easter week, along with, it seems, practically the entire
boat-owning population of Puerto Rico. That entire
territory has Holy Week off, and the next-door Virgins
are a prime vacation destination. Religiously speaking,
that seems fitting. Every slip in every marina on St.
Thomas had been reserved for months, with waiting
lists, so we were relegated to an anchorage.
We dropped anchor in the West Gregorie Channel,
about a mile west of the main city of Charlotte Amalie,
across from the Crown Cove Marina and close to the
airport. Charlotte Amalie is the main port for the U.S
Virgins, with container ships and barges, tour boats,
party barges and cruise ships pulling in and out
around the clock. This made for a noisy and rolly
anchorage. On the other hand, we were close to U.S.-
style grocery shopping and marine supply store, were
able to get our propane tanks refilled, and even found
a nearby K-Mart and bought a blender for the boat …
no longer will we have to pay top dollar for slushies,
smoothies and our frou-frou drinks.
Easter week, along with, it seems, practically the entire
boat-owning population of Puerto Rico. That entire
territory has Holy Week off, and the next-door Virgins
are a prime vacation destination. Religiously speaking,
that seems fitting. Every slip in every marina on St.
Thomas had been reserved for months, with waiting
lists, so we were relegated to an anchorage.
We dropped anchor in the West Gregorie Channel,
about a mile west of the main city of Charlotte Amalie,
across from the Crown Cove Marina and close to the
airport. Charlotte Amalie is the main port for the U.S
Virgins, with container ships and barges, tour boats,
party barges and cruise ships pulling in and out
around the clock. This made for a noisy and rolly
anchorage. On the other hand, we were close to U.S.-
style grocery shopping and marine supply store, were
able to get our propane tanks refilled, and even found
a nearby K-Mart and bought a blender for the boat …
no longer will we have to pay top dollar for slushies,
smoothies and our frou-frou drinks.
St. Thomas, St. John
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
Our Guests Arrive
With coinciding spring breaks in California, we were at the beginning of two weeks of company visiting us from back
home. Our first guests were the Logans: one of Maddy’s best friends, Liza Jean; her older sister, Courtney; and her
mom, Alison. Maddy has been literally counting down the days to Liza’s visit since we embarked from Nassau in
February. Starting February 1st, Maddy had written a number for each remaining day until Liza’s arrival on a series of
yellow sticky notes, which she’d then stuck to the bulkheads in her cabin, removing one each day … sort of like a “20
shopping days left to Christmas” sort of thing.
We met the Logans at the airport, and ferried them and their luggage across the harbor by dinghy to Dakota Rose in
a few trips. Jay and Maddy lost no time teaching them how to swing off the deck on the main halyard, out over the
water, dropping into the water moments before smashing back into the side of the boat.
After spending time in the sparsely-populated Bahamas, St. Thomas, and Charlotte Amalie in particular, present us
with a bit of culture shock. For the first time in months we feel obliged to lock up the dinghy when we leave it in the
marina or at the city dock. We also notice much more of an “us versus them” attitude between the true natives,
transplants from the mainland U.S., and tourists. In the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands, the
workers we came into contact with on a day-to-day basis – shopkeepers, waiters and bartenders, boat operators,
marina workers, repair people and so on – have been mostly locals, sharing in the economic benefits brought by
tourism. On the other hand, here in the USVI, it seems, the service-economy workers we come in contact with are
overwhelmingly transplants from the U.S mainland, creating an economic disparity and leading to understandable
resentment of the “interlopers.”
We spent one afternoon walking around Charlotte Amalie, and it was crowded with cruise ship passengers (we
counted five ships in port that day) and pushy vendors and cab drivers. It was hot, dusty and noisy. The main
downtown street consisted of alternating jewelry, liquor and knick-knack stores, all (of course) duty-free. Maddy and
Liza got their hair braided at a roadside stand. Then, it was back to the boat for some peace and quiet.
We left the next morning and sailed over to St. John, where we moored for two nights in Caneel Bay and one night in
Hawksnest Bay. St. John has one main town, Cruz Bay, a few small settlements, and lots and lots of pristine coves and
beaches. Most of St. John and the surrounding waters is a national park, having been purchased and then donated to
the government back in the ‘60s by Lawrence Rockefeller. Its status as a National Park is relatively secure because,
as best as anyone can tell, there is no oil to be drilled for there. The National Park Service zealously guards the reefs
and land environment. Moorings have been laid down in most of the small harbors so that visiting boats won’t harm
reefs and sea grass with their anchors and chain. We lounged on the beaches, snorkeled, dinghied into Cruz Bay for
browsing and a few meals and, all in all, had a relaxing time. In Hawksnest Bay we spotted numerous sea turtles
The week went by quickly, and we returned to St. Thomas to drop the Logans off at the airport and pick up our next
visitors the same evening. We lucked out ... Crown Bay Marina had a boat leave early, unexpectedly, and they were
able to let us have a slip for one night. This made it much easier to get the Logans and their bags off the boat and to
the airport, clean up Dakota Rose, take on fuel and water, do our laundry and reprovision. We’d been looking forward
to a day of nonstop dinghy trips back and forth to an anchorage, so this was a much-appreciated luxury.
Our next door neighbors from Coronado, the Lyons – Chip, Cecelia and Judd – arrived that night and settled in. We
left the next morning, and it was back to Hawksnest Bay. We spent two nights there this time. One long afternoon we
spent on a guided tour of the island from Mr. Kitch in his fantabulous taxi, Purple Rain. The Lyons had been nice
enough to bring Jay’s skimboard from home, and Judd’s also, and the boys spent plenty of time on the beach. Steve
even tried it out, and was able to almost get the hang of it after falling a number of times. OK, well, he never really did
get the hang of it, he just basically was able to slide about 10 feet without falling down … once … so he called it a
success and turned the board back over to the boys.
One afternoon, fishing from the back of the boat, the kids landed two remoras in quick succession. A remora is a
small shark with a suction disk on the back of its head, which it uses to attach itself to the belly of a larger shark where
it rides around, darting out to eat the scraps left floating in the water after its host tears into its prey. Steve thinks that
they adopt cruising sailboats as they’d adopt a shark, feasting on the food scraps we throw overboard after meals. In
any case, this is not a particularly appetizing fish, so after taking pictures they were both thrown back.
Then, it was on to Tortola, BVI for a change of scenery. We tied up to a dock in Soper’s Hole Marina, and spent three
days doing the beach and tourist thing. Maddy got to spend an hour swimming with dolphins, doing (among other
things) the fin tow and the foot push. She’s ready for Sea World. Jay and Judd spent most of their time at the beach
skimboarding. Judd’s skimboard self-destructed shortly after he arrived here, but we were able to find the only
skimboard for sale in Tortola to replace it, and we even got a few dollars knocked off the price since it was the display
model.
At the end of the week it was back to Crown Bay Marina. This time, after the Lyons left for the airport, we decided to
stay at the dock for a few days (the Puerto Rican influx had largely dissipated by then, so dock space was readily
available) for a more leisurely clean-up and reprovisioning of our boat.
Water Island
While in Crown Bay Marina, Dianne recognized a dinghy pulling into the dock. In it was our friend Larry, from Nexus.
Larry, his wife Dee Dee and their 3-year-old daughter Isabella, are in the early stages of a 5 year cruise on their
brand new Nordhavn trawler. We’d first met them in George Town, Bahamas, where Larry and Jay played together on
the winning team in the volleyball tournament. They were anchored a couple of miles south of the marina in Druif Bay,
at the southeast corner of Water Island, and were engaged in that activity common to all cruisers … waiting for a
repair part to arrive. In this case, they were waiting for a new hydraulic power pack to be shipped from China.
Water Island is just south of St. Thomas, and is about three miles north-to-south and a half mile east-to-west. With St.
Thomas’ Regis Point and Mosquito Point to the west, and Hassel Island to the east, Water Island forms the East and
West Gregorie Channels, an upside down “V” that is the primary cargo and industrial harbor for the U.S. Virgins. The
Port Authority also has a long pier in the West Gregorie Channel, just south of the Crown Bay Marina, which they use
for overflow cruise ship traffic when the primary wharf in downtown Charlotte Amalie is full. One day while we were
here we counted eight cruise ships in port: four downtown, two in the West Gregorie Channel, and two anchored off in
the main harbor. That’s 20,000 or so cruise ship passengers disgorged into the local economy, each on a frenzied
hunt for the perfect and unique t-shirt, trinket or six-pack of rum to commemorate their visit to the unspoiled Virgins.
At Larry’s suggestion, we moved Dakota Rose down to Druif Bay and anchored. There, he introduced us to the
Bananas family – Donnie, Dianna, their three boys, Hobie, Mickey and Nico, and their puppy Selena. Donnie was also
waiting for a part to come in, a new, bronze actuator arm for his hydraulic rudder assembly. We were immediately
invited to a beach potluck by Victoria, Larry and Samantha on the sailboat Magic. Shortly after we arrived, other
families with kids pulled in on their sailboats, Arwenstar and Alibi.
Druif Bay is also known as Honeymoon Bay and Beach. This is the second Honeymoon Beach we’ve been anchored
at since we arrived in the Virgin Islands, and our guess is that we’ll find this to be a very common name for pristine,
deserted, palm-fringed beaches that are “discovered” by the cruise ship excursion boats and their brochure
copywriters. The anchorage itself was one of the worst we’ve been in on this entire trip. Just finding a spot to anchor
was difficult, since the bay is crowded with private mooring balls (this is a common problem in the St. Thomas
anchorages, where locals are allowed to put private moorings in public waters after getting a government permit).
Getting the anchor to hold on the hard-packed bottom was tough, and the wind shifted constantly, swinging boats in
all directions, so that neighbors who seemed anchored a comfortable distance apart would, all of a sudden, be within
handshaking distance of each other. Long swells would roll into the bay, setting masts to swaying back and forth and
causing a certain sensitive stomach aboard Dakota Rose to churn (especially since she’d run out of “patches”).
Excursion boats from the cruise ships, including the fabulous and amazingly obtrusive Kon Tiki glass-bottomed party
barge, would pull in and out all day long, blaring steel band music and emptying their excursioneers onto the beach.
As the Kon Tiki brochure so eloquently describes it, "You will stop at Honeymoon Beach on Water Island, a
wonderful white sand beach with sparkling turquiose clear waters for at least one hour of swimming, sunbathing and
beach combing for shells. The Kon Tiki beaches herself right on the beach for your convenience and pleasure." You
read that right ... that's at least one hour! After reading this, Steve wondered where else the Kon Tiki might beach
herself if not right on the beach, while Maddy hypothesized that they must plant shells on the beach for those
beachcombers to find because, with so many of them visiting day after day, the beach was surely combed clean.
And Yet, We Stayed Here for Five Days. Why?
We were having a wonderful time. With the other cruising families we met, we had pot lucks on the beach and shared
cocktails on each others’ boats. The kids snorkeled, skimboarded, swam, fished and otherwise hung out (after
morning schoolwork, of course!). Jay caught a lobster snorkeling near a wreck just outside the bay, which was quickly
cooked and eaten by Dianne. Larry, from Nexus, was great with the kids … he’d tow them on his big dinghy with its 60
HP motor (not a Johnson, though) going wake boarding and tubing, and let them climb up and dive off of his boat. We
dinghied into Charlotte Amalie with Victoria, Larry and Samantha from Magic, then caught the dollar bus to the Coral
World aquarium. We ordered dinner from the Pizza Boat, a brightly painted, yellow and red, 1940’s vintage riveted
steel lifeboat that’s been retrofitted with a full pizza kitchen – complete with ovens – and a 15 HP outboard (also not a
Johnson), that delivers fresh-baked pizza right to your boat at anchor for $10 a pie.
Most of the boats we met were at the end of their stay in the Virgins, and were getting set to sail west to Puerto Rico
on the first leg of their trips back to the States. Bananas’ part arrived, was installed, and they were pulling out to
spend a week in the British Virgins before heading west and then north. We planned to sail with them to the BVI. Only
poor Nexus was going to stay on, still waiting for that part. On our last evening in Honeymoon Bay the whole crowd got
together on Alibi and exchanged boat cards. We then returned to Dakota Rose to find that our alternator had just
burned up, apparently for no particular reason, as Jay was charging the batteries that evening. The careful reader will
recall that this same thing happened a little over a month ago, and that we had replaced the alternator back in Staniel
Cay, in the Bahamas. So, the next day, Monday morning, rather than accompanying Bananas, we moved Dakota Rose
over to the American Yacht Harbor Marina, in Red Hook Bay, at the east end of St. Thomas and just a few miles
across the channel from St. John. After some time on the phone with the technician who'd installed the alternator back
in St. Augustine, and the president of the alternator manufacturer, we settled in to, well, wait for our replacement part
to arrive.
A Big Week for Jay
Jay’s high school course work while we’re on our cruise is being done through the Brigham Young University
independent study high school extension program. They supply all of the course materials, neatly set up in modules
with incremental “speedback” assignments at the end of each module that Jay submits over the internet to be graded.
Each course then has a final exam. To take the exam, we had to line up a local proctor – who could be a teacher,
school official, librarian or embassy official – who was willing to receive the test directly from BYU, administer it to Jay,
then return it back to BYU for final grading. Through some internet research and references, we found Ms. Anne
Ruggeiro at the Antilles School here in St. Thomas who very kindly agreed to serve as proctor for the first two of Jay’s
finals, Chemistry and Geometry, which he’ll be taking this week.
We Leave St. Thomas, Hopefully for Good This Time
Our new alternator arrived and Steve installed it, so after four days in the marina we left St. Thomas and moved back
over to St. John, this time to Cinnamon Bay. This was a very well protected anchorage with great beaches and
snorkeling. There’s a National Park Service campground on shore here, with cabins and tents that can be rented, free
showers, a little surf shop, decent skim boarding for Jay, a small restaurant and a little general store where the prices
charged at the cash register seemed to have little resemblance to the prices posted on the shelves: “I thought the
sign said ice cream bars are $3.00?” “No, that’s not for these ice cream bars, these are $3.50.” “Where’s it say that?”
“I have a special price list here.” “OK, guys, let’s put them back, $3.00 is already too much!” “Awww … but I already
opened mine and took a bite!” (this last statement from Steve!).
We took a short hike through the forest to the ruins of a Danish sugar mill. Sugar (and rum) was the major industry
when Denmark owned these islands, profitable only because of the slave labor used. In fact, St. John hosted one of
the more successful slave revolts of the 1700s, when the African workers took control for the islands for nine months,
then threw themselves off of the Mary’s Point cliffs rather than surrender to a combined force of Danish, British and
French troops brought in to quell the rebellion. When slavery was abolished in the mid-1800s the sugar industry went
into decline, forests reclaimed the cane fields, the houses and factories fell into ruins, and the islands were rendered
economically worthless, allowing the United States to pick them up in 1917 for the bargain-basement price of $17
million. They were turned over to the Navy for administration and use for ship fueling and basing.
After two days, we decided that it was time to leave the U.S. Virgin Islands for good. We’d spent almost four weeks
there, well more than we originally intended to, and needed to start moving east to be in St. Martin by the end of April.
So, we sailed over to Great Harbor, Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands. After anchoring and settling in, we
held a family conference and decided we didn’t like it there: the water was silty, it was windy and choppy, it was
crowded with boats (mostly charter boats) with cranky old people aboard.
So, we pulled up our anchor and headed back over to St. John, this time to Leinster Bay on the northern coast, where
we picked up a mooring right in the shadow of the infamous Mary’s Point. Here it was uncrowded, the water was
crystal clear, and the snorkeling was fantastic. We floated less than 25 yards from the rocky shore, right over a drop-
off where the bay bottom drops from about 15 feet to over 60 feet. Dianne caught a queen triggerfish, at which point
we consulted our fish guide as to edibility. Here’s what it had to say about this gaudy, blue and green and yellow and
black fish: These fish are usually edible. The best tasting is the queen triggerfish which is sometimes, but rarely,
poisonous. Hmmm. How would one know if this particular fish was one of the rare poisonous ones, without the
presence of an expendable food taster on board? So, we threw it back.
A large, black barracuda took up residence underneath our boat, probably attracted by the small fish that, in turn,
were attracted by the food scraps we threw overboard. One afternoon, while the kids were fishing, they saw the
barracuda dart out and grab a fish in it’s teeth, chomp it in half, swallow one half, then circle around for the other.
Nature, red in tooth and claw. The kids, less poetic, pronounced it cool.
Steve’s old college friend Steve Chapman, with his wife Suzanne and their son Wyatt, arrived for a week’s vacation at
the Caneel Bay Resort while we were in Leinster Bay. We ran into Suzanne and Wyatt during a short hike over to the
Annaberg sugar plantation. They were on a guided tour of the island and were on a 10 minute stop to walk around
the ruins. We made plans to get together the next day for some beach time, snorkeling and a fantastic dinner at the
resort.
We moved over to Caneel Bay for one night, to be closer to the Chapmans and a short dinghy ride from Cruz Bay.
Jay and Dianne took the 8:30 am ferry back over to St. Thomas in the morning, then taxi’d over to the Antilles School
for Jay’s Geometry final. Steve and Maddy, apparently not having enough sailing time aboard Dakota Rose, checked
out a sunfish from the resort and spent an hour tooling around the bay, without flipping it even once. That afternoon,
after a final lunch with the Chapmans, we left for West End, Tortola, BVI.
With coinciding spring breaks in California, we were at the beginning of two weeks of company visiting us from back
home. Our first guests were the Logans: one of Maddy’s best friends, Liza Jean; her older sister, Courtney; and her
mom, Alison. Maddy has been literally counting down the days to Liza’s visit since we embarked from Nassau in
February. Starting February 1st, Maddy had written a number for each remaining day until Liza’s arrival on a series of
yellow sticky notes, which she’d then stuck to the bulkheads in her cabin, removing one each day … sort of like a “20
shopping days left to Christmas” sort of thing.
We met the Logans at the airport, and ferried them and their luggage across the harbor by dinghy to Dakota Rose in
a few trips. Jay and Maddy lost no time teaching them how to swing off the deck on the main halyard, out over the
water, dropping into the water moments before smashing back into the side of the boat.
After spending time in the sparsely-populated Bahamas, St. Thomas, and Charlotte Amalie in particular, present us
with a bit of culture shock. For the first time in months we feel obliged to lock up the dinghy when we leave it in the
marina or at the city dock. We also notice much more of an “us versus them” attitude between the true natives,
transplants from the mainland U.S., and tourists. In the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands, the
workers we came into contact with on a day-to-day basis – shopkeepers, waiters and bartenders, boat operators,
marina workers, repair people and so on – have been mostly locals, sharing in the economic benefits brought by
tourism. On the other hand, here in the USVI, it seems, the service-economy workers we come in contact with are
overwhelmingly transplants from the U.S mainland, creating an economic disparity and leading to understandable
resentment of the “interlopers.”
We spent one afternoon walking around Charlotte Amalie, and it was crowded with cruise ship passengers (we
counted five ships in port that day) and pushy vendors and cab drivers. It was hot, dusty and noisy. The main
downtown street consisted of alternating jewelry, liquor and knick-knack stores, all (of course) duty-free. Maddy and
Liza got their hair braided at a roadside stand. Then, it was back to the boat for some peace and quiet.
We left the next morning and sailed over to St. John, where we moored for two nights in Caneel Bay and one night in
Hawksnest Bay. St. John has one main town, Cruz Bay, a few small settlements, and lots and lots of pristine coves and
beaches. Most of St. John and the surrounding waters is a national park, having been purchased and then donated to
the government back in the ‘60s by Lawrence Rockefeller. Its status as a National Park is relatively secure because,
as best as anyone can tell, there is no oil to be drilled for there. The National Park Service zealously guards the reefs
and land environment. Moorings have been laid down in most of the small harbors so that visiting boats won’t harm
reefs and sea grass with their anchors and chain. We lounged on the beaches, snorkeled, dinghied into Cruz Bay for
browsing and a few meals and, all in all, had a relaxing time. In Hawksnest Bay we spotted numerous sea turtles
The week went by quickly, and we returned to St. Thomas to drop the Logans off at the airport and pick up our next
visitors the same evening. We lucked out ... Crown Bay Marina had a boat leave early, unexpectedly, and they were
able to let us have a slip for one night. This made it much easier to get the Logans and their bags off the boat and to
the airport, clean up Dakota Rose, take on fuel and water, do our laundry and reprovision. We’d been looking forward
to a day of nonstop dinghy trips back and forth to an anchorage, so this was a much-appreciated luxury.
Our next door neighbors from Coronado, the Lyons – Chip, Cecelia and Judd – arrived that night and settled in. We
left the next morning, and it was back to Hawksnest Bay. We spent two nights there this time. One long afternoon we
spent on a guided tour of the island from Mr. Kitch in his fantabulous taxi, Purple Rain. The Lyons had been nice
enough to bring Jay’s skimboard from home, and Judd’s also, and the boys spent plenty of time on the beach. Steve
even tried it out, and was able to almost get the hang of it after falling a number of times. OK, well, he never really did
get the hang of it, he just basically was able to slide about 10 feet without falling down … once … so he called it a
success and turned the board back over to the boys.
One afternoon, fishing from the back of the boat, the kids landed two remoras in quick succession. A remora is a
small shark with a suction disk on the back of its head, which it uses to attach itself to the belly of a larger shark where
it rides around, darting out to eat the scraps left floating in the water after its host tears into its prey. Steve thinks that
they adopt cruising sailboats as they’d adopt a shark, feasting on the food scraps we throw overboard after meals. In
any case, this is not a particularly appetizing fish, so after taking pictures they were both thrown back.
Then, it was on to Tortola, BVI for a change of scenery. We tied up to a dock in Soper’s Hole Marina, and spent three
days doing the beach and tourist thing. Maddy got to spend an hour swimming with dolphins, doing (among other
things) the fin tow and the foot push. She’s ready for Sea World. Jay and Judd spent most of their time at the beach
skimboarding. Judd’s skimboard self-destructed shortly after he arrived here, but we were able to find the only
skimboard for sale in Tortola to replace it, and we even got a few dollars knocked off the price since it was the display
model.
At the end of the week it was back to Crown Bay Marina. This time, after the Lyons left for the airport, we decided to
stay at the dock for a few days (the Puerto Rican influx had largely dissipated by then, so dock space was readily
available) for a more leisurely clean-up and reprovisioning of our boat.
Water Island
While in Crown Bay Marina, Dianne recognized a dinghy pulling into the dock. In it was our friend Larry, from Nexus.
Larry, his wife Dee Dee and their 3-year-old daughter Isabella, are in the early stages of a 5 year cruise on their
brand new Nordhavn trawler. We’d first met them in George Town, Bahamas, where Larry and Jay played together on
the winning team in the volleyball tournament. They were anchored a couple of miles south of the marina in Druif Bay,
at the southeast corner of Water Island, and were engaged in that activity common to all cruisers … waiting for a
repair part to arrive. In this case, they were waiting for a new hydraulic power pack to be shipped from China.
Water Island is just south of St. Thomas, and is about three miles north-to-south and a half mile east-to-west. With St.
Thomas’ Regis Point and Mosquito Point to the west, and Hassel Island to the east, Water Island forms the East and
West Gregorie Channels, an upside down “V” that is the primary cargo and industrial harbor for the U.S. Virgins. The
Port Authority also has a long pier in the West Gregorie Channel, just south of the Crown Bay Marina, which they use
for overflow cruise ship traffic when the primary wharf in downtown Charlotte Amalie is full. One day while we were
here we counted eight cruise ships in port: four downtown, two in the West Gregorie Channel, and two anchored off in
the main harbor. That’s 20,000 or so cruise ship passengers disgorged into the local economy, each on a frenzied
hunt for the perfect and unique t-shirt, trinket or six-pack of rum to commemorate their visit to the unspoiled Virgins.
At Larry’s suggestion, we moved Dakota Rose down to Druif Bay and anchored. There, he introduced us to the
Bananas family – Donnie, Dianna, their three boys, Hobie, Mickey and Nico, and their puppy Selena. Donnie was also
waiting for a part to come in, a new, bronze actuator arm for his hydraulic rudder assembly. We were immediately
invited to a beach potluck by Victoria, Larry and Samantha on the sailboat Magic. Shortly after we arrived, other
families with kids pulled in on their sailboats, Arwenstar and Alibi.
Druif Bay is also known as Honeymoon Bay and Beach. This is the second Honeymoon Beach we’ve been anchored
at since we arrived in the Virgin Islands, and our guess is that we’ll find this to be a very common name for pristine,
deserted, palm-fringed beaches that are “discovered” by the cruise ship excursion boats and their brochure
copywriters. The anchorage itself was one of the worst we’ve been in on this entire trip. Just finding a spot to anchor
was difficult, since the bay is crowded with private mooring balls (this is a common problem in the St. Thomas
anchorages, where locals are allowed to put private moorings in public waters after getting a government permit).
Getting the anchor to hold on the hard-packed bottom was tough, and the wind shifted constantly, swinging boats in
all directions, so that neighbors who seemed anchored a comfortable distance apart would, all of a sudden, be within
handshaking distance of each other. Long swells would roll into the bay, setting masts to swaying back and forth and
causing a certain sensitive stomach aboard Dakota Rose to churn (especially since she’d run out of “patches”).
Excursion boats from the cruise ships, including the fabulous and amazingly obtrusive Kon Tiki glass-bottomed party
barge, would pull in and out all day long, blaring steel band music and emptying their excursioneers onto the beach.
As the Kon Tiki brochure so eloquently describes it, "You will stop at Honeymoon Beach on Water Island, a
wonderful white sand beach with sparkling turquiose clear waters for at least one hour of swimming, sunbathing and
beach combing for shells. The Kon Tiki beaches herself right on the beach for your convenience and pleasure." You
read that right ... that's at least one hour! After reading this, Steve wondered where else the Kon Tiki might beach
herself if not right on the beach, while Maddy hypothesized that they must plant shells on the beach for those
beachcombers to find because, with so many of them visiting day after day, the beach was surely combed clean.
And Yet, We Stayed Here for Five Days. Why?
We were having a wonderful time. With the other cruising families we met, we had pot lucks on the beach and shared
cocktails on each others’ boats. The kids snorkeled, skimboarded, swam, fished and otherwise hung out (after
morning schoolwork, of course!). Jay caught a lobster snorkeling near a wreck just outside the bay, which was quickly
cooked and eaten by Dianne. Larry, from Nexus, was great with the kids … he’d tow them on his big dinghy with its 60
HP motor (not a Johnson, though) going wake boarding and tubing, and let them climb up and dive off of his boat. We
dinghied into Charlotte Amalie with Victoria, Larry and Samantha from Magic, then caught the dollar bus to the Coral
World aquarium. We ordered dinner from the Pizza Boat, a brightly painted, yellow and red, 1940’s vintage riveted
steel lifeboat that’s been retrofitted with a full pizza kitchen – complete with ovens – and a 15 HP outboard (also not a
Johnson), that delivers fresh-baked pizza right to your boat at anchor for $10 a pie.
Most of the boats we met were at the end of their stay in the Virgins, and were getting set to sail west to Puerto Rico
on the first leg of their trips back to the States. Bananas’ part arrived, was installed, and they were pulling out to
spend a week in the British Virgins before heading west and then north. We planned to sail with them to the BVI. Only
poor Nexus was going to stay on, still waiting for that part. On our last evening in Honeymoon Bay the whole crowd got
together on Alibi and exchanged boat cards. We then returned to Dakota Rose to find that our alternator had just
burned up, apparently for no particular reason, as Jay was charging the batteries that evening. The careful reader will
recall that this same thing happened a little over a month ago, and that we had replaced the alternator back in Staniel
Cay, in the Bahamas. So, the next day, Monday morning, rather than accompanying Bananas, we moved Dakota Rose
over to the American Yacht Harbor Marina, in Red Hook Bay, at the east end of St. Thomas and just a few miles
across the channel from St. John. After some time on the phone with the technician who'd installed the alternator back
in St. Augustine, and the president of the alternator manufacturer, we settled in to, well, wait for our replacement part
to arrive.
A Big Week for Jay
Jay’s high school course work while we’re on our cruise is being done through the Brigham Young University
independent study high school extension program. They supply all of the course materials, neatly set up in modules
with incremental “speedback” assignments at the end of each module that Jay submits over the internet to be graded.
Each course then has a final exam. To take the exam, we had to line up a local proctor – who could be a teacher,
school official, librarian or embassy official – who was willing to receive the test directly from BYU, administer it to Jay,
then return it back to BYU for final grading. Through some internet research and references, we found Ms. Anne
Ruggeiro at the Antilles School here in St. Thomas who very kindly agreed to serve as proctor for the first two of Jay’s
finals, Chemistry and Geometry, which he’ll be taking this week.
We Leave St. Thomas, Hopefully for Good This Time
Our new alternator arrived and Steve installed it, so after four days in the marina we left St. Thomas and moved back
over to St. John, this time to Cinnamon Bay. This was a very well protected anchorage with great beaches and
snorkeling. There’s a National Park Service campground on shore here, with cabins and tents that can be rented, free
showers, a little surf shop, decent skim boarding for Jay, a small restaurant and a little general store where the prices
charged at the cash register seemed to have little resemblance to the prices posted on the shelves: “I thought the
sign said ice cream bars are $3.00?” “No, that’s not for these ice cream bars, these are $3.50.” “Where’s it say that?”
“I have a special price list here.” “OK, guys, let’s put them back, $3.00 is already too much!” “Awww … but I already
opened mine and took a bite!” (this last statement from Steve!).
We took a short hike through the forest to the ruins of a Danish sugar mill. Sugar (and rum) was the major industry
when Denmark owned these islands, profitable only because of the slave labor used. In fact, St. John hosted one of
the more successful slave revolts of the 1700s, when the African workers took control for the islands for nine months,
then threw themselves off of the Mary’s Point cliffs rather than surrender to a combined force of Danish, British and
French troops brought in to quell the rebellion. When slavery was abolished in the mid-1800s the sugar industry went
into decline, forests reclaimed the cane fields, the houses and factories fell into ruins, and the islands were rendered
economically worthless, allowing the United States to pick them up in 1917 for the bargain-basement price of $17
million. They were turned over to the Navy for administration and use for ship fueling and basing.
After two days, we decided that it was time to leave the U.S. Virgin Islands for good. We’d spent almost four weeks
there, well more than we originally intended to, and needed to start moving east to be in St. Martin by the end of April.
So, we sailed over to Great Harbor, Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands. After anchoring and settling in, we
held a family conference and decided we didn’t like it there: the water was silty, it was windy and choppy, it was
crowded with boats (mostly charter boats) with cranky old people aboard.
So, we pulled up our anchor and headed back over to St. John, this time to Leinster Bay on the northern coast, where
we picked up a mooring right in the shadow of the infamous Mary’s Point. Here it was uncrowded, the water was
crystal clear, and the snorkeling was fantastic. We floated less than 25 yards from the rocky shore, right over a drop-
off where the bay bottom drops from about 15 feet to over 60 feet. Dianne caught a queen triggerfish, at which point
we consulted our fish guide as to edibility. Here’s what it had to say about this gaudy, blue and green and yellow and
black fish: These fish are usually edible. The best tasting is the queen triggerfish which is sometimes, but rarely,
poisonous. Hmmm. How would one know if this particular fish was one of the rare poisonous ones, without the
presence of an expendable food taster on board? So, we threw it back.
A large, black barracuda took up residence underneath our boat, probably attracted by the small fish that, in turn,
were attracted by the food scraps we threw overboard. One afternoon, while the kids were fishing, they saw the
barracuda dart out and grab a fish in it’s teeth, chomp it in half, swallow one half, then circle around for the other.
Nature, red in tooth and claw. The kids, less poetic, pronounced it cool.
Steve’s old college friend Steve Chapman, with his wife Suzanne and their son Wyatt, arrived for a week’s vacation at
the Caneel Bay Resort while we were in Leinster Bay. We ran into Suzanne and Wyatt during a short hike over to the
Annaberg sugar plantation. They were on a guided tour of the island and were on a 10 minute stop to walk around
the ruins. We made plans to get together the next day for some beach time, snorkeling and a fantastic dinner at the
resort.
We moved over to Caneel Bay for one night, to be closer to the Chapmans and a short dinghy ride from Cruz Bay.
Jay and Dianne took the 8:30 am ferry back over to St. Thomas in the morning, then taxi’d over to the Antilles School
for Jay’s Geometry final. Steve and Maddy, apparently not having enough sailing time aboard Dakota Rose, checked
out a sunfish from the resort and spent an hour tooling around the bay, without flipping it even once. That afternoon,
after a final lunch with the Chapmans, we left for West End, Tortola, BVI.