12 March 2012 Simpson Bay Lagoon, St Maarten
We’re planning to sail to the British Virgin Islands on the 15th, so we spent the morning running around. I’ve found out that the cost of a new Voltage Control System board on the generator will be about £700, so I told Electec that we’re not going to bother fixing it. We then went to the chandlers and Ace Hardware to buy various bits of kit.
We’ve been told that food and booze prices are very high in the BVIs, so we’ll be stocking up here with enough to last us for a month or so. We started off with the essentials and bought three cases of beer and two cases of wine this morning.
In the afternoon, Glenys went off to another supermarket while I tidied up the wiring for the dive compressor and reinstalled it in the cockpit locker. I then put some marine epoxy onto the leaking part of the engine exhaust elbow as a temporary fix until I get a gasket to fit the new exhaust elbow.
In the evening, we went out to an Indian restaurant with “Notre Vie” – that’s three meals out in the space of a week, we’ll be bankrupt soon.
13 March 2012 Simpson Bay Lagoon, St Maarten
We had a lazy day and went into Phillipsburg. There were five cruise ships in the bay, so it was bedlam on the sea front with Segways and mountain bikes zipping around amongst the thousands of tourists being unloaded from the ships. There is constant chatter from locals wanting to sell you stuff with special deals such as a beach chair and five cold beers for only $20US. I don’t remember a beach all the way along the bay, perhaps it’s all imported sand.
We wandered along the sea front, then down Front Street which is back to back electronics, jewellery and souvenir shops. It’s a good place to do some serious people watching as there are all sorts that pour off the cruise ships. We were very naughty and sneaked into MacDonald’s for lunch – first one for over a year.
Back on the boat, I replaced the kitchen tap, which has been leaking ever since we bought the boat. As expected, it didn’t go smoothly because the pipe fittings were all different on the new tap and I had to hacksaw a bigger hole in the work surface. After a bit of running around, I managed to buy some pipe fittings at Budget Marine, so we now have a drip free tap.
Glenys went to Business Point to sort out email and had a very successful time – she managed to use our internet banking to pay for our yacht hull insurance for next year and the gasket for the exhaust elbow is finally on its way to the British Virgin Islands.
We had a quiet night in for a change.
14 March 2012 Simpson Bay Lagoon, St Maarten
We had another running around sort of day. I went to Ace Hardware and the chandlers to buy some more bits and pieces. We’re expecting that it will be hard or expensive to buy things as we travel through the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. I’m trying to think ahead and buy things that I’ll need over the next two months.
We then went ashore and tried to change our remaining Eastern Caribbean dollars into US dollars, but after queuing for ages in two banks we’ve been told that we’d have to go over to the French side because none of the banks on the Dutch side do currency exchange – very weird… We’ll try in the BVIs or just wait until we get to the States or the UK.
Our next stop was a supermarket, near the marina where we parked our dinghy. We focussed on getting heavy stuff which we could quickly carry to the dinghy - three cases of beer, 12 litres of Coke, 8 litres of orange juice, etc.
We grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch and then went to a huge supermarket where Glenys bought more European things like Kellogg’s breakfast cereal; part baked French baguettes and wasabi paste. You’d think that we’re going to cross the Atlantic with the amount of provisioning that we’re doing.
The rest of the afternoon was spent tidying up and preparing to sail tomorrow evening. I’m starting to get soft – it was 25°C tonight and I had to put on a light jumper. I’m going to suffer when we go further north.
15 March 2012 Simpson Bay Lagoon to Gorda Sound, BVI (Day 1)
We hung about in the morning doing more tidying up and waiting for the bridge opening at eleven o’clock. I replaced the fishing line on my trolling reel and repaired one of my birds with epoxy. Once through the bridge, we anchored in the extremely rolly anchorage. I went ashore to clear out of customs – it cost us another $47US to clear out giving a total cost of $108US for the privilege of anchoring for ten nights in the lagoon. Perhaps we should have gone over to the French side.
After lunch, we went to Business Point and checked our emails – nothing much happening which is good news. Ceris seems to be recovering and is able to talk, but is not able to eat solid food yet. Gareth is talking about her moving back into his house in a few days’ time. Goodness knows how they are going to cope with her additional care requirements.
We spent the rest of the afternoon waiting to leave at sunset. Glenys rustled up a nice, filling Rosti with two fried eggs that should keep us going.
The waiting was too much for us and we cracked up, leaving just after six o’clock. The wind was light at first while we were in the lee of the island, but was coming from our starboard quarter and promised a nice broad reach. After half an hour, we tried to sail, but we were only able to do three knots so, at seven o’clock, Glenys turned the engine on while I went to bed to start our usual three hour watches.
At eight o’clock, Glenys turned off the engine and started to sail, but we were going downwind rather than on a broad reach, so the jib was collapsing and filling as it was blanketed by the main sail. Each time that the jib filled, the genoa car made a horrible banging noise down, below right above my head, so I didn’t get a lot of sleep.
I was a little bit cranky when I got up at ten o’clock and blamed Glenys for letting the sail flog for two hours. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of putting up a pole, so I sheeted the jib in tight and magically the banging and crashing stopped. Most of the drive was coming from the main sail and we were doing about five knots, so we sailed like that all night.
16 March 2012 Simpson Bay Lagoon to Gorda Sound, BVI (Day 2)
It was a very dark night until three o'clock when the moon finally came out. There were quite a few ships wandering about – some big cruise ships were travelling between the BVI and St Maarten all lit up like mini skyscrapers. We also had some commercial ships that crossed our track. I’m guessing that the eighty mile passage between St Maarten and the BVI is a major shipping lane between the USA and the eastern Caribbean. Fortunately they were all keeping a good watch and we had no nasty encounters.
At dawn, we were still thirty miles from the BVI, slowly plodding along at a comfortable five miles per hour. I put out two fishing lines, but didn’t have any bites. We went through the passage between Round Rock and Ginger Island and anchored off Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda at half past ten.
I went ashore to clear in through customs and immigration, which was no problem, but they didn't issue the permits for the National Park moorings. One of the main reasons that we have come to the BVI is to do plenty of dives, so we need the permit. The customs guy told me that I can get one from the National Park office above The Baths or come back tomorrow at nine o'clock, when someone would be there for a couple of hours.
We decided to get the permit now so that we could relax tomorrow. We motored a mile along to The Baths, but found that all of the moorings were taken, so we had to anchor in Spring Bay which is very rocky and terrible holding. I left Glenys on anchor watch and went off in the dinghy to find the National Park office. The Baths are a major tourist attraction and, to protect the swimmers, it’s no longer permitted to use an outboard to get to the beach. Instead, I had to tie up to a dinghy mooring line, which is twenty five metres from the beach.
I swam ashore in my swimming shorts and Teva sandals while holding my documents and wallet above my head in a water proof bag – not easy with the waves crashing onto the beach. I wandered in to a beach bar and asked where the National Park office was located. The lady gave me a very blank look, but eventually found someone who directed me up a path to the main road.
The guy in the National Park office made me stand outside because I was dripping wet through and told me that the charge is $50US per week. I told him that I wanted ten days starting on the 19th March. This wasn’t possible – I had to buy whole weeks and it would have to start today. I prevaricated because I knew that we weren’t going to use mooring for a few days, but eventually I relented and bought two weeks. I swam back to the dinghy and reported back to Glenys, still seething about the stupid system, and the difficulty of getting a permit.
We motored around to Gorda Sound and anchored behind a reef in Drake's Anchorage in perfect isolation at around three o'clock. We collapsed and had an early night.