On Dec. 26 we departed Deshaies at 6:20 am to begin our passages to the BVIs. On our first day, we travelled 79 nm to anchor in White House Bay, St. Kitts. The passage was lumpy, but not too uncomfortable. On our first attempt to anchor, we drug. When we pulled up the anchor in order to try again, we discovered the reason for the anchor not setting: we had snagged a large chunk of dead coral. Attempts to dislodge the unwelcome guest with a boat hook were not successful. Finally, Devi swam over (they were anchored right in front of us) and tied a line to the back of the anchor. With the line secured we dropped the anchor. That tilted the anchor enough so that the chunk became sufficiently uncomfortable and jumped off the anchor and left us in peace. Our next attempt to anchor in a new spot was uneventful.
At 5:50 am the next morning, we were again underway. Initially we passed Arctic Tern, but once we cleared St. Kitts, their winds were favorable and they slowly passed us, affording each an opportunity to capture pictures of the other. Shortly after the Tern’s pass, a Brown Booby began using the solar light on our bow as a convenient perch from which to watch for flying fish. When our boat spooked a fish, the Booby would leap off the light and chase the fish. Soon, he would return. When the efficacy of this approach became evident, other Boobies joined in. The seas were on our beam, so we were doing a certain amount of rocking. It was interesting to see how capable the Boobies were of maintaining their balance while on the light or the rail, and of how flawlessly they returned to their perch after a fish run, despite the lurching of the boat. Not so interesting was the mess they eventually left on our deck and rails.
We spent two nights in St. Martin, having taken the opportunity to do some shopping at the new Budget Marine in Marigot. At 4:00 am on December 29 we left Marigot and made our way downwind to Virgin Gorda, BVI, and settled in to the crowded anchorage at Vixon Point, off Saba Rock, after a passage of 80 nm. The seas were easily 8 or 9 feet, and fairly steep, but the Krogen 48 North Sea is so comfortable in quartering seas abaft that the trip was remarkable benign.
For our account of our experiences in the BVIs, see our next blog entry.
-
- Early morning picture as we left Deshaies
-
- Devi took this picture of our predicament in White House Bay
-
- Arctic Tern passing us as we approach St. Martin
-
- Devi’s pic of us as we took pics of them
-
- Our first guest — Arctic Tern & St. Martin in the background
-
- Let’s have a party!
-
- Flawless two-point landing on a lurching deck
-
- Barb attempts to shoo the mess-makers away
-
- The Captain does some emergency cleaning
Jan and I live aboard our 48 in Seattle. We leave this summer to head south to Mexico and then Panama and ultimately to the Caribbean Thank you for all of your writings as they are very informative. Question on your 48. It looks like you have anchor flopper stoppers. Is that correct and do you use them mainly for anchoring and if so how do you feel they work? We have stabilizers but are wondering about rolling a lot when anchored. Second question is that it appears you also have satellite TV Are you able to get US programing in the islands and if so what service do you have. Thanks for any information you can give. We are very excited about finally retiring and heading out to sea. Ron and Jan
I replied via email. Should other readers be interested, I will repeat here that we do have at-anchor flopper stoppers. They are not always necessary (and therefore often not deployed) but when an anchorage is rolly they are a blessing. See our FAQ for more info.
Our satellite TV stopped pulling in USA signals somewhere around Puerto Rico, as I recall, back in 2007 when we were first entering the Caribbean. We let the coverage lapse and have done without ever since.