Month: December 2017

Benures Bay

We finally got a good weather window and sailed north again, this time to the British Virgin Islands. It was a lovely run with only one other boat that we crossed paths with as they headed south. Since we were arriving at the end of the day and it’s not advised to go into major harbors in the dark, we opted to hoist the quarantine flag off Norman Island and not go ashore. Benures Bay is a beautiful little anchorage. There were two boats there but we found a solid spot in between them and settled in for the night. The next day we sailed into Road Town to clear in. The devastation from the storm was still evident everywhere – blue tarps on buildings, rubble, boats sunk or salvaged but floating beyond any repair. I was a bit nervous to even bring the dinghy in to shore, but we watched others and found a safe path.

View from the top!

Kayaking in Benures Bay

Then began the run around. We went to the government house and they told us customs and immigration had moved to the cable tv building (none of the government offices are located where they originally were due to storm damage). We headed over to the cable tv building only to be pointed to yet another building. At that office they told us we were supposed to be back at the pier – turns out we had not seen the makeshift tent set up to process customs. This was within sight of the government house – where they had originally sent us across town. Ugh, bureaucracy. Of course the officials at the tent were not pleasant either. Apparently they have a reputation of being very uncooperative and unwelcoming, which is amazing since this series of islands is very much dependent on tourism – you’d think they didn’t want people coming in to spend money. I asked about the park permits (needed to take moorings at dive and snorkel spots) and were informed we’d have to go back across town. I was developing a new respect for the charter companies that process all of this for you when you bareboat down here. We decided to scrap the parks office & try to find them another day to pay for the permit. We got back on the boat and sailed back to Benures Bay, only to find it all to ourselves.

Snorkeling the indians

The next day I broke out the kayak that Marcia Hogan had lent us and pumped it up – much easier on deck than assembling the folding kayak I had used earlier. Trip went for a row while I went for a paddle and we eventually left the boats on shore to do some snorkeling.

The next day we headed over to the Indians. With a slightly guilty feeling as we picked up a park mooring, we jumped overboard and swam off to explore. This is one of the most famous spots to snorkel and dive in the BVI. Though damage was evident it was still a fun spot to explore for the afternoon. We had thought about heading to Sopers Hole for the night (on our way to Jost Van Dyke), but suddenly decided to head back to Norman Island, to the Bight.

Pirate’s Bight

The Bight is a famous anchorage known for the Willie T – a reproduction boat turned into a bar that was famous for drunk folks climbing the mast and jumping into the water. Unfortunately the Willie T didn’t survive the storm – she’s washed up on shore looking really really pathetic. We picked up a mooring and went ashore to Pirate’s Bight. I’m happy to report that they had already started building a new beach bar and were able to fix things up pretty quickly post storm, so they were open for drinks and dinner.

Sunset

Later when we were back on board a father/daughter pair came by in a dinghy, admiring the boat. We had seen each other earlier at the Indians and invited them aboard the next morning to tour our little floating home. Yet another dinghy went by complimenting us on the boat as well – it was rather nice to get all the attention!

Holiday felted buddies

Winds weren’t looking favorable for us to head north yet, so we decided to go back to Christiansted. We actually found ourselves ‘trapped’ on the boat for two days with high winds and lumpy seas even in the harbor. I did a lot of reading, cleaned out the fridge, and finished some Christmas projects. It’s not exactly a hardship to have to stay put for a day or two.

Salvage work

We took the bus to the center of the island where I could get to an AT&T store. Only 45 minutes of waiting and the tech got my mobile hotspot working with the SIM card, so I wouldn’t burn through cellular data on my cell phone. We walked over to the grocery store then and did a big stock up. We caught a ‘taxi-van’ back to the harbor (big splurge – $2.50 instead of $1 for the bus).

Salvage divers at rest

Since we had already tried Savant and had a fabulous meal, we decided to give Balter a try as well. We went early and sat at the bar. As hot and humid as the islands are, once the sun goes down a glass of light red wine is still really nice. Turley Cinsault (never heard of it before) seems to be the red of choice in the nicer restaurants and you can buy an entire bottle for $40 (restaurant markup) so we enjoyed a few glasses and shared a scrumptious bowl of shrimp mac & cheese.

The Mill – fabulous pizza

We managed to rent a car one more day to explore a bit more, so decided to go snorkeling off the beaches of Fredericksted where the water was calmer. A local dive shop let us know that even though the cruise ship was still in town (housing FEMA workers), you could snorkel and dive right off the beach along the pier as long as you stayed away from the ship itself. The storm had made a direct hit on this end of the island and everything was pretty trashed, but you could still see some sea fans and sponges that had survived. There was a school of cuttlefish hanging out in the rocks that we watched for a while. After drying off we headed north to a fabulous beach bar called Rhythms. Unfortunately we were a bit too early in the day for the live music, but it was still a great place to relax and have lunch.

Prepped for the holidays

Buck Island is just north of St Croix and is a designated marine sanctuary. It had been closed since the hurricanes but we got doubly lucky because the National Park Service re-opened it a week before we arrived and a ranger was kind enough to approve our permit in 24 hours (normally takes 5 days). With a permit, you can anchor on the west end of the island overnight. Most people don’t go through the effort so we had the anchorage to ourselves for two blissful nights.

The west end of the island is a beautiful beach and good swimming, while the east end is the marine sanctuary. You can take boats over to the east end but it’s really shallow so we opted to go by dinghy and hook up to one of the mooring balls.

Like other snorkeling experiences here, the coral is in rough shape – not from the storms but from sea temperature rise over the last several years. It’s starting to grow back, you can see brain coral and local scientists are transplanting elkhorn coral, but it’s going to be a long haul. But the fish are absolutely amazing. A huge school of blue tangs followed us around for a while and made our afternoon.

Squalls in the distance

When we got back to the boat the day trippers from the beach were gone. Some nasty storm fronts passed by us to the north and we were lucky enough to watch from a distance.

The second day there were a few more day trippers. We went back to the marine sanctuary and this time explored the ‘grotto’. Once upon a time there was an entire underwater trail complete with placards buried in the seabed. Unfortunately there’s a lot of growth that’s moved in and things need to be cleaned up, but again the fish were fun to watch.