Posted by The US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands are less than a full day’s sail from the eastern end of Puerto Rico. We stayed in western Puerto Rico so we had a full 20 hours of sailing to reach the USVI. We decided to leave in the early afternoon, sail overnight and arrive in the middle of the next day. We had a nice trip along the coast of Puerto Rico and a calm night passage. We arrived just off St Thomas just after noon. There is a small island just outside the large port of Charlotte Amalie. Charlotte Amalie is the main port on St Thomas. This island is a very popular tourist destination for its great snorkeling and clear water. There is a sunken ship resting in less than 30 feet of water and it is very easily explored with a mask, snorkel and fins. Our guide book said that one can rarely find in room the small anchorage so we did not expect to visit. However, as we sailed past the island the bay was empty so we decided to stop for the evening. Not 10 minutes after we secured Samadhi to the mooring we were surrounded by tour boats off loading 100s of cruise ship passengers into the small bay. We joined the masses and explored the wreck and visited the reef. As the sun began to set the last of the tour boats headed back to St Thomas and we again had the bay to ourselves.
There are two main islands in the USVI. St Thomas is the largest and most populated. It is beautiful and is full of history. We spent about one week exploring the island. We enjoyed being anchored right in the middle of a small city. The grocery store was a few minutes’ walk from the dinghy dock. Any kind of restaurant you can imagine was again a short stroll from the dinghy dock. We found an amazing restaurant that was located in a building built by the Dutch in the late 1600’s. The current owners designed their modern restaurant to accentuate the history of the building. It was also full of artwork from local artists. The waterfront was bordered by a wonderful walking trail similar to a Mexican city’s malecon. We took advantage of this and used it as our running route. We even had the opportunity to participate in a locally sponsored 5k run. There was excellent participation in the community. There were all levels of runners out there giving it their all. It was fun to be a part of such a large hardworking group of local runners and walkers. We spent 4 nights at a lovely anchorage just off St Thomas’ most visited and picturesque beach. Our time there was spent hiking nearby trails, mingling with the tourists at the beach and snorkeling the nearby reefs. Alexander used this opportunity of a calm bay to learn to sail the Portland Pudgy alone. I spent a few minutes sailing with him to remind him of the characteristics of sailing a small boat. He patiently listened and participated. However, as soon as I asked him if he had any more questions he quickly replied no and ushered me off his boat. The wind was very light, the bay calm and there were very few other boats around, so the conditions were perfect for learning to sail. I followed him around in the RIB for awhile to make sure he got the hang of it all. But after a few laps around the bay, he had it all under control and I could see that he enjoyed being left to handle it all himself. He sailed that little boat around our bay for the better part of a day.
St John is the other major island in the USVI. The majority of St John is a National Park, therefore it has very little development and many hiking trails throughout the island. We spent 2 weeks exploring the many bays and all of the trails on St John. We rode out high winds and big swells in an anchorage on the south east end of the island. Here we had a beautiful bay mostly all to ourselves. Alexander spent time sailing the Portland Pudgy around the bay gaining confidence with each hour at the helm of his own little vessel. On one of our mornings Alexander awoke early and packed a lunch and anything he thought he might need for a full day of sailing and exploring the numerous bays around us. He plan was to spend the day on his own little expedition away from mom and dad and Victoria. He did take along his cat. Together they set off early in the morning. He spent the entire morning sailing in and out of various bays many times well out of view of his very worried mother. Just after noon we noticed him crossing the large bay and the wind seemed to be really picking up. He cut his expedition short by a few hours due to the conditions but he had a great time and felt very proud of his accomplishment.
The following is written by Ashley:
My (Ashley’s) dad came to visit for a little over a week. The original plan was to visit the British Virgin Islands right away as we (pre-children) had chartered a sailboat in the BVIs with my dad back in 2009 and were looking forward to visiting a few of our favorites from that trip. The day before he arrived we anchored off the southwestern shore of St Thomas right next to the airport runway. The next morning we went on a tour of the University of the Virgin Islands. Victoria and Alexander were in heaven in the biology lab looking at all the cool specimens they had on display. Grandpa arrived in mid-afternoon and less than an hour after touching down we picked him up on the beach. At this point we have now spent a few weeks between St Thomas and St John and had to break the news to him that we weren’t going to straight to the BVIs. There was so much to do and explore and we were excited to show him what we’d discovered. In his time with us in the USVI we went hiking to petroglyphs, explored old plantation ruins, snorkeled, did some more hiking, and explored more ruins. In the final 4 days of his trip we hopped over to the BVIs and were able to show Victoria and Alexander the highlights of our trip there from 2009. Our first stop was Norman Island (the island Treasure Island is based on) where we snorkeled the caves (but didn’t find any treasure). Day 2 in the BVIs we went to the Baths. This is a really neat formation of large boulders along the beach that you can climb in, under, and around. Last time we were here you were allowed to dinghy to the beach to drop off people and possessions then you had to take the dinghy out and tie it to a float and the driver had to swim back in. They’ve made some changes in the last 14 years and we all had to swim to shore from the dinghy tie up and then back. Shore is just a little more than a stone’s throw from the tie up but it wasn’t as easy of a swim as it looked. I’m used to having fins and a snorkel when I need to swim much distance and on this swim I was also carrying our dry bag with phone in it over my head as I swam.
We finished out our BVI exploring with a trip to the Bitter End Yacht Club. The BEYC was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017 and they are slowing rebuilding. The new BEYC doesn’t look anything like it did back in 2009 but they are working on rebuilding and getting their employees back to work. One of the activities back in 2009 that Dan enjoyed was racing Hobie Cats. First thing we did our first full day there was to get Alexander out on the Hobie and he enjoyed it so much that after he came back from his 1st hour we signed up for another hour later in the day with 2 boats. He invited a boy he met on the beach and they raced around the harbor against Dan and Victoria. Sadly it was time from Grandpa to head back home so the following day we sailed back to St Thomas. We love having visitors and truly appreciate when someone we love comes to visit us. We also get to see all the inconvenient and unconventional ways we do things thru someone else’s eyes. We forget how climbing up a ladder, clamoring up onto a dock, or launching a dinghy in surf (not to mention things like flushing a marine toilet with manual pump or interrupting an afternoon desalinating 150 gallons of water) is not most people’s normal. Thanks Dad for traveling so far and dealing with boat life so we could spend time with you!
OK back to Dan:
After John left we planned to sail the 90 miles to St Martin as an overnight sail. We keep looking forward to not sailing upwind and into big seas. The sail to St Martin is a turn to the south but not so much that it is pleasant sailing. That “pleasant sailing” is still a few islands ahead of us. Our sail to St Martin was far from smooth but it was nice to sail the entire distance. We had great sail the afternoon that we left and all through the night. The kids each pulled a night shift of sailing beneath the stars and as the sun came up St Martin came into view. We sailed right into the large bay of our first French Island.
Sailing Samadhi 