The Passage to St Croix
Ah the best laid plans etc, weather forecasts and lies….
We left Salinas with the wind in the North but not enough to
sail so we are motoring again! Perhaps when we are clear of the land the wind
would pick up and it did, unfortunately with not as much North in it as
predicted. What do they say about gentlemen not going to windward?
With about 100 miles to go we are sailing under reefed main,
mizzen and genoa as we are in no real hurry and will be there in the morning.
Reefing down for the night is prudent as the squalls can be pretty fierce, and
pretty sudden. The log recalls that the wind gradually went from NNE to E by
0600 we had several rain squalls where the wind got to a F6. It is good to be sailing at night as you
don’t always see the size of the waves. A forecast 1-2m waves turned out to be
3-4m with 3m swells, not comfortable when going to windward! For a dry boat
there were times when we were playing ‘submarines’!
We handed the mizzen as it was being backwinded and doing no
work. Hard on the wind we eventually arrived at the South west tip of St Croix
and tacked towards Fredericksted.
I forgot to mention the soup! This meal was taken as never
ending ½ mugs at regular intervals together with slices of bread and butter.
More like a rough channel crossing than the Caribbean!
We reached Fredericksted bay by 08:30 but it offered little
shelter and with large 3m+ swells from the north would be very rolly! We had no
choice but to make for Christiansted.
We sailed to the NW tip of the island off Butler bay then it
was engine on and bash eastward into the current and waves. We were both
exhausted by now because even off watch you were kept awake by the banging of
the boat as she crashed through the waves. Baked beans on toast and hot
chocolate was breakfast – real comfort food.
Slow passage was made
but eventually we made the entrance to Christiansted harbour. The entrance is
fairly narrow and surrounded by reefs on both sides together with a reef in the
middle of the harbour. The buoyage is pretty strait forward even if it looks
confusing. It reminded us of going into Bembrige, but we would never have gone
in there with a large following sea.
Safely inside we are looking for the designated anchorage
behind Protestant Cay, it seems to be taken up with local boats on moorings and
no free space. Just then an alarm goes off. It is the engine overheat alarm!!
No time to hang about so we anchor outside the channel just off the boatyard.
We are at least safe although we are bouncing about and swinging with the wind
and the swells coming in the harbour.
We tidied away the boat as quickly as we could, drinks and
some crisps and fell into bed at 16:30 and did not wake until 07:30 next day!
Then we called the
Customs, not sure if there is any paperwork coming from PR to the USVI’s. I
tell the guy on the phone who has a very West Indian accent that I have a
cruising permit, it seems to stop any questions, I am to call back later and
give the details to his colleague. A nice lady with an American accent takes
the details and advises me to let them know when I go ‘foreign’. (I presume she
meant when we leave US territory!)
Formalities completed we can relax and fix the engine! The
raw water impeller has started to strip it’s blades. Out of the 6 blades 3 are
damaged, that would explain the overheating as the pump efficiency must have
been drastically reduced. A spare impeller fitted and we are good to go. Now to
go ashore.
With a repaired engine we decide to find a better anchoring
spot. We found what looked like a good spot off Protestant Cay but after a few
minutes we were swinging too close to a catamaran so up came the anchor and we
went in search of somewhere better. Near the edge of the channel we find a
space with no mooring ball close by. Down goes the hook only to be told by a
local that we are anchored on top of someones mooring, so we move again, this
time to the edge of the seaplane area. A bit noisy but we seem to be OK,
although the planes do come fairly close.
Not so, as the DPNR police come and
move us as we are too close to the seaplane area. We asked where should we go
and he waved his hand in the direction we had come from! OK so we try again
close to the Cay only to find we are dragging as the holding is poor. After 2
attempts we give up. (No wonder there were no moorings there). Finally we go
back to where we started and anchor on a good sandy spot about 10 m from where
we started from! We had travelled 3 miles around the harbour and anchored 6
times! We both were in need of a beer!
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| Osprey on Buoy in the anchorage |
The swells seem never ending and the anchorage is not really
calm. We manage to launch the dinghy but it is too bouncy to get the outboard
on! Eventually after 2 days it is calm enough to get the motor on the dinghy.
We now cannot start the outboard. The problem seems to be the carburettor is
flooding. We call the boatyard/marina and arrange to berth on the outside. It
is still pretty swelly but we get alongside with no mishap. Within a few
minutes of tying up the mechanic has diagnosed the problem. The solution is to
‘boil’ the carburettor in an ultrasonic bath to clean it out.
We arrange to berth for a couple of nights so we can see the
town, go shopping etc. At least we can get ashore if we cannot repair the
dinghy. The boatyard were very helpful, only charging us for 1 night giving us
the first night free as we were having work done (the outboard fixed) by them.
Thanks St Croix Marine!
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| Alongside St Croix marine |
If it is not one problem it is another! With a working
outboard we have a collapsing dinghy. It seems to have suffered a catastrophic
failure of the front tube! It is completely flat. The glue holding the pressure
relief valve has given way and as fast as we pump it up it is going down!
Giving somewhat hair raising rides across the harbour to town! The solution
while ugly manages to work. We have glued the valve in with Sikaflex/3M 5200
adhesive sealant as we have glued the transom and all the other bits falling
off the dinghy!
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| Poor little dinghy |
The permanent solution is a new dinghy which they do not
have in St Croix. We will have to go to St Thomas. A phone call to Budget
Marine and a new RIB dinghy was ordered from St Martin to be delivered to St
Thomas in a weeks time, at least we will have a new dinghy and hopefully this
one will last longer than the 12 months of our Excel inflatable.
There is a supermarket at Gallows Bay, within walking
distance of the marina so we had a nice little shop buying fresh fruit and veg
that we had been missing. We had lunch at the Bistro, which also has wifi (none
at the marina)- rather strange. We ordered chicken ciabatta but the bread
appeared to be a deep fried roll! Nice home made chips, though. There is also a
laundry and the marina offered to drive us up if we needed to, which was very
nice.
We had a couple of trips to town in the dingy as it would be
a long walk. This was before the Sikaflex solution, so we took the pump with us
and had to re-inflate it before we could come back! Many of the lovely old
buildings are nicely restored and covered walkways give shade as you shop. There
are cannon planted upright on many of the corners and we discovered this was to
prevent the ox carts from bashing into the buildings in days of yore!
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| Old customs house |
Now, unfortunately
most of the shops are geared to tourists and we only found a tiny supermarket
but nice island style bread. Most of the
bread we got in Walmart was very sweet.
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| Street scene
|
The vegetable market did not have much
either, mainly elderly ladies each with a small pile of produce, but we got a
nice enough selection. Richard found a barber for a much needed haircut.
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| Barbour shop |
We came back in the evening for a free jazz concert but
first stopped at the Fort Christian Brew Pub for some locally made very nice
pale ale. The concert was on the lawns near the fort and we met a few locals
which made a very pleasant evening with an interesting insight into island
life. The ‘locals’ were from St Lucia, Bonaire, the USA and Antigua! None were
born on the island.
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| Jazz evening |
The following day we had a trip around the oldest (only?)
Danish fort in the Caribbean and watched the weigh in at the Wahoo fishing
competition. Won by a lady with a 43lb specimen.
Somehow we are exhausted with St Croix, the sort of shopping
we need is not local and the anchorage is too rolly for a comfortable stay. We
are off to St Thomas on Monday and hopefully we will have a better time there
(and collect our new dinghy).
