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19 February 2010 |
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Charlotte Amalie,
St Thomas |
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Geoff on the arch, fixing the batten, yet again!
Sail Rock
Twin Otter landing
in Charlotte Amalie |
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Made the 18 mile trip from Isla Culebrita to Charlotte Amalie,
the main city of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.
Charlotte Amalie is a very busy port with the hustle and
bustle of ferries, seaplanes, cruise ships, and pleasure craft of every
description.
The town has a Dutch history and many old Dutch style
buildings still survive. The major business here is the cruise ship traffic,
so every possible method of squeezing money out of cruise ship passengers is
represented. There are dozens of little bars and restaurants, up market
international fashion and jewelry shops and local markets. Most are along
the waterfront overlooking the enormous natural harbour, or in narrow
renovated side streets.
We did not stay long, just enough time to get a flavour and
to do some grocery shopping, but this may be the main point for us to meet
any visitors, so we are sure we will be back.
While at the dinghy dock doing our shopping, we saw a dinghy
marked T/T (tender to) GeWil. Now we only know of one GeWil and that's an
Irwin monohull belonging to Gene and Wilma from North Carolina who we met in
the Bahamas in 2005. So we dinghied through the very large anchorage and
found them. At least we found Gene, Wilma was ashore. They will be there
until June, so we will most probably see then again on our return to St.
Thomas.
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Charlotte Amalie
Charlotte Amalie |
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20 February 2010 Click on picture
to enlarge image. Click Back to return to text |
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Left Charlotte
Amalie harbour and headed around the southeast corner of St. Thomas heading
for St. John. Met a whole bunch of squalls along the way. We haven't seen
rain like that in a long time. Until we have our new hardtop fitted, (5 days
from now) and then have a dodger made, we are a little vulnerable to rain
and the present old canvas bimini leaks like a sieve.
As we were headed for a narrow, fast running gap between
islands, we pulled into anchor at St. James Island for a break and dry out
to wait for a rain break.
We found a break, headed through the gap and spent the
night in beautiful Caneel Bay on the northwest corner of St. John. St. John
is mostly a nature reserve, so there is little development and most bays
have mooring buoys to prevent anchor damage to the seafloor. |
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21 February 2010 Click on picture
to enlarge image. Click Back to return to text |
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Left Caneel Bay and
made an early morning potter around the next few bays, Hawksnest, Trunk and
Cinnamon, ending just 3 miles away in Frances Bay. Another beautiful bay
surrounded by steep hills with a few great beaches. Arrived in Frances on
Sunday so the beaches were a little busy.
St. John is definitely a place to which to return. There
are many bays we missed and we would like to have a look around onshore some
time.
Again it rained for much of the time as a weather system
passes through which cleared by Monday 22nd when we moved to the British
Virgin Islands.
Nowhere else in the world can you move from the US to the
UK in 4 miles. We motor out of this bay, turn through a gap between islands
to head northeast and there, immediately ahead is Tortola, BVI.
Headed into Soper's Hole, West End, Tortola to clear Customs
and Immigration.. |
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British Virgin Islands |
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