St Thomas

I am sure there are plenty of American people who know where St Thomas is and that it is an island in the Caribbean. For us, it is a well traveled island, with massive cruise ships dropping off tens of thousands of human souls for the day. Some days there are 6 or 7 cruise ships, stacked up, tied up and the island seems to practically sink in people.

For us, we were dealing with equipment failure while we were in St. Thomas. Our forward hatch cracked, which means when we go to sea, any water over the bow goes cascading into the forward berth. 

Oops

We were able to borrow a friends car and find a man on the island who was an old sailor. He provided us with a new sheet of the exact kind of plexi glass we needed. The main challenge was how to bend it to the previous specifications. We took the spinnaker pole and tied it down on one side, and everything that was heavy for the other side : diving weights, chain, and even a can of antifouling.

This took more than a week of hot sun beating down on it, and in the end Philip finally took a blow torch to it and created the bend we needed.

We did leave the cruise ships behind, and headed the 16 miles to Culebra, to finish the job.

The other side of the anchorage in Charlotte Amalie

The sailboats behind the cruise ships look like little toys compared to these big boys.

Anguilla April 2015

The island of Anguilla is about 6 miles north of St. Martin. We had a fast sail to our anchorage on the western side of the island, Road Bay. The bay filled up with boats and even a regatta for the Easter weekend. 

 Anneleize and Jabez's sailing dingy behind the boat, without mast or sail. Sometimes they row it over to their friends' boat, without sailing gear.

A salt water lagoon near the anchorage had some good bird watching. I took these photos for Herman.

This is an old well, still in use. The flip flops belonged to the guy washing his car, using the well. 

More birds for Herman

I'm waiting for someone to tell me what the names of these two are.

This is the beginning of the regatta, for the Easter weekend. The boats are basic, just a hull, with one mast and two sails. And lots of people for ballast.

They are getting ready to sail out of the bay to the starting place, which was up island.