Charlotte Amalie and Christmas Cove

Charlotte Amalie and Christmas Cove

Tuesday 21st - Wednesday 22nd January 2025

... and now for something a little more uplifting ! ...

Charlotte Amalie is a colorful and bustling city. We were mostly there to replenish our stores but we also tried to make the most of being in town. 

The food shopping was better than we remembered from our previous visits. The ‘Fruit Bowl’ has an excellent range of produce at reasonable prices. “Pueblo’ has a decent range of meat and staples, and ‘Moes Fresh Market’ has all sorts of fantastic things, mostly at an exorbitant price! We are now well stocked in good shape for the week ahead. 

We also took the opportunity to eat out and had an excellent meal at the ‘French Quarter Bistro’, a hearty barbecue lunch at the ‘Smoking Rooster’ and some fine tacos at ‘Agave’. Anyone who says we are all about food is understating the situation! 

The other particularly memorable thing we did was take a bus from Charlotte Amalie over to Red Hook and back. The buses are more like safari trucks than what you might typically imagine. You clamber on board these open sided vehicles, say good morning / afternoon to everyone on board and get your butt down on the bench quickly before the driver takes off at breakneck speed. There are no signs as to where the bus is headed - in our case we just hopped on board and followed along on Google maps. It was quite the adventure.

For most of our on-shore activities we took the ‘Dainty Dog’ into the dinghy docks at the super-yacht marina. This worked out great, most of the time, but it is so jammed with dinghies that on one occasion it took us twenty minutes of re-tying lines and pushing and shoving to be able to get off the dock. The harbor itself is enormous, and on paper, it looks like it should be well protected from all directions except the south. However, for some reason there is quite a lot of roll and it isn’t always the most comfortable place to be. This morning we went into the super-yacht marina and topped up our water tanks and then left for Christmas Cove, about five miles to the east. We accomplished this by motoring hard into the wind and 5 foot swells. After our previous experience with the dinghy on the davits (nearly getting swamped), we opted to put the outboard up on the rail and tow the dinghy behind us. This worked out better.

Christmas Cove is a magical place. It seems so peaceful after the hectic and noisy city. We couldn’t find a free mooring, but were easily able to anchor. The water is super-clear and this afternoon we had an outstanding snorkel trip around the small island that separates the two halves of the bay. On previous occasions we may not have found the best snorkeling locations, but today we hit the jackpot. We saw so many fish, including several that we haven’t seen previously (e.g. Grey angelfish and scrawled filefish), as well as a large octopus and several Caribbean squid. The highlight was when a large Spotted Eagle Ray swam right past - it was breathtaking.

We plan to spend the next several days cruising the National Park in St John, before returning to pick up our friends from the UK.

Mike

18 18.459N, 64 50.050 W

The colors of Charlotte Amalie

Public toilets at the Yacht Haven Grande marina

Quite the backdrop to a fire hydrant

Cool building, alleyway, steps and shutters 

There are a lot of building like this with crumbling walls, rotting woodwork and colorful paint!

I think the floor of the balcony is missing!

Yellow wall and white shutters

Purple wall and black shutters

The side of a liquor distribution truck

The boats are back in town ... practicing life-raft drill. note the first of these behemoths carries 2600+ people and 1000+ crew!

Another morning, another set of massive cruise liners, a $20 million super-yacht and Cotinga filling up with water. We didn't come close to hitting any of these other vessels!