Cruising the US Virgin Islands

Cruising the US Virgin Islands

Friday 17th - Wednesday 22nd November

Charlotte Amalie, the capital of St Thomas, is a bustling noisy town. It’s a pretty good anchorage with easy access to shore by dinghy. We used our time here to get the boat ready for cruising, re-filling fuel and water, and stocking up on provisions for the week ahead. By Saturday we were keen to get going on our mini-cruise because the winds were strong and veering round to the south, making the anchorage uncomfortable. We headed up to Christmas Cove for an overnight stop before starting a clockwise circuit of St John. 

Most of St John is a National Park and it is beautiful. When we last visited in 2017-8 it had just been hit by hurricanes Irma and Maria and was pretty beaten up. Over the past few days we spent time in Hawksnest, Trunk and Francis Bays, all on the north coast, all of them lovely. Anchoring is not allowed, but the National Park Service provide moorings for $26/night (or half of that with a National Park Senior Pass) which are easy to pick up, well maintained and reduce anchoring damage to to seabed. We ave hiked into Cruz Bay, done a little snorkeling and plenty of swimming from the boat. From Francis Bay we walked along to the Annaberg Sugar Mill ruins, which we had visited in 2017-8 with Tasha. It’s interesting to read about the history of sugar production, all based on slavery. This plantation was an intense operation, generating 300-500 gallons of sugar cane juice per hour for evaporation. It was hard and dangerous work, and as you might imagine, the slaves were treated very poorly. It wasn’t until 1848 that the slaves on St John were emancipated. We got sample some local baking, Johnny cakes and coconut bread, as well as chewing on some sugar cane, which was very juicy!

After several days of fine living, we started to run short of food and drink. We weren’t going to go hungry but we had completely run out of fresh fruit and vegetables, and were dangerously low on beer. Realizing that tomorrow would be Thanksgiving we focussed our plans for today on getting to a grocery store. We left Francis Bay and continued eastwards along the north coast of St John, passing close to the British Virgin Islands, before sailing back westwards along the south coast and into the harbor of Coral Bay. This delightful town is outside of the National Park and has a community of live-aboard boaters. We dropped anchor, took the dinghy into shore and then walked to the local supermarket, which was surprisingly good, if somewhat expensive. We decided to lunch at the local floating taco restaurant “Lime and Salt” … which turned out to be an eye opening experience! We opted to get takeaway, but if you want to stay for cocktails and lunch you must swim up to one of several floating seats that surround the restaurant, about 6 feet away from the main structure. The drinks and meals are pushed across the divide on floating trays. There are a couple of “ferries” that shuttle customers from the dinghy dock to within swimming distance of the restaurant. It was absolutely buzzing! There isn’t room for 5 people to sit and eat lunch in the “Dainty Dog” (our new dinghy), so we ordered 10 tacos and took them back to Cotinga. In fact we need to do two trips whenever we go anywhere in the dinghy with five of us. The tacos were amazing! Having eaten our fill, we pulled up the anchor and continued round the wild and beautiful south coast to Lameshur Bay. We haven’t been here for long, but my first impression is that this is the most beautiful location we have been to thus far in the USVI. It’s quiet, well protected from the swell and absolutely beautiful. 

Mike

18.315N, -64.722W

Chickens run around everywhere in the USVI

Similarly, there are plenty of Iguanas. I spent quite a while trying to photograph this wonderful specimen and this was the best of the set, where "he" was lit up in the sunlight (plus fill-in flash) and his head was distinct from all the leaves and branches.

A less colorful iguana, shown off against the backdrop of a yellow wall.

This lady was a volunteer with the US Park Service and gave us some traditional baked goods - johnny cake and coconut bread - at the Annaberg Sugar Plantation. There is no enhancement of color or saturation in this portrait. Her clothing, jewelry and head scarf were really as glowing and beautiful as they appear. She was the perfect model! 

Pete and Jo sit on the edge of the floating "Lime and Salt" bar / restaurant as we await our order of tacos. this place was amazing ... like no business venture I have seen anywhere else! 

The view from our mooring in Lameshur Bay ... drop dead gorgeous.