Our last day in the BVIs, we took the short sail over to Soper’s Bay. When we arrived, every mooring in the bay was full but luckily, the marina had room so we pulled in for the night. The marina had a small grocery store so we bought some last minute, over-priced supplies before checking out. Customs and Immigration at West End was a complete nightmare compared to the easy check in we had on Virgin Gorda. The ferries from the USVIs land at West End and immigration made private boaters wait until the entire ferry load went through immigration first. After waiting for one ferry, we got in back of the line to wait for our turn. As we walked up to the window, the immigration agent said he could not help us because there were more ferry people. At this point, we were about 90 minutes into these festivities so I lost my cool and yelled at some folks. I usually try not to lose my temper but when we were routed outside to wait some more while charter boats were getting checked in, I had to make a little noise. When we were finally checked out, we headed back to the marina for a much needed drink and dinner. When we got back to the boat, a superyacht had pulled in next to Galt. As the crew tied off all the lines, the families that had chartered the yacht began to disembark. They had several elementary school aged children who began running excitedly up and down the dock. “Look at it!” “It’s like a pirate ship!” “It even has a pirate steering wheel!” “That’s the coolest boat ever!” It took me a minute to realize they were talking about Galt! I am sure their parents were thrilled to know they had spent at least $350,000 a week for their fancy yacht when the kids would have been happier with a 40 year old sailboat!
The next morning, we fired up our pirate ship and headed over to the US Virgin Islands. Our trip was only 3 miles so definitely one of our easier jaunts! We pulled into Waterlemon Bay and grabbed our mooring. Our friends that we met last year in St. Vincent were there so we wanted to be sure to see them before they headed over to the BVIs. We met early the next morning for a short walk over to a national park that was an old sugar plantation. Sugar cane never did very well on St. John because the soil was difficult and St. John is also very mountainous. This particular plantation was built in the early 1800’s and was only in operation for 30 years because once the slaves were freed, no free men wanted to work that hard to get the sugar cane to grow. We spent the afternoon snorkeling in somewhat rough waters but I saw the funniest fish! After searching the internet, I finally located him. He was a Porcupine Fish. He had a huge round head with giant eyes and he kept peeking at me from under a rock. I fell in love with him immediately and I was very glad my daughter (who loves all things cute) was not with me or I would have a Porcupine Fish living in my bathtub! The next day, we moved Galt over to Maho Bay where we spent the rest of the week. It was one of those rare weeks when we had rain and since our mooring was a comfortable spot, we just stayed. We taxied over to Cruz Bay one day for lunch, groceries and ice cream so that was a successful day! Tomorrow, we will sail over to St. Thomas to avoid some odd wind directions expected early in the week. Odd wind directions tend to make some anchorages very rolly and rough so we are going to hide in Magan’s Bay which should be well protected. It is supposed to be one of the world’s top 10 most beautiful beaches so we are looking forward to judging for ourselves!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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