Position 18° 19.123’ N
64° 52.036’ W
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An interesting little titbit for all of you reading this and contemplating a cruise to and around the Caribbean (or anywhere else for that matter), the position above, according to Nobeltec’s chart of the area, puts us on dry land! The motto here is Radar is invaluable and so are your own eyes! The paper chart and the electronic Raster chart, by the way, are spot on! May 2nd Tracy, owner of the local Westerbeke Dealership, came on board and quickly diagnosed that the generators electrical generating coils were burned and needed to be rewound! Expensive, of course! Our boating adventure has mixed emotions, the happy times seem to be extreme but so are the disappointments. This swing really takes some getting used to. I was finding myself so happy after an idyllic day and then so severely depressed when the idyllic life suddenly came to an abrupt (sometimes grinding) halt. I am trying to talk myself through the tougher times by telling myself that these (the tough times) will be over and that the elation of the great experiences during the good days is just around the corner again. This Cruising life is real and on our little white ship the ups and downs cannot be hidden from, you can’t get away from them, they are around us, under our feet and really in our faces! No burying your head in the sand here! There is a blatant reality to every day and some despair but in spite of this neither one of us would exchange our lives aboard now; it is all absolutely worth it.
After disassembling ‘Faraday’(see Glossary) the diagnosis, as I thought, was bad and the generating part has‘fried’ and needs replacing. The cause was a leaking hose, the one bringing the sea water to the raw water pump. A lesson to learn here, at least for me, the hose clamp was tight but with continual checks and further routine tightening had caused the back of the hose (where I couldn't see) to be perforated. Water from the leaking hose collected in the none drained pan area and the rotating generator had picked it up and spun it everywhere inside the electrical coils and windings, 'poof' no more electricity! It is Saturday May 4th and on Monday we will be exploring the alternatives of rewinding our existing part or buying a rebuilt unit from Westerbeke and having it flown in from the distributor in Ft. Lauderdale. Tracy, our technician here in St. Thomas, has his business and workshop ‘All Points Marine’ at Compass Point Marina, so with his help getting us a slip, we decided to leave Yacht Haven Grande and move a little east around the south coast to Benner Bay and Compass Point. Benner Bay is a very well protected hurricane hole and receives no surge, which will be a welcome change as Yacht Haven Grande does and we have become tired of it. Compass Point is also a lot less expensive. YHG, at the time of writing, is $2.75 per foot per day and CP is $1.00, the difference is it is not convenient to Charlotte Amalie and will require a taxi or Safari (bus) ride to town. We cast off and in 90 minutes were at CP, safely through the protecting reef and shallow 6’–7’ deep channel. CP is not fancy but has solid docks, good power and water; they have their own RO plant. The big advantage here is all the services that are nearby, almost all ones boating needs are covered. We need canvas work done too, a new bag for the additional hoist we had fitted to our boom back in PR, we are in need of a new membrane for our Watermaker, and it is all right here on our doorstep. Budget Marine, the equivalent to West Marine, is also located in the bay. So you can see that everything is a trade off, instead of, as we were in YHG, being surrounded by the Louis Vuitton’s, Coach’s and all the high end stores in the world we are now surrounded with what we really need! We are finding that every bay has its own infrastructure of grocery stores, bars and small shops.
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| Our new friend (the dog) |
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| Pork tenderloin sandwich |
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| Pork Brisket |
We spent our first night in CP on board and had an al fresco dinner followed by some fresh strawberries, coffee and liquors plus I smoked the one Cuban cigar I bought in Georgetown! We are glad that Faraday is on the way to a new life…
May 5th today is our wedding anniversary so I am up early with the intention of cooking a special English breakfast (see glossary) for the newly demoted First Mate. After that we will be washing the boat and lowering our dinghy ready for some exploration of the area this afternoon. According to Tracy everything is much easier to reach and access by dinghy rather than walking around the bay. (Later) Well, the day more or less went according to plan and we did do some exploring in the dinghy, Benner Bay is an interesting place, it is obviously one of the places the locals keep their boats and what a mixture there is! The sad part is it is also the dumping ground for all the derelict boats on St. Thomas. The whole bay is lined with mangroves and makes a perfect hurricane hole, as we drove around in our dinghy exploring we saw not one but lots of abandoned boats that were secured in the mangroves for various storms past but have been forgotten and never retrieved.
Next, let me tell you about our excursion into Charlotte Amalie from Benner Bay. We decided to walk to the main road which was a mile up a steep hill! Phew, definitely got rid of the cobwebs! We were nearly at the top when a kind young lady, driving a Jeep, stopped and offered us a lift. She was going to Budget Marine so we hopped aboard and took the opportunity to browse the store. It is very similar to West Marine, probably a little better stocked than the average West Marine though. We saw several items we needed and planned to return to the dinghy beach which we found out is adjacent. After our visit here we walked the 50 yards back to highway 32 and found the safari stop. Within minutes the safari arrived, we hopped aboard and off we went towards Tutu farther inland, known for its Mall and traffic jams. It didn’t take long and we were entering Charlotte Amalie and began to see familiar stores and the marina we had stayed in. We got off at the marina and went to our favourite coffee shop ‘Bad Ass Coffee’ for a morning cup of real Kona java. After using the free internet there and walking to the marina office to return our two security gate keys, (we forgot to do this when we left; they carry a $50 deposit each!) we struck out for a walk into the middle of town. It is a 1¼ mile walk to the centre which takes one all along the waterfront with views of the boats anchored in the harbour and Water Island as the backdrop; it is a worthwhile pleasant walk. When in town it seemed nearly every store was a jewellery store; I guess St. Thomas, being a duty free port, enables the shops here to sell items at a very attractive price. We were not in need of any trinkets today so simply browsed and then sought out Coconuts Bar and Grill
which was located in a very narrow street, not wide enough for vehicular transport. It was dark and atmospheric; we found a table and were greeted warmly; this was our kinda place. A long very well stocked bar and just a few tables for eating sandwiches. The speciality was a steak sandwich with grilled onions and cheese on French bread so we ordered two. A beer and the sandwich later we were well satisfied, it was fun too, and we would definitely recommend the establishment to anyone. Our return to ‘Partners’ was interesting, as we walked from the centre of town back to the waterfront, where we could catch a Safari out to the East End and Benner Bay, it began to rain, just a few drops. We were standing near a collection of tents where the merchants were selling souvenirs, a cruise ship was in town, and the elderly lady very kindly offered us shelter under her tarpaulin. By time the Safari came the rain had picked up a bit more. We got on and I noticed that the ‘locals‘who were on board were all sitting in the middle of the bench seats that went the whole width of the Safari, the whole bus is open, before too long we found out why. The rain started to fall in buckets the streets flooded quickly and the rain, of course, started to blow inside on the seats; yes you got it, we quickly shuffled our butts towards the middle of the bench seat trying to stay dry. The bus ride took about 45 minutes and I thought at one point we had passed our stop. So when the next stop came I got off and walked to the cab to ask the driver if we had, in fact, gone by where we should have disembarked, he said no and that he had taken a different route than the one we had taken going to town; apparently this is common? The fare for our adventure on the Safari, a very reasonable $2 a head! Oh! The rain had stopped by time we had arrived at our destination so we were lucky as neither of us had brought any rain gear. We walked back to the boat, a good mile, fortunately downhill, and that was our day, plenty of walking a little refreshment and a tour around the countryside.
May 8th Bill called to say his two children were flying into Culebra on Friday and that they would be cruising ‘Ann Louise’ over to St. Thomas on Saturday. They thought that they would anchor off Honeymoon Beach on Water Island (the 3rd largest of the USVI’s). We are hoping to have our generator fixed by then so we can cruise over to join them and explore what we understand to be a beautiful spot.
Boat jobs…We find that the sea strainer supplying the sea water to our A/C system, because of the constant flow of water for hours on end, needs cleaning fairly frequently. Barnacles and other marine ‘things’ seem to collect and flourish here, especially while we are in marinas where the cooling breeze is less and we tend to run the A/C more. When we are anchored we have that wonderful natural A/C known as the Trade Winds and we sit for days comfortably without needing any A/C. The procedure we now have ‘down pat’, I go down to the engine room and disassemble the strainer, pass the basket and clear retaining bowl up to HT and she does the cleaning in the galley sink. Once cleaned back down it comes and I reassemble, open the sea cock again and check for leaks...the whole job is done in 30 minutes. I always inspect the larger main and generator strainers too but they only seem to require a clean every couple of hundred running hours.
We are finding out that having work done on our boat is a ‘put your life on hold’ situation. It is not like taking your car to the shop being given a loaner and off you go to get on with your day. On a boat, that is your only home, while the work is being done one cannot leave it or move it you just have to find a spot on board, in our case the pilothouse, where you can read, get on a computer or in other words kill time! We have now been immobilized due to our generator repair for 9 days and counting, I can tell you that it’s long enough to be holed up in this small space. Fortunately HT and I are coping well with each other but are just frustrated with being in a marina this long. We prefer to be anchored out in a scenic spot enjoying nature, swimming in crystal clear water, hiking or walking on a pristine beach, ‘Partners’ is set up to be independent and is at home away from the dock! Being stationary in a mangrove lined bay is a recipe for marine growth on the bottom and sure enough only 10 days after we had a diver clean‘Partners’ bottom we have a good layer of slim collecting around the waterline already. If we can leave the marina soon before the growth really gets a hold, some of it, if not all, will wash off due to the motion of the boat passing through the water. We’re hoping to leave here soon...
Monday 13th today is the day we leave Compass Point and Benner Bay...at long last we are ‘fixed’.Faraday is churning out lotsa power and we are happy! Tracy and two friends Garry and James are going to help us leave the marina. Tracy and Garry, who has a nice dinghy with a depth finder, drove along the channel and reported back that if we slowly followed them out we would be okay. It was 18:00, we were on a rising tide this was the moment. Lines off, fenders in, we backed out slowly from our slip and manoeuvred ‘Partner’ so she pointed in the direction of the channel. Garry was leading us and guiding the route. We waved goodbye to the All Points Marine crew who were by now on the dock drinking beer and waving back. They were all probably nervous that they would not be seeing the back of us! Garry did a great job, and although we ‘ploughed’ the soft mud a bit in a few spots, guided us to the deep entrance channel successfully. As he came alongside he asked where we were going, I replied that we would just anchor in the bay and leave for St. John’s in the morning. He suggested Christmas Cove adjacent to Current Cut where there were free mooring balls and good protection. Garry was going that way as his boat was moored there so he said he would lead us over the two miles and would be standing by a ball for us, how kind. Sure enough we followed Garry to the ball he selected for us and he passed up the painter and a few minutes later we were secure. We wanted to ask Garry aboard for a drink or some supper, he had been so kind and helpful and we wanted to get to know him more, after all we had only met for the first time 30 minutes earlier, but he declined and motored off toward his big sailing catamaran anchored in the distance. This is another example of boaters helping other boaters; there is so much camaraderie out here that's all I can say...
St. John here we come! We can’t wait.
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