First Day Aboard the Sadie Sea

I haven't had the chance to take a pictures while aboard Sadie Sea, but I'll try and work on that next week. Monday was my first day operating SS without the owner Ben aboard. It is an easy boat to handle, 40ft Linsey Trawler with a single screw and a big ole Detroit Diesel. So it was the normal 40 minute run from Cruz Bay to Reef Bay to pick up the hikers that the National Parks Service leads and sponsors. Of course day one, the winds were NE at 25 knots, so the seas were crappy. Once we got Saddie on the mooring I hop into the inflatable to head to the beach and pluck the hikers off. With the weather, a swell was running on the beach which makes the extraction that much more difficult. I usually run 6 folks at a time back to Saddie. I have to give constant task direction to the people and repeat things over and over again and still people end up splayed into the bottom of the inflatable. With a good natured smile I let them work things out. Dropping them off on the swim platform of SS is equally as exciting as again people don't listen or they just prefer to do things their own way. So I always say just prior to the approach, "always stand clear of the ladder boss." No one thus far has gotten that joke, but I find it highly amusing especially seeing that day by day I look more and more like Cap'n Ron.

So after safely herding all hands aboard I gave my safety spiel peppered with witisisms and I headed below to fire up the engine. The engine announced it didn't have enough power to turn the engine over. Wuups. So I emerge from the engine room to face 30 pasty faced tourists and announce it's my first day on the job. Not the smartest things I have ever done. So with a quick phone call to Ben, we did some things over the phone, but in the end, Ben in true Cap'n Ron style removed the battery from his ailing jeep, camendeered a boat and came out to save the day. Of course we still had to roll in the 7 foot swell back to Cruz Bay. I do have to say the passengers were good sports really, but their confidence had been shaken. I redeemed myself by expertly putting SS starboard side too the National Parks Pier. Little did they know that any chuckle head can put boat to the dock, but for once I kept my yap shut.

Capt Chris

PS: As an admin item please take the time to sign my guest book. Link to the right!

Hurricane 2008 Season Has Ended

As of yesterday the official hurricane season ended. Christa and I made it through thankfully but not without significant stress and worry. As I mentioned before, I just don't think I possess the type of personality that belongs in the belt during the season. In the graphic you can see a pretty fair number of storms. But what you don't see are all the disturbed weather that popped up everywhere that never really developed but are wear on you mentally nearly as much as a named storm.

It was one for the record books. The 10th busiest ever recorded. First time ever a major hurricane was recorded in five separate months. Hurricane Paloma was the second strongest hurricane ever recorded in November at 145 MPH. And of course we had Omar which went the opposite direction of the vast majority of hurricanes. So all in all I am lucky, but not feeling stoked about it.

Wonder where I'll be next season?

Capt Chris

View From the Spreader on Thanksgiving

On this Thanksgiving I have much to be thankful for. Take yesterday, the day I snapped this picture from Christa's spreader. It was such a beautiful day. The wind has eased up allowing the water to be less stirred and even clearer. During normal easterly trades a ground swell can develop but over the last days the wind has been northeast preventing any kind of ground swell. I arise with the sun, crack on a pot of coffee and watch the sun rise. As the temperature warms into the low 80's I take the dingy ashore and make the 5-minute stroll along the beach and round up onto the path and catch the bus, which is on time. I step off a few minutes later to dine at the Donkey Diner and check the weather and email. I quickly gather the local news from the staff, power was out.......came back on.......could be off later.......T-Day fiesta at Skinny Legs....blah blah blah. I love it. I hitch a ride back to the beach and retrace my path back to Christa. But wait, a new boat anchored off Christa quarter? It's Lori aboard Sill who I met in Culebra who knows Jeff and Susan the owners of the mooring I'm swing on. Lori pilots a 25 foot Hunter with no engine, a hardy sailor no doubt. She is in town for the Coral Bay Regatta. After polite chit chat I take a long snorkel trip out to the reef and spend a few moments scrubbing Christa's bottom. I spent the rest of the day reading and eating Spanish rice from Trader Joe's.

But really what Thanksgiving is all about is gratitude toward the folks aboard the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria whose arduous trip across the Atlantic started the whole shooting match. We owe an awful lot to those settlers. Unfortunately many contempory historians like to sling mud at those folks for shortcomings in community relations. The way I see it is Dutch and English settlers got together with a bunch of Indians to give thanks. A ground breaking ceremony of multiculturalism. Lets not forget that just prior to the revolution Britain passed a law stipulating that British Soldiers would be housed in the colonist's homes and the colonists would have to pick up the tab! Think about that! So I feel fortunate I won't have to share Christa with any Redcoats.

Thanksgiving is also about gratitude in general. So I am pretty grateful. Although I do have to say that just because I'm living what could be seen as this dreamy type life and it is great, don't be confused. But everyone has a happiness set point and as long as the basics in life are covered one's over all disposition doesn't change much. I find myself pretty much the same guy I was yesterday and the day before and the year before and on we go. Happiness is a top priority for me. I study the topic and try with all my might to make decision with this goal in mind. When I tack poorly life usually lets me know straight away and I try not to repeat. I'm not successful all the time, but a least I have a plan.

I am bummed I'm not with the family this Thanksgiving, but these are the rigors of my life style. I hope to improve on that aspect of my life. In any event happy Thanksgiving to all hands.

Capt Chris

St John on Saturday

I took this photo from the road as I walked into Coral Bay proper. It is the picture of Johnson's Bay and Johnson's reef where Christa's currently swings on her mooring. In the distance you can see the east end of St John and further out you can gander at Norman's Island part of the British Virgin Islands which is on Christa itinerary someday. It is starting to sink in about how nice it will be to have the next destination just a few miles away or just over the horizon.

I have been sleeping like a rock and usually lights out just after 9pm. The moon is now going into its darker phase so I'm just starting to experience the Johnson's Bay in total darkness. With no backscatter of any sort the stars are a true delight, right in your face. Since the Virgin Islands are small and scattered the concept of a night lee doesn't really wash here. So the trades have been blowing, even at night keeping air flowing down the hatches and the wind generator producing electricity. Good thing as I have been having to run the water maker for three hours or so per day. Since leaving Salinas I've found no shower facilities to speak of ashore so I've had to shower aboard which adds to the consumption matrix. For the curious, Christa really doesn't have a decent shower per say. But I did buy one of those solar shower deals which has been working great. It is a black plastic bag that holds 4 gallons of water that heats up in the sun nicely. In the evening I hoist it from the main halyard and take a shower out on deck. Since I am surrounded by clear clean ocean sometimes I rinse in the 84 degree ocean and then rinse again with the fresh water. It can be a real scene when the boat starts rolling which gets the bag swing which complicates this picture I've painted. It would be best to have a shower partner.

I have found and others have confirmed that the U.S. Virgin Islands are really not cruiser friendly. Word on the street is that the BVI's are much more geared toward people like me. Just take Coral Bay as an example, you cannot obtain or purchase water from anywhere unless you have a car. Just this fact alone would chase off a substantial number of cruisers. Surely you could not have a congregation of cruisers in the vain of a Luperon DR. Even though Coral Bay has a substantial number of boats on the hook, all of them are based out of St John. Cruisers need to have at least some things that are close to being easily gathered. St John has no marina facility and very limited anchoring. Now there are very good reasons for this, but the net result is USVI's are not cruiser friendly. The bays along the north coast are truly breath taking and to protect the reefs no anchoring is aloud. The National Park Service has put in a number of moorings which are great. But at $15 dollars a night the majority of takers are the charter boat crowd that comes over from BVI's. Most cruisers can't afford $15 a night for any length of time and again getting back and forth to the store could cost twice as much as the mooring itself. It is what it is.

However St John may be just fine without us cruisers. Not every island should be cruiser friendly. I have noticed that the people who do come to St John on vacation and then simply never leave are very hard working for the most part. Many hold three or four jobs and are constantly manuvering to make ends meet, but they love their island home. They also love their booze and bars. Just because it is not cruiser friendly doesn't mean a cruiser can't make it here, you can, just depends on your physical condition. Most cruisers are older and simply could not sustain the demands it takes to make things work here. I have been walking 3 to 5 miles a day, sometimes with groceries and a backpack on in the heat. I like the exercise especially since it is to dangerous to run on the roads. As I get to know people I am getting more and more rides. I also use the bus, but the bus has its own issues that maybe I'll write about some other day. In the end, I do love it here whether it caters to my needs or not.


Capt Chris

Just Call Me Skippa

I took a job as a charter boat captain aboard the Sadie Sea making runs out of Cruz Bay St John. It will be nice to put my license to good use. Please take the time and surf on over to Sadie Sea's website by clicking on Sadie Sea above.

Many moons ago in Luperon I met a fellow named Casey who lives here on St John. You may recall Casey really came through in the clutch to help me out with my rear transmission seal. Well Case had told me about his buddy Ben who owns the Sadie Sea and that they could use a relief captain from time to time. You see many people hold six pack licenses on the island which means they can carry only six or less passengers where my license allows me any number of passengers only limited by the number of passengers the boat itself is certified to hold. So Sadie can run up to 37 passengers. So after meeting up with Casey the other day he made the introduction to Ben and off we went. On Thursday I sailed with Sadie on a run along the south coast to pick up hikers who hiked to the waters edge from the Reef Bay Trail. We lash Sadie up to a National Parks Mooring, run ashore in the ships tender pick up the hikers and transport back to the mother ship. Then it is about a 40 minute run back to Cruz Bay. Sadie Sea also does all manner of charter work from parties to dive and snorkel trips.

Ben and I hit it off just swimmingly. He is only 24 and bought the business from his mom who started it in 1989. He is a real business man and I love that. So on Monday I'll do a run with Ben and if I'm comfortable and can remember my safety spiel I give to the tourists the boat's all mine on Thursday. At present it looks like I'll do two runs a week and once the season really kicks in I may be running the boat five days a week.

Now this does beg the question of where do I stand in terms of my sailing adventure. No worries. It's on. Once Janina arrives we shall come up with a game plan for sailing for the rest of the season. We may stay here in St John for a month or two and make some quick bank and move on. I want to remain flexible. Like many my portfolio has taken a real beating and even though I am able to live off my pension, It would be tough for me to pass up the chance to make some extra cash along the way. Not to mention being a charter boat skipper in the Caribbean during the winter does sounds appealing now doesn't it?


Capt Chris....live from the Donkey Diner

Hiking St John

I did some serious hiking yesterday on the Jonny Horn Trail. I lit out from the old church built during the slave trading days of 1753 which also serves as the start of the Jonny Horn Trail. Dodging the numerous wild donkeys I hiked nearly straight up for the first half mile. One thing I have bummed about since my arrival on St. John is my running routine has halted. To dangerous to run on these skinny roads. However if I can keep up the amount of walking I have doing to should be able to stave off an early demise. So the first section of the trail was tough but invigorating. The trail pretty much hugged a ridge line in dry forest scrub land and every now and again a beautiful view north toward Tortola BVI's came into view. At the end of the tail on was rewarded with Watermelon Bay and Watermelon Cay. Pretty much what you would expect on the north coast of St. John. Calm, clear beautiful water. It also is a turtle nesting area and I could see all kinds of turtles poking about as turtles tend to do. I was also able to skulk around some old ruins left over from the sugar plantations in the 1700's. All in all a great day other than the massive blister on my heal!

Capt Chris

Free Flu Shot

Things have slowed down to such a crawl that the big news is I lined up with the locals at the Fire Station in Coral Bay to get my influenza shot. It was a real community event. I came equipped with my thick health record that the Coast Guard kept for me for 20 years. It was supposed to be sent to the VA and I was told that if I wanted a copy I was more than welcome to make one myself! Oh joy what fun making copies of chest xray's at the office copy machine. Just another one of those irritating issues from my military days. The kind of irritant one tends to forget as time passes. They surely failed to show that scene in "The Guardian." So I swiped my record before it could be shipped off to the VA. When I was standing in line with all the hippies I clearly looked very squared away. It pains me that no one including me had a clue where to log the shot in my phat record, but I did log it in Google's snazzy online health record.

I have now been in St John for a week and still getting a routine down. The wind has really picked up to Christmas trade velocity. For the next three days wind is easterly at 25 knots and with the squall activity, at times the wind hits 35 knots. The mooring field that I am in has developed a small ground swell. So things aboard have become a little bumpy. In fact I have surprised that all of Coral Bay is pretty much exposed to the east and therefore the anchorage is not smooth when the wind is up. I suspect that I am spoiled from my time in Puerto Rico. Salinas really is a top notch place in terms of protection. It is fine though. The mooring that Jeff and Susan have loaned me are on three sand screws. To explain as I just learned what sand screws are. They are three to six feet long and resemble a large drill bit with about a 1 inch shank. It is threaded only at the tip. They are then simply twisted into the sand to the hilt. So Christa is riding on three of them via one line that has been nicely spliced in a seaman like fashion to all three screws. I believe it to be a pretty powerful set up.

Now again I can't claim to be the photographer of this here photo. But it was taken from one of the numerous hiking trails on St. John. I was intending to do some hiking this weekend but the weather is a bit sketchy so I wait it out. But the first trail will be the one that overlooks Coral Bay from a ridge line and then meanders down to the north shore to Haulover Bay. I really haven't had a chance yet to do much exploring but hope to do some soon. Mean while I have been working on my communications program. My cellphone is being relayed from towers in The British Virgin Islands at a rate of 3 dollars a minute. But I can get back on to the Sprint tower in Cruz Bay but have to take the 45 minute bus ride and even then I'm on my day time minutes as the bus runs only during the day. I have found a couple of free wi-fi signals that I can use with my iTouch but it is not feasable to sit on the side of the road with said laptop and Skype. But The Donkey Diner does have very good wi-fi that I can use to skype with but 30 days cost $60 big ones.

That is the way it goes in paradise. This in St John are very expensive and the local people have to work pretty hard to make ends meet. I had a philly cheese steak the other day at a cost of $13 bucks and your average breakfast will set you back 10 to 12 beans. On a positive note the bus is only a buck into Cruz Bay and you get free wi-fi in the park. So that is that.

More later from the Donkey Diner.

Capt Chris

Happy Veterans Day!

Good day to all you fellow vets out there! I'm blogging from the park bench here in Cruz Bay St. John waiting for the Veterans Day Parade. Like many things in islands communities nothing is on schedule and alot of confusion reigns. But who cares! I'm a retired Vet.

So I snapped this gem of a picture from the dink of Christa tugging at her mooring in Coral Bay. The mooring sits behind a reef which is from where I took the shot. i did some snorkeling off Christa bow yesterday. The reef was very nice with all kinds of tropical fish and big ole lobster lodged under a coral head. Could be dinner!

My impressions of St. John are just as billed. A pretty mellow enclave indeed. It is much more mountainous than I expected with the roads very narrow, steep with all kinds of twists. This surely will impact my running as I don't think I can handle the hills! Where I'm based out of, Coral Bay, sits on the east end of the Island. I can easily see the British Virgin Islands but a scant few miles to the east. But, Coral Bay is a very small hippie town with all kinds of interesting folks. i have to say folks seem to be very friendly. Right out of the gate Bill from Marlat and another fellow who also lives on the island, Steve have been just great. For a new person who enters an unknown environment there kindness makes all of the difference. Bill took me to Cruz Bay in his ride and pointed out all the particulars, schooled me in the bus system and pretty much welcomed me to town. Beautiful! Of course this tone is in line with Jeff and Susan from Free Spirit who offered me the use of the mooring in the first place.

So logistics will be a challenge as not everything is within arms length. But then again when everything in paradise is easy it tends to be overun which I think is why Coral Bay remains a very unique outpost. But like all beautiful places the island of St. John is under significant development pressure. But back to logistics. To get ashore I take the dink and beach her, walk along the shore line sometimes in the water and at others, during low tide along the beach. Then up to the road where it is a half hour walk to the sleepy Coral Bay village. When it is calm I will be able to take the dink into town. But the good news is the bus comes along once an hour and for a buck will take you all the way to Cruz Bay on the west end where the ferry from St. Thomas arrives. Or you can just get off in Coral Bay. As an aside hitch hiking is standard here, but you don't stick your thumb out. You point with your index finger in the direction your going which can be tough because they drive on the left side here. Go figure. This explains why on day one I was dissed as I had my thumb out! The next day the finger got me to where I needed to be. So Coral Bay does have a small market with everything one needs, some breakfast joints and a very famous open air bar called Skinny Legs.

I think that does it for today's post as I'm tired of tying. On an admin note I've added a few more pictures to my google photos and I know I may have some grammatical errors but I'm typing fast and sitting in a park.

Later

Capt Chris

St John To Port

Well it seems I have really arrived in a paradise like place. But let me explain this mornings sailing. Christa and I continue to beat to windward which as you all know I just can't stand. The conditions could always be worse, but earlier in the week the weather folk were predicting some pretty light wind. That really has not materialized and in fact later on this week the wind is supposed to pick up to 15 to 22 knots for the foreseeable future. So instead of being stuck in the large metropolis of Charlotte Amalie for weeks on end I decided to head to St. John. Anchor was up about 4:15am and I peeled my way out of the harbor with great caution as it is a busy place. The forecast called for 12 knots out the ESE and that is pretty much what I had. Between St. Thomas and St. John is a sound called Pilsbury Sound. The seas were lumpy and chaotic due to a lot of current. However Christa was running strong with a full main and the Yanmar cranking along at 2500rmp.

Now awhile back in Salinas I had met a very nice couple on SV Free Spirit and they had offered the use of their mooring in Coral Bay. Of course I am all over it! So I had been in touch with Free Spirits neighbor on St. John, Bill from SV Marlat who coincidentally had left a comment on this blog saying to keep an eye open for Jeff and Susan on Free Spirit. Another great small world story. Any who as I pulled behind johnsons reef there was Bill on Marlat who directed me to said mooring. Beautiful. The beauty of the place is shocking to the senses. More later.


Capt Chris

New Town New Culture

I departed Ensenada Dakity and sadly waved to Wandering Dolphin as I made my way out of the cut. I finally left Puerto Rico astern yesterday morning. I slipped the mooring at sunrise on a southeast 5-10 knot forecast and light seas for the 20 mile trip to windward. The conditions were a little more lumpy than I had anticipated and it was the first time I've had to contend with any kind of current. Nothing to get sweaty about though, but it did cause the sea to be a bit bumpy. Once I arrived it was a bit of a to do to find a spot. I had intended on anchoring on the west side of Water Island where the guide indicated it was nice and protected. However the water was very deep and where the water depth was manageable private moorings existed. After nearly two hours of trying to get things worked out I started locking up. So I headed straight to the hustle and busl of the Charlotte Amalie main harbor where I am anchored right off the cruise ship dock. It is a little crowded but not nearly as much as I thought and also a couple of boats I recognize from my travels are here as well. Really looking forward to having Wandering Dolphin make the 20 mile jump....so hurry up!

I am anchored right off the newly built Yacht Haven complex that caters to the mega yacht industry. The area has beautiful facilities with shops. I have already located my core needs of coffee shop (of which I sit currently) a bookstore and a marine store. So today, my first full day here in St. Thomas will be spent checking out some sights. I have a small fuel leak and need to find a Yanmar dealer to discuss and buy some fuel hose. Yesterday it rained buckets with some thunderstorms late in the afternoon and evening. Hopefully it will be a little nicer today.

So future plans include me heading to St. Johns likely on Sunday. I have been focused on St. Johns for quiet awhile and look forward to spending at least a month or more on said island.

Capt Chris