During our visit to the Spanish Virgins last spring (Culebra and Vieques), we had the pleasure of meeting LaRue and Susan on their Hunter 450, S/V Southern Cross. We spent a few days together then at Cayo Luis de Pena and had a big time. We'd kept in touch and finally arranged to rendezvous with them in Brewers Bay, St. Thomas on February 2. This was conveniently near Crown Bay where we had to say goodbye to Ken and Joan that morning.

After getting Ken and Joan to their airport taxi, we went back ashore to do some laundry and grocery shopping before departing Crown Bay at 1030. Brewers Bay is around the end of the airport runway from Crown Bay and we motored the short distance, arriving and anchoring next to Southern Cross at 1130 (use Google Earth "Fly to" to find 18 20'31.6"N 064 58'44.3"W). We were actually a day earlier than LaRue and Susan were expecting us and they were ashore when we arrived, but had responded to our email letting them know we were headed their way.

We made radio contact the following morning and made plans to have them over on Pas de Deux for Happy Hour and dinner. We had a terrific – all too short – time with them. They continued to thank us for the photo of them on their boat that Dave took last year at Cayo de Luis Pena from our masthead. Dave photo-shopped the picture and added some Santa hats on the heads of LaRue and Susan so that they could use the photo to reproduce a Christmas Card for last December. Apparently the recipients of the card found it to be delightful! We shared lots of stories, good food and plenty of drink. As we needed to get to St. Martin by the middle of February and position ourselves to take advantage of good weather (when it finally arrives) to get there by then, we could not stay more than two nights in Brewer’s Bay. We vowed to get together again as soon as possible.

Note to cruisers: Brewers Bay is a well protected, calm anchorage with excellent holding and easy access to nearby Charlotte Amalie. The nice beach is public with trash dumpsters available. Few boats apparently take advantage of this location – perhaps because it’s right next to the airport runway and can be noisy during the day with jet arrivals. But the planes don’t come and go during the night, so the daytime noise isn’t a showstopper. One other downside is that there is no dinghy dock. Dinghies can be beached and locked to a tree.

We departed Brewers Bay around 0830 on Saturday, February 4 and headed for the northern shore of St. Thomas where we wanted to check out the conditions of Magens Bay before a north swell would arrive on Sunday that could make it untenable during these winter months. We sailed downwind out of Brewers Bay on first reefed main alone, knowing we’d roll out the genoa as we rounded the western tip of St. Thomas and started back upwind on the north side of the island. Once we got to the north side the winds were ENE 15-20 with a nasty chop. We arrived in Magens Bay by 1030 (Use Google Earth “Fly to” to find 18 21'44"N 064 55'34"W).

The bay has a classic crescent sand beach and has a very popular reputation. A shallow swimming area off the entire length of the beach is marked with buoys. Since it was Saturday, there seemed to be plenty of locals enjoying this area that also allows for picnicking. There are likely plenty of tourists to be found here as well, as the location is advertised by the Visitors Bureau as a “don’t miss” kind of beach and one of the “10 best things to do in St. Thomas”. The advertised attractions include a nature trail, kayaking, paddle boats and sailboat rentals, a bar, restaurant and small shop. It is very likely that cruise ships transport tourists over for the day. Despite some VERY loud but unrecognizable music whose source we could not determine, we relaxed for the balance of the day and worked on our blog.

We departed Magens Bay at 0730 hours on Sunday, February 5, bound for Caneel bay, St. John. This completed our tour of the north side of St. Thomas. We enjoyed a little less wind than has been the norm recently. It was only 13-18 from the ESE, with a few higher gusts and no squalls. We sailed with first reefed main and full genoa. We used this opportunity to practice our tacking – more specifically, to practice when to tack for a specific point - anticipating the races we plan to enter at St. Martin in a few weeks. Using our chart plotter – Dave never had this luxury on his Hobie Cats – we set a waypoint for a point we wished to reach on the opposite tack and used the electronic “bearing to waypoint” function to determine when we arrived at the layline to the waypoint. We arrived at Caneel Bay at 1115 (18 20'39.5"N 064 47'21"W). Here, internet access would afford us the opportunity to finalize and upload our blog entries, pictures and videos spanning the previous eight weeks.

Stay turned for our return to the Hurricane Hole mangroves and our passage to St. Martin!