The next morning Pete jumped out of the dinghy on the beach at 0600 without getting his feet wet and walked to the airport. Dave was left spending the remainder of the day preparing for Donna's return the next day. Her flight arrived the afternoon of April 12 and she walked to the Lindbergh Bay beach for our reunion, quickening her gait as she eyed an approaching squall.  We got back on the boat only minutes before the heavy rain hit, just in time to raise the dinghy and close all the windows. Within the hour the squall had passed and we were able to motor around the airport to the more attractive Brewers Bay where we would sit out a cold front expected to arrive in two days. We spent five nights in Brewers Bay, deciding that when the weather cleared we would return to visit St. Croix. We had visited briefly earlier in the season but wanted to explore some of the areas we missed at that time.

During our five-day weather hold we discussed our route, crew, and timing for our passage back to the Chesapeake Bay – as well as possible locations for the boat in the Chesapeake over the summer. We had been communicating with friend and former delivery crewmember John about assisting us on the passage. He was able to make the commitment (we promised him some laid back island vacation time at the start) and arranged for a one-way flight that would arrive in St. Thomas on April 30. Closer to his arrival date we would be able to begin to watch for a weather window for the long journey back to the Chesapeake. We would attempt a non-stop passage from St. Thomas to Norfolk, with the exact route depending on the weather and winds. If we had to, stopovers in the Turks and Caicos Islands, in the Bahamas, or elsewhere on the eastern coast of the mainland remained options.

Also during this time we started working on an update to this blog (long overdue!) and repaired the watermaker. Dave had detected a "different sound" coming from the watermaker feed pumps during Pete’s visit, and noticed intermittent lower flow rate of the product water. He narrowed down the potential problem to the #1 feed pump and decided to replace the pump head with an onboard spare. Upon disassembly, he discovered a failed bearing – the most common failure of these pumps reported by other cruisers. This was the smoking gun and after replacing the pump head we got even better flow than before the failure AND even higher quality water. Spare parts are a wonderful thing!

On Tuesday, April 17 we departed Brewers Bay at 0730 on ENE winds of 15-18, with full mainsail and genoa, for a fast beam reach to St. Croix. We arrived in the vicinity of Teague Bay – between Christiansted and Buck Island - before lunch at 1230. Pretty darn fast sailing! So fast that underway it was hard moving around the boat. With some reluctance we had put two rods out shortly after departure. The baits were skipping over the weeds for the most part - in the air more than they were in the water. We were running easily 8- 10 knots over ground. We had considered before departure a reefed main but dismissed the idea without fully considering what bearing it could have on our ability to catch fish. Now we were thinking maybe the full main wasn't such a good idea.

Approaching St. Croix, still in deep water, the wind slacked a bit; Dave was cleaning weeds off with more regularity now. Then a double dolphin hookup! We both jumped on the drags and Dave punched the autopilot up 20 degrees to slow the boat some into what was still a lot of wind. One fish was small and we stopped him with the drag and left the rod in the holder to tend to the other and further slow the boat. The other one took half the reel before slowing down. Donna feathered the boat further up into the wind to give us a better chance of hauling it in. Dave was in control of the rod with the Big Fish. Big Mistake. We should have landed the sure bet. Donna reeled the smaller fish (the rod still in its holder) in between pointing the boat even further into the wind and slacking the jenny at Dave’s multiple commands as he fought with the Big Fish. It wasn’t long before the smaller mahi found its chance to throw the hook and, although Dave seemed to be making some progress, he lost his as well. His only consolation was that he did not have to clean any fish. Good thing Donna had some filet mignon as backup for dinner to celebrate their return to cruising….

We explored Teague Bay for an anchorage that would be adequately protected by its barrier reef but concluded the water was too rough in the current high winds. We surveyed the area for attractive sand bottom that could work if we revisited in calmer conditions. Because we had visited Buck Island National Monument last December and filed the necessary application forms, we were already on record with the National Park office and granted an annual permit for visitation. It would only be necessary to phone the Park Office to confirm permission for overnight anchorage, which they treat as a separate matter but readily authorize when you already have a record on file with them. So Donna phoned the Park office in Christiansted as we departed Teague Bay and obtained approval to overnight in the Buck Island anchorage. We motored the short distance out to the anchorage and set anchor close to the beach in good sand at 1400.

We spent four glorious days enjoying just being in such a beautiful setting. The weather was perfect and three out of four nights we were there we were THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE NATIONAL PARK!! All alone in a National Park--where else can you do this? What a treat! We love this place!

During the days numerous day-trip boats would bring visitors to the beach near us but they never stayed more than a couple of hours. For a sense of how popular this beachfront is, one day there were a dozen boats at mid-day. We took a snorkeling break to the reef adjacent to the anchorage where we swam with three large Tarpon. They didn’t seem to care at all that we were beside them; we followed them around for several minutes. We floated through a massive dashing school of fish that are the favored meal of the pelicans that populate the island—the largest school of grown fish that we have encountered to date in our journeys. The only larger schools (in fish count) have been those we encountered in the juvenile nurseries of the mangroves of Hurricane Hole at St. John.

On Saturday, April 21 we departed Buck Island for the anchorage in Christiansted Harbor as the weather was forecast to become less comfortable for anchoring at Buck Island and we wanted to have a chance to tour more of St. Croix. We anchored in the mooring field on the east side of the harbor as the winds and squalls were forecast to move in from the southeast. This was a largely protected spot from southeast winds. The moorings that exist there were placed by the Park Service a couple of years ago and are currently free to use but the Park Service advised us they were not being maintained (no doubt staff cutbacks) and recommended we inspect their condition. As the bottom in the mooring field is good sand in shallow water we decided instead to rely on our own ground tackle vs a potentially unreliable mooring.


We visited Christiansted via dinghy on two different days, one day taking the public bus all the way to Fredericksted at the west end of the island. It’s amazing where a single dollar bill can still take you! We had hoped to do some minor grocery shopping on this trip but the public buses run too infrequently to make this viable. Once departing Christiansted on a public bus you’re committed to at least a three hour round trip no matter where you go. There are no full range grocery stores within walking distance of dinghy docks in Christiansted. Taxis and shared taxis are the only alternative, so we decided we could delay our shopping until we returned to St. John or St. Thomas.

While the anchorage on the east side of the harbor was very good from a weather standpoint, we cannot recommend it on weekends for two reasons. First, a public boat ramp is on shore inside the mooring field and numerous “muscle boats” launched there throughout the weekend. The two cycle outboard smell is noxious and there is no regard for a “no wake zone” in the anchorage. They go fast and come close. Second, on weekend days many people gather on shore at a yellow building adjacent to the northeast end of the mooring field playing very loud music. This music competes with other loud music coming from the parked cars at the boat ramp parking lot. All of this was drowning out the nice sound of steel drums elsewhere playing tunes like “My Way”! The good news is that this all ends by dark. There are some moorings and anchorage space more distant from the boat ramp area so to cruisers we would recommend those, especially on weekends. To be honest, we much prefer where we anchored a few months ago—on the east side of Protestant Cay. There is only space for one or two boats there; if you’re lucky enough to have the conditions to set anchor in this spot it is quite convenient to the mainland.

We departed Christiansted for St. John on Wednesday, April 25 and had a very nice beam reach in ESE winds of 8-15 knots with full mainsail and genoa. Soon out of Christiansted you’re into deep water and we put out our baits. Despite the perfect fishing conditions all the way back to St. John we had no strikes. We arrived at Cruz Bay, St. John around 1330 and anchored in the short term anchorage just off the channel entering town. This was a grocery stop and we completed this task with efficiency as we’re quite familiar by now with the two decent groceries within walking distance.

We were underway again by 1500 and had a short sail with genoa alone downwind to nearby Christmas Cove, Great St. James Island that lies between St. John and St. Thomas, arriving around 1600. Located here are numerous free mooring balls for use up to ten days. We would remain here in pleasant surroundings for a few days to finish writing these blog entries. Once completed we relocated to Caneel Bay, St. John where we could pick up wifi internet access to upload all to the TravelPod web site. Shortly thereafter it would be time to relocate to Lindbergh Bay, near the airport, for John’s arrival on Monday, April 30.