Off to St Croix island

We woke up not much clearer on our plans for the BVI. When Rowan couldn’t get a response from the skipper who is taking the boat over, and the port authorities were not answering his queries, Rowan lost his patience and we decided to head for St Croix where his East London (S Africa!) friend was. Before breakfast we were off on our 5 hour sail across.

It was a very bumpy start to the sail with huge waves, and a lot of slamming. But it soon steadied when we got away from land and we had a good steady sail averaging well over 7/ 8 knots the whole way. We were very pleased to find dolphins enjoying our bow waves again.

We finally made it into Christiansted at 3pm, where the friends in their Cat called Gizmo were moored. This island used to belong to Denmark until it was sold to the Americans in 1917 for military purposes. Lots of quaint old Danish architecture and a well kept fort, very distinct harbour architecture. St Croix is 40 miles southfrom from St John, which keeps the tourists down, no airport, just regular seaplanes taking off and landing. Charter boats are not allowed to come this far, so there are very few boats in comparison to the rest of the USVI.

Christiansted harbour and fort.

We were successfully anchored when all the BVI forms came through progressing our likelihood of getting in. We’ve invested so much money and time getting this far, that we are now back on track to going! What a rollercoaster!

It was not long before Ingrid and Fred from Gizmo arrived. They had just got a bus to the other side of the island to get a free PCR test and their second vaccination jab. We had a jolly time getting to know them over a few beers on the boat. Rowan was a contemporary of her older sister but they obviously have loads of East London friends in common. They are serious sailors! Very shocked to see our sails not put away!!

We went out for supper with them, after a little walk around the quaint back streets of the old town. The Harbour front was rather too American reminding me of San Francisco’s pier 49, not so appealing! We had low expectations of the restaurant we finally got into, but turned out the food was delicious. A very jolly evening, with two bottles of wine finished, it was a lot more booze than I’ve had in ages!