St John Island a National Park

We both slept like the dead until we were woken up by torrential rain. It is boiling hot so we had left the hatch open above the bed, it obviously took a while to wake us up as the bed was soaking by the time I realised what was going on. We decided to go and get Customs over with first thing. Took a while for us to enter as we tried every gate but the correct one for the building. Thankfully the guy in charge had dealt with our online application as he told the rather officious guy at the desk to disregard all sorts of questions and just do our biometrics. With more US entry stamps we were free to go. Phew no secondary rooms today, just plain sailing. We decided to celebrate with a late breakfast at the harbour. First place was chock a block, so we tried further afield where we had to wait 15 mins for a table. The place is heaving. A bit of a culture shock for us. It was the usual American enormous portion breakfast. Lovely setting on the beach under some trees that were shedding their tiny flowers and pollen in huge quantities into our coffee and food. We had great fun people and chicken watching! Loads of big chickens, all with babies all over the show. Groaning from our enormous breakfast we went to a supermarket to stock up on a few essentials, including gin! Back to the boat, we decided we couldn’t endure the peacock squawks a minute longer so headed about 10 mins clock wise around the island into Caneel Bay, in the National park, donated by Rockefeller. What a shock to find hordes of boats, mainly huge Cats and a lot of Charter partying Americans. You can only go on a mooring balls in the park, so we headed for the area with the least boats. There is a huge resort here but it is completed destroyed by the last hurricane. Rowan counted 49 boats, these are all cruisers here in the park, no resident boats here. Loads of charter boats, we had heard that most of the BVI charter fleet is here because the BVI is so closed to outsiders.

Breakfast spot.

Huge green areas of National Park have preserved the island which makes it so popular.

We went over in JeldiJeldi to a little island that Rowan read had the best snorkelling in the USVI. We couldn’t anchor and finally found a buoy to tie up to. We jumped in and found the current was furious, we had to swim live crazy against the current to get near shore where the coral was. Luckily it was worth while as i was pretty intimidated by the swim – at least we knew the swim back would be easy going with the current. The coral looked really healthy and diverse with loads of fish. Back to PolePole for a rest, in the afternoon we went to the beach for a walk. Gorgeous stunning white beaches only marred by signs all the way along saying keep off the land. It is a huge resort that got completely flattened by the last hurricane and has not been rebuilt. I can only assume there is some payout issue or something as it is the only resort here in the park, so a prime site with its gorgeous beaches. Just all looks terribly sad with the derelict buildings. We ignored one area of ‘Keep Out’ signs and had a little wander. I never want to disobey in America as what you realise is so many of them are armed.

Hurricane damage.

Very smart chap!

Us amongst the hordes (and this is about half the boats they normally expect).

Back to the boat for sundowners but no sunset, too cloudy. Just the noise of endless boat generators and a few party boats. I guess we have been thoroughly spoilt and this is what the Caribbean is like a lot of the time. We look out across the water to St Thomas, which is like a twinkling city of lights, I had no idea USVI is so populated. But I should have guessed as Rowan read out the top 10 murder countries in the world and USVI was in the top 10 along with a couple of other Caribbean countries. Quite bizarre! There is also the missing British lady from her American boyfriend’s catamaran. We’ve just realised she disappeared from the exact spot we were anchored last night. Rowan saw a poster in the supermarket with her photo, asking if anyone has seen her!!!! I’m making sure the doors are locked at night!