January 20th - a relatively uneventful day after all the excitement of the 19th. The forecast had been for very light wind on this day, so rather than make the long crossing over to Vieques, we decided to sleep in and then just go back to St. Thomas, spending the night at Druif Bay, Water Island, which would take a few miles off the long leg the next day.
Goodbye, Coral Bay
The day's journal entry, plus some photos:
Slept in, no alarms, all up around 8:30. Off by 10, no wind at all so motoring to the day's destination, Honeymoon or Druif Bay.
No wind
Motoring, Jenn at the helm, Capt. Kat checking the charts
Passing Ram Head for the 3rd time - this was the headland we'd hiked up the morning before
St. Croix very visible off in the distance (to the right in this photo). Scattered showers around. Pleasant temperature, not a scorcher, good thing since no wind.
Arriving at Druif Bay, Water Island, just outside of the harbor at Charlotte Amalie, the main town on the island of St. Thomas and the location of the airport where we'd arrived. Unfortunately VERY full.
This yacht brought its own inflatable water park.
Looking into the harbor at Charlotte Amalie, a port of call for many of the cruise ships.
TQ took this, Sinbad caught our eye because she's from Barnegat Light, NJ - Baydog's neck of the woods!
Terrible anchoring problems again, the plough anchor that is our primary anchor just doesn't want to work on a hard sand bottom (the anchorage in Coral Harbor was soft mud, we could see it still clinging to the anchor when we'd raised it in the morning, so that's why things went so well there). When the anchor wouldn't set on its own, Dave, Kat and TQ all took turns diving on the anchor and digging it in by hand, TQ doing it twice and the second time really digging it in well, he thought, but the folks in the water could see what was going on this time - after the 4th try, which was the one where TQ really dug in it, when we began to back down on it to see if it would set this time, Capt. Kat popped her head up out of the water, ripped her mask off, and shouted "Motherf***er!" - those of us who were still on board at that point couldn't see exactly what was going on but Kat's not a big curser so we knew things were not good.
"Mother***er!"
We had lots of chain out, more than the calm conditions warranted after the trouble we'd had anchoring on the first day, but even with that and the anchor being carefully pre-set by hand, the minute we started backing down on it, it would just flop over sideways and start dragging. After the fourth try, we gave up and switched out to the secondary anchor, a Danforth on about 30' of chain and a rode. That dug in the way an anchor's supposed to on the first try, but that was a frustrating hour and a half later, so plans of going to Honeymoon Beach were scrapped --
Just when we were discussing going ashore, the beach bar up and left. Dang!
and we just stayed on board drinking the delicious coconut rum Prince and Rose and Jacob had sent and eating cheese and crackers and watching the topless lady on the next boat over frolic (sorry fellas, no pix, wasn't that much to look at anyhow and they left after she'd frolicked as much as she wanted to).
Water Island sunset
In bed by 10 for a good night's sleep.
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