USVI 2015 Day 6 - Water Island, St. Thomas, to Vieques, Puerto Rico

Didn't get a chart photo covering St. Thomas and Vieques so just did a Google map - I was curious about the day's mileage anyways. 

Jan. 21 journal entry: We started waking up well before our 7 am alarm clocks. Our plan had been to wake up at 7, pick up the anchor and be underway by 8, but we'd swung rather uncomfortably close to a neighboring boat, who was moored fore and aft and so not moving the same as the rest, so we went ahead and got underway closer to seven. There was enough breeze to sail, so we raised sails at 8:30 and cut the motor at 9:00. It's 9:35 now and we are sailing wing and wing towards Vieques, our next port of call. TQ's at the helm, Kat's having a photo session with Jenn for the Offshore Sailing School instructor page, Lenore's lying down for a bit down below, and Dave's admiring the scenery. 4kts. (I was of course writing in my journal, and then I had to go take a bunch of pictures, and then after a while I asked for a turn at the helm since sailing wing and wing is kind of fun).

We got to Ensenada Honda, Vieques, around 2 pm and had anchored by 2:30 (phew) - much softer bottom here among the mangroves. Tight entrance here, we actually scraped a little bit at one point but we were nosing our way in very, very slowly and made it in OK. Nobody else here, amazing! Not good for snorkelling as the mangroves bordering the shore rendered the water a little murky, but we went for a nice swim and then Capt. Kat suggested that we take the dinghy and explore the mangrove swamps. Jenn and TQ and I joined her for that while Lenore and Dave hung out on the boat. The dinghy ride was tons of fun, the channels going into the mangroves were much more extensive than the pilot book had shown (the pilot book being primarily aimed at larger vessels) and we went all over, rowing where it got too tight and shallow for the motor. We saw crabs and fish and a large iguana and a kingfisher - unfortunately I only got a picture of one little crab who'd decided to ride along with us but it was especially neat seeing the big iguana.

We had another delicious dinner by Lenore back on the boat, and watched the most gorgeous sunset yet, with a lovely new moon with what we think was Jupiter - and the bay stayed all ours all night. 

Photos from the day - pretty much just what I described, I did caption some but mostly I would just click on the first one and look in the slide-show view.

Dawn at Druif Bay

Sail Rock, leaving St. Thomas

Vieques in the distance

TQ at the helm

Wing and wing

Approaching the eastern tip of Vieques

Chart

Taking it easy

Turquoise water - camera doesn't quite do it justice

Anchored in our private bay

Swimming

Off to explore the mangroves

Returning to the Kinja

Kinja, Ensenada Honda, Vieques

Sunset