I seriously can’t believe that we have been anchored out in St. Martin for a month now; we haven’t moved the boat and are starting to get some serious growth on our anchor chain. I don’t think the Rum Runner has been in one place for this long since we left Charleston- holy cow! And unfortunately we don’t know when we will set sail again. We are still waiting for repairs and can’t leave until our mast gets fixed, which can easily take another week or two. Really now, what kind of sailboat doesn’t have a sail? This is getting ridiculous [View Full Entry]

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Saba is one of the islands in the Caribbean that we were most looking forward to visiting, truly unique geography and thus interesting history and culture as well. It is a small island (a mere 5 square miles) surrounded by sheer cliffs and steep drop-offs, just the tip of a volcano that rises thousands of feet out of the ocean on the edge of the Caribbean shelf. It is incredibly difficult to anchor your boat here because the island continues its vertical drop down into the ocean depths just a few feet from the shoreline and there are no beaches to [View Full Entry]

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Carinival! Our first week in St. Martin happened to be Mardi Gras and all of town was closed for the week to celebrate. So we went over to Philipsburg to watch the grand parade- and let me tell you, it was awesome! The costumes were big and bold and feathery and glittery and just over the top. And live music was blasting from the back of semi-trucks throughout the parade, so loud that we were able to feel the beat pulsing in our chest. It was a throng of activity, everyone was dancing and drinking and having a great time. The [View Full Entry]

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Happy to report that we had a fabulous trip down to St. Martin. The seas were as calm as we have ever seen and just a light breeze, under 5 knots most of the way. So we just motored along thru the night and arrived by the afternoon. We first anchored outside the lagoon, waiting for the bridge to open so we could go in and drop the hook in this huge, 360 degree protected anchorage (at least a couple miles across). But the bridge only opens 3 times a day and we had a while to wait, so decided to [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately we decided to leave the BVIs after our brief 3 day visit. There were many reasons why we cut our time there short, but mainly it was due to weather (as sailors we live and die by the weather and when a good weather window develops- you take it or wait for the next one, which can easily be 2-3 weeks later). Besides, we were tired of the crowds and ready to explore new islands and anxious to get farther south, one step closer to Trinidad which will be our final destination for hurricane season which is rapidly approaching. But [View Full Entry]

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The BVIs are as crowded as they are beautiful; there must be at least a thousand or more charter boats out here. First you have the bareboat charter, people who come out for a week or two and rent a boat from a charter company, then take off on their own to explore the islands. I think it is safe to say that the majority of these people don’t really know what they are doing. They cruise thru the anchorages and swim areas at full speed, super dangerous, in a race to get a mooring ball. Typically they panic and run [View Full Entry]

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One area in the BVIs that we were excited to explore was Cane Garden Bay on the western end of Tortola. Unfortunately we had skipped this anchorage on our trip 10 years ago and we wanted to make sure to visit it this time. Cane Garden Bay, as the name implies, was a major port for the sugar cane industry. In fact there is the still a working rum distillery in Cane Garden Bay which has been in the Callwood family since the 1800’s. It is the longest running distillery in the Caribbean and definitely worth a stop. Seriously, we couldn’t [View Full Entry]

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We decided to cross the Sir Francis Drake Channel into the territorial waters of the British Virgin Islands, a whopping 2 miles away from St. John. Our first stop was Soper’s Hole on Tortola to clear customs and visit Pusser’s Landing. Pusser’s Landing used to be the base for sunsail charter boats and has a great restaurant, bar, and many fun shops to explore. It is amazing that we were here 10 years ago, seems like ancient history. Jay and I had just started dating, about 2 months into our relationship, when we decided to charter a boat together in the [View Full Entry]

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After all the commotion of St. Thomas, such a big port town, we were ready to get back to St. John again. So we set sail, well not literally because we still have no main sail, but that is another story for another blog. More accurately we motored on to Leinster Bay, only 5 miles away on the north side of the island. Luckily all the islands here in the USVI and BVI are incredibly close together so it was a short trip. Not only can you see the next island in the chain, but almost all of the islands in [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so life in paradise is not always what it is cracked up to be (although that might be hard to believe if you follow the travel blog). That’s because I always try to focus on the good parts of our trip when I sit down to the computer and write, reminiscing our recent adventures and going thru the pictures. But the truth of the matter is that this isn’t a vacation out here all the time. It’s a very challenging life. We both have broken many toes and have sustained a multitude of other boat bites and permanent damage- we [View Full Entry]

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