Leinster Bay

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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 the Virgins are visible from any vantage point- it is amazing. And the best part is that moving around from island to island only takes an hour or two, maybe even less, and it is pretty much smooth sailing because all the islands provide protection from the strong winds and big seas- awesome! No wonder this area is known as the mecca for sailing. You get to explore the islands in short hops, using line of sight navigation, and have so many great anchorages to see along the way. Not to mention it is absolutely gorgeous here.

So we pulled into Leinister Bay after motoring past Tortola and settled into this beautiful anchorage which is tucked into the lush mountainside of St. John’s National Park. We literally could jump off our boat and swim to the snorkel area, which is filled with fish, turtles, and sea urchins. This is the first time we have ever seen so many urchins, with their forbidding, long, black spines. At first we thought the area had coral heads, which appear as dark circular patches in the turquoise waters. But when we snorked the area we were surprised to find that these dark patches were not coral heads, but literally hundreds of sea urchins clumped together. So needless to say, we had to watch where we swam. Actually, we ended up spending most of our time admiring the sea life from the cockpit of our boat rather than in the water. Thousands of schooling fish would feed right next to the boat and we had 2-3 remoras take residence under the Rum Runner, coming out every so often to give us a good view. For those of you who don’t know, a remora is a type of sucker fish that usually hangs out on sharks. So they are rather large, 3-4 feet long, and actually have a sucker on the top of their head- weird. In general though they look like a baby shark, gray and formidable, and are often confused for one. Many of the tourists swimming by our boat would yell out, “Look… there’s a shark!” and then either chase it around for a better view or get out of the water as quickly as possible. It provided us daily entertainment.

One afternoon we decided to go ashore and hike the trail to the ruins of the Annaburg Sugar Mill, dating back to 1718. St. John used to have many prosperous Danish sugar cane plantations and there are ruins throughout the island, walking along a trail we would often stumble into the remains of an old stone house or wall demarking a field. And the national park has restored the Annaburg Sugar Mill in Leinster Bay, where the sugar cane would be turned into rum. Not only was it great to visit the site which played a significant role in the Caribbean history of rum distilling and running, but it also provided excellent views across the Sir Francis Drake Channel, which demarks the USVI and BVI. We had fun wandering amongst the ruins, admiring the windmill and old house as well as the distillery. But as we started to head back we were startled by a pack of donkeys that blocked our path. We had heard the wild donkeys he-hay from the anchorage but were surprised to get such a close look. Of course Kona’s ears perked up. But the encounter was over just as quickly as it begun, for the donkeys continued up the path to an old field to graze and we made our way back down to the boat.

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Photos

Sailing the Virgin Islands
Sailing between the Virgin Islands, BVI to port and USVI to starboard. Holy cow all the islands are so close together!

Mooring Pay Station
Jay paying our mooring fee at the floating pay station in St. John.

Anchorage
The anchorage at Leinster Bay- notice all the snorkelers?

Sir Francis Drake Channel
The view of Sir Francis Drake Channel, the division between the BVI and USVI- gorgeous.

Annaburg Sugar Mill
The ruins of the Annaburg Sugar Mill, dating back to 1718.

Annaburg Ruins
The ruins of the Dutch Sugar Plantation.

Donkeys
All the wild donkeys, bloking our path.

Dog Days of Summer
Kona hanging out in the boat, exhausted from the hike.

Comments

[margie]

hew haw
hi, sounds like fun in the sun.Thinking of you while we watch the waves in Hawaii.