Trellis Bay - Bye Bye Jimmy!

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Geo: 18.4417, -64.5297

Last stop on our whirlwind "charter" week.

We stayed awhile after Jimmy left to "get ourselves back to normal"!! 😊



May 12th, 2015 - Our week as "Inspiration Charters Co." in the BVI

Hello all,

We hope this email finds you well, excited about your own summer holidays approaching, and for many of you, the sailing season to be underway! We enjoy receiving your updates too....so please keep sending them our way!

So, my last blast was quick and as promised here is a full update of our first week, along with LOTS of new pictures on the blog! FIVE new entries in fact!! (Link to each under each paragraph.) By the way, did you know that from Miami, FL to St. Thomas USVI it is just under 1000 nautical miles?!! Wow. We've come a long way! 😉

Sahara Sand has been floating high above the Atlantic and has provided us with weeks of dry, hazy conditions. I jinxed it by telling you all that it hadn't rained significantly since April 12th. It has now rained a bit each day with a couple of short downpours too. The boat is finally getting a bit of a rinse….but not enough to collect rain water. First we need a couple of good, heavy downpours to truly clean the boat. I can't catch rainwater until all of the bird shit, Sahara dust, and salt have been washed away!! I can't find anything about Sahara Sand floating across the Atlantic online. Trust me. It's a thing. Really.

In much of these waters you can track us on VesselFinder.com or on MarineTraffic.com. It's not always perfectly accurate, but it will give you an idea of where we are. I was able to see all the boats participating in the ARC Rally leaving Tortola, heading either to Europe or back to the USA. http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/event.aspx The screen shot is in the photo blog. It gives you an idea of how many boats are in the Virgin Islands! And that's likely not even a quarter of them!! The boats that show up on these websites are the ones that have AIS like we do. Commercial vessels are required to have AIS, but privately owned pleasure boats are not. Of those that do have AIS they don't necessarily have a transmitter, many only have a receiver. And it's pretty safe to say that most charter boats don't have AIS at all. What's AIS? Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Identification_System

Speaking of charter boats….We are surrounded! LOL It's a whole other sailing world in the BVI. There are hundreds of charter boats everywhere you look. With charterers only being here for typically a one, and sometimes a two week vacation, the people and boats in an anchorage change constantly as everyone wants to pack their charter week full of sailing and sights. What that means for us, as cruisers, is that we don't meet many people here for more than one encounter. And when most of these charterers meet us and realize we are "cruisers", the first thing they ask is “How do you do this?” (..in every sense of the question…financially, as a lifestyle, and what it takes…😉 So, we've explained our life aboard and how we got here numerous times in the BVI. But there is an easy way to find familiar faces. Meet and get to know the locals! Which is our usual MO anyways. 😉

During our “whirlwind charter week” with Jimmy we visited several key locations to give him a good tour of the BVI. Here are the highlights of that first week:

Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke:

Tony goes ashore to check us into the country. An Easy Peasy $300 and 30 minutes later he is back with our passports stamped and a cruising permit for 30 DAYS. (It ain't cheap to cruise here! Three Hundred dollars got us 3 months in the Bahamas!) Together, we go back ashore to our first stop: Foxy's Tamarind Bar, which the guide books call “legendary” after 40 years of welcoming sailors. We were here 4 years ago when we chartered a boat with Velma, Andy and Elva as part of the EYC winter cruise south. Along with four other “EYC” boats we did the tour of the BVI. At that time we had left a burgee at Foxy's that all of us had signed. I searched, and searched for our burgee, to no avail. I'm sorry to report that it is gone. I did, however, find a fellow EYC member's TWO burgees!!! Frank's burgees from two separated trips were still there! EYC is represented after all!

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inspiration38/1/1429123689/tpod.html

Soper's Hole, West End, Tortola:

We stopped in to take a quick look around. There are a number of cute little shops, a two story grocery store that has everything, but best of all has surprisingly decent prices, and of course, a “Pusser's Rum” restaurant. In case you haven't heard, Pusser's is an institution in the BVI: https://www.pussers.com

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inspiration38/1/1429197953/tpod.html

The Bight, Norman's Island:

The Bight is known for the floating replica of the pirate ship, the William Thornton, AKA “The Willie T”. http://willy-t.com And to attract people –Surprise! Surprise! - They turned it into a bar. The Pirate Restaurant ashore is MUCH more civilized. Since we were here last, (4 years ago) they've renovated and it really is beautiful now. I'm sure that the cost of renovation was high, and the gazillion mooring balls that have popped up in the harbour (Not just this harbour. Everyharbour!) at $30 per night can cover the cost of renovations like these!

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inspiration38/1/1429199953/tpod.html

Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda:

Our sail from Norman's Island to the top of Virgin Gorda was excellent. As I mentioned in the previous email, the sailing conditions here in the BVI are perfect. You always know what you're going to get (wind speed and direction) therefore planning a route is easy. As we approached The Dogs, a small cluster of Islands, we saw that there was an Oyster Race taking place. Oysters are breathtaking beautiful sailboats.(And mind-blowingly expensive!) http://www.oysteryachts.com These ones were between 60 to 90 feet in length. We held our course as they blew past us. We were having a great sail at about 6 knots and they flew by as though we were standing still. Exhilarating! 

Once tied to a mooring ball in Leverick Bay, Jimmy immediately jumped into our dinghy, AKA “Desperation”, and rushed ashore to see if the marina offered showers. (LOL…Dinghy name suits the need!) I guess he didn't like our bathing method: Jumping in the ocean, getting out, lathering up and then jumping in again…with a quick fresh water rinse in the end. So off he went on a reconnaissance mission. He returned with a big smile on his face, freshly showered, and handed us a pamphlet of the resort and marina. Our $30 mooring ball included a bag of ice, use of all the facilities, including their freshwater pool, and 100 gallons of fresh water for our water tanks! Yahoo! Now THAT's worth the mooring fee! (You must consider that to purchase water here it costs about $0.40 per gallon, therefore 100 gallons would normally be $40.00. Hey! We're saving money!! Um, right?? LOL)

Back to Leverick Bay Resort and Marina…beautiful location. Great facilities. http://www.leverickbay.com A well-stocked provisioning store. There's a lovely clothing store with very unique items. (Too bad I don't need, or have room, for any more clothes on board!) We enjoyed a delicious dinner poolside and Jimmy got to take TWO showers in the 25 hours we were there!! LOL. We love you Jimmy! 😉

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inspiration38/1/1429401519/tpod.html

Trellis Bay, Beef Island:

Our last stop with Jimmy aboard was Trellis Bay, where he was flying out from the Beef Island airport. We had one last big dinner aboard and called it an early night as Jimmy had to be up and on his way at 6am the following morning. He also had over 18 hours of travel time (4 flights) ahead of him.

I have to tell you about Jimmy's travel day. It didn't start well with Tony having to return to the boat to get Jimmy's custom papers while Jimmy waited at the airport. Then, his first flight out of Beef Island was cancelled and switched to another carrier. Next, from St. Thomas, USVI he flew to Washington, where his flight to Chicago was delayed beyond the departure of his following flight to Buffalo, NY. Despite all the delays and cancelations, Jimmy arrived home in Toronto four hours earlier than he originally would have. Who has that many flight problems and then arrives at their destination EARLIER than planned? Well, these are the types of things that happen to Jimmy Carter all the time. We want to know where he hides that horseshoe?!? 😉

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inspiration38/1/1429535789/tpod.html

After Jimmy left, Tony and I stayed in Trellis Bay for a few more days. Trellis Bay is an artsy little community with a small, well stocked, market for provisioning. I had a boat to clean, and we needed a break after moving at warp speed for a week! So we stuck around for several days, did our chores, and took a ferry over to Marina Cay one day for lunch. Here's a story about Tony's biggest chore that week.

One night, back in Culebra we had caught our propeller on a stern anchor line. We had seen it, and tried to maneuver around it. Nevertheless, we caught it. Tony untangled it, and we were on our way again, but the gasket that turns the prop started to slip more and more. Anything above idle speed was starting to be impossible. (Imagine not being able to accelerate your car!) “Desperation” desperately needed a new prop. (Ha ha…cute eh?!) So, while we were in Trellis Bay, Tony took down the serial number of our dinghy engine and made his way to Road Town. It was a five-hour round trip both walking and bussing it.

When Tony returned, he immediately put the new propeller onto the dinghy – I mean, this is our car that is going to get us back to our boat in the harbour - and it was the wrong one! The old prop was put back on, and we limped our way back out to Inspiration. I felt angry and defeated, but more angry...at the salesperson. (I had to channel it somewhere!) Tony just shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said, “That's Island Life!” (Oh, the lessons that I still learn every day from Tony! This particular one was, Relax! It's not the end of the world. We can't change it at this point, so just roll with it! Meanwhile, I was practically hyperventilating in my fury.) The following day Tony retraced his steps back to town. This time he carried the old prop the whole way there, and the new one and the old one the whole way back!! With the new and correct prop mounted, we zoomed out to Inspiration…just because we finally could again! 😉

We've been talking about returning to Cane Garden Bay since…well, since we bought the boat! So, our next stop was finally Cane Garden Bay (CGB). Another slice of Heaven on Earth! I'll tell you all about it next time! 

Love and Kisses from the crew of Inspiration! xo

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Photos

Jimmy's view of Trellis Bay as he flew away>>>
>>>Great shot of Bellamy Cay within Trellis Bay.