Toodles: BVI to USVI - disasters and adventures

Like any disaster, titanic or plane crash, it happens only when a number of factors coincide. Any one factor will not suffice; it is only the culmination of those factors that causes the disaster.

For seasickness, the factors are (1) rough sea (2) wet (3) cold (4) hungry, and (5) uncomfortable.

On Monday morning, Gary and I decided to head down from North Sound on Virgin Gorda to West End Tortola to check out of the BVI, then on to Cruz Bay on St John to check into the US Virgin Islands.

Gary checked the weather forecast – 25-30 knots is all he tells me. We are looking forward to a good sail and a bit of an adventure so neither of us is hesitant to head out. As we up anchor and enter the channel we see that the wind waves have turned the sea into a choppy mess. Factor 1 is ticked off the list. It is also hard to miss the ominous black cloud that threatens to pass over us. Before we have even really left the safe anchorage, the wind picks up and the black cloud unleashes its wrath. The rain, as hard as ice, bites at my face, arms and legs, as I am only clothed in shorts and a singlet – check factor 2. Gary yells expletives as if to say WHOAHOOOO! as we slam through the waves. The heavy rain reduces our visibility to only the immediate surroundings. The wind is relentless and unescapable. I try to take cover under the spray hood, contorting myself as far into the shelter as possible. Now I’m not only cold, but also extremely uncomfortable, tick factors 3 and 5. An hour and a half or so passes, the rain, wind and waves have not let up. It is at this point that I begin to regret the tiny breakfast I had that morning in an attempt to consider the “wedding body” that I am supposed to be striving for. The final factor, hunger, is ticked off and I begin to feel sick.

Despite feeling queasy, I am forced to concentrate as Gary deviates from our navigational plan. In an attempt to avoid two gibes which would have needed all hands on deck, instead of heading down the unencumbered channel, Gary decides to cut through the small and treacherous Dog Islands, with submerged rocks hidden in the centre of each passage through. I breath a sigh of relief as we pass through safely. I start to concentrate on my “Yoga breathing”, which proves effective in quelling my sea sickness. I have soon recovered sufficiently to take the helm, and the sun finally shows its face.

We reach West End by 2pm, a little later than we had anticipated. We decide to get some cash out, in case we need to pay any fees. The ATM won’t recognise our card. We have had this before. So we jump in a taxi and take the 15minute trip to Nanny Cay to use the next ATM. When we finally get back to the boat, we eat a quick lunch and check out of the BVI. The official is surprisingly pleasant, joking with us and barely reading the papers.

It is now about 3.30 and we need to get to Cruz Bay to check into the US Virgin Islands before immigration closes at 6pm. We make good time and reach Cruz Bay in about an hour. We head into the small bay, crowded with fishing vessels. There is no space at the customs dock to tie up, nor any depth to anchor in the bay. We head out and try to find a space within the moorings of the greater bay, no luck. We head to the next bay, but find the bottom is completely coral and cannot be anchored in. We try again to anchor amongst the moored vessels in the greater bay. But after finally securing a space, we are approached by a dinghy telling us that we can’t stay there as a big catamaran who moors there is about to return. We up anchor once more. We FINALLY find a spot further down the coast and make the long trip into customs by dinghy. It is now about 5.15pm.

We try to tie our dinghy up by the customs dock, but are ushered off the restricted area. We follow the instructions and park at the dinghy dock and walk through town to get back into the secured customs area. At nearly 5.30pm we join the long line at customs (a ferry had just arrived), along with our wad of official boat paperwork. We are last in line. We are received by the exhausted customs officer who tells us that we are his last customer of the day. We tell him our story, that the boat has just been purchased and we are yet to register her in NZ. He seems less concerned about the boat, and more concerned that we don’t have a visa. We completed the visa waiver application while in NZ. He tells us that the visa waiver does not apply if you are entering on a private vessel. After various discussions with other staff, and phone calls with officials the kind customs officer allows us entry into the US with a stern warning to get the correct visa.

Tired and delirious from our long day, we return to the boat, which has only been temporarily anchored in an exposed position. As night closes in on us, we push on to find somewhere to anchor for the night. The closest anchorage is full of boats. We spend more time searching the field of moorings for a space, but alas find none. We resort to anchoring at the very entrance of the bay. A large, expensive looking catamaran one side and jagged rocks with teeth bared on the other. We fall into bed and sleep. Well to be honest neither of us really slept. We both woke up to the sound of waves crashing, which might be relaxing when having a massage at the spa, but trust me is not relaxing when you have anchored your new boat mere metres away! We took turns at rushing up on deck when we heard a strange sound, or just got the feeling that the anchor may be dragging. Luckily, we were safely anchored and none of our fears eventuated.

In the morning, both drunk from lack of sleep, we ventured on to Charlotte Amalie, our final destination, to go shopping. We spent a couple of days exploring Charlotte Amalie with its high end stores like Louis Vuitton and Coach, and the endless diamond and jewellery stores. We passed a bar called “Hooters”. We were both intrigued by the link to the boat “Hooter Patrol” that we had seen earlier. The sign said “Come in and check out our merchandise”...and so we did.

It was not my finest hour when I asked the Hooters waitress to bring me her favourite drink...We had been discussing various types of smoothie, but instead she brought me an instantly intoxicating drink called, some-type-of-physical-activity on the beach.

Feeling slightly dazed, perhaps from the drink, perhaps from the levels of hydrogen peroxide in the air, we headed back to the boat.