We had a nice pleasant two day sail from Puerto Rico to the BVI’s. We pretty much have it down, we take turns on passage and we each take a 3 hour shift while we sit up at the helm. Depending on how rough the passage is the person off duty might watch movies on their iPad, read a book, cook or if it’s rough… take the time to get a good nap in before it’s their turn to be back on watch.
When David is at the helm, he is typically scrolling through the chart plotter, and going through all the data, speed over ground and all that techy stuff that guys love. When Eileen’s at the helm, she’s typically listening to music or book on tape, dancing and exercising. Well… we do what we need to do to stay alert and awake.
We were getting close to the BVI’s, sails up; cruising along. Somewhere in the middle of the night/two in the morning, a giant cruise ship was off on our starboard. It’s always fun to see the names of the ships and boats as they pop up on the radar, you can see how fast they are going, their length and tonnage. This ship was The Epic, which was exciting to see. We sailed on the The Epic a few years prior, on their second voyage. This information also tells you when your paths might cross. My watch was almost complete without incident, when I decided to punch a button on the autopilot to fall off just a hair, they were looking REALLY CLOSE. Then all of a sudden, I am doing a U-turn in front of the Epic. Now they are really bearing down on us! “DAVID!!!!” Of course David saved the day, we were not run down. My watch was thankfully over and we landed on Jost Van Dyke the next morning without incident.
We caught our first mooring ball together on Raven and somehow managed to do it like pro’s. Not only once, but twice! (we had to wait on one, and then move to the one we reserved) After that we might have become over confidant, it occasionally was a bit more challenging, for now it was perfection!
Later while enjoying cocktails we met a couple that were on vacation; traveling on The Epic. What we learned from them was the world was starting to shutdown and that they were turning all the cruise ships around. Before we knew it, all the hundreds and hundreds of lounge chairs that are pretty much for all the cruise ship visitors would be empty. Shortly we would see more and more of the lounge chairs stacked up as cruise ship guests would not be arriving. The guests that charter sailboats had to cancel their trips as well, but a few and the lucky that had previously arrived were able to enjoy the islands.
We explored a couple of islands, hiking the steep roads, that were barely walkable. Impressive that cars can make it up and down those roads. Fairly certain they get new brakes every six months. We visited the famous Jost Van Dyke Bubbly Pool. Checked out the bars and restaurants that you hear Jimmy Buffet and Kenny Chesney and others sing about and would normally be packed with tourists, but were fairly quiet.
Made a visit to the Calwood Distillery where they have been making rum the same way over four hundred years. The more popular sellers were the “Panty Dropper” and Viagra”! Ha Ha!
Our friend Meagan came in on one of the few flights still arriving and joined us for a week on Raven. We continued to have the islands to ourselves, with the exception of the charter boats guests. Every morning David would get up before 7am and reserve our mooring ball for later that day, they were still in demand and all were reserved by 7am on the dot.
We explored many islands, trails, beaches, a rain forest, snorkeled, enjoyed cooking on the boat and eating out! Had fun at Willy T’’s… no one jumped off topless and got their free t-shirt, well not in our group anyways. Scrambled around the amazing rocks and maze at “The Baths”. Toasted another St Patty’s day!
Before we knew it Meagan was catching the ferry and grabbing pretty much the last flight out, before there were no longer any planes in the sky. Just hours before she left, we were notified of the lockdown and were buying our last groceries before they all closed that night for a “week”. We were lucky Raven was well provisioned with everything we needed but we wanted a handful of fresh veggies before we hunkered down.
