I have just returned from a great couple of weeks exploring St Thomas and St John and I thought for those of you considering a sailing getaway its worth listing where we went and what we got up to:
Day 1 Friday: Our students arrive and we start planning the week. They key question is how many nights do we eat on the boat versus eating out? This first night we choose Mexican food in Redhook and continue planning our trip into the evening.
Day 2. Saturday: After breakfast we completed our final provisioning, then spend a couple of hours going through a full safety briefing and introduction to our 40ft Beneteau, Intuition.
We leave the dock just after lunch, sailing Southeast, double reefed and tacking into the 20knt easterly breeze – destination for the first night is Little Lameshure Bay where we pick up one of the 4 park service mooring balls. It is beautiful and quiet and we spot our first Sea Turtles as we snack on Cheese and Crackers. We launch the Dinghy off the davits and do some snorkeling to cool off in the late afternoon sun. Dinner consists of Steak Kebabs cooked on the Grill as we settle into some stargazing.
Day 3. Sunday. Breakfast, more snorkeling, a walk on the beach and then we spend some time looking at reefing, sail shape and trim. We leave around lunch time and sail around into Coral Bay for a late lunch of Tacos on the floaties at Lime Out. We anchor close by so we can swim over.
After lunch we dinghy into Coral Bay for some additional supplies. We then sail around and pick up a mooring ball in Hurricane Hole. After some snorkeling, we move around and anchor in Round Bay, just outside the National Park.
Day 4. Monday. Breakfast is followed by a formal lesson, where we discuss anchoring, picking up mooring balls, Dinghy towing and other aspects of seamanship.
We than sail around the eastern end of St John and pick up a mooring ball in Waterlemon Cay for some excellent snorkeling. Midafternoon we head West and pick up a mooring ball in Maho Bay for the night with an excellent shrimp pasta on the menu for dinner.
Day 5. Tuesday. After Breakfast we do another formal lesson covering navigation and start taking 3 point fixes – it’s amazing how accurate you can get them versus the GPS.
We then sail NW to Lovango key where we pick up a mooring ball and have lunch. From there its tacking and Jibing across to Caneel Bay where we pick up a mooring ball for the night.
Day 6. Wednesday. After breakfast we motor into Cruz Bay, dropping anchor on the East side of the channel so we can dinghy in and do some shopping. We then go into the fuel dock to refuel.
Once refueled we head to Megans Bay on the north side of St Thomas, voted one of the best 10 beaches in the World. We drop anchor and hit the beach and the beach bar for a well-deserved Painkiller. Dinner is stir-fry chicken back on the boat.
Day 7. Thursday. Breakfast a swim and some beach time is followed by a formal lesson on safety and how to handle emergencies. Just after lunch, we up anchor and head East.
As we are tacking through Pilsbury Sound we are joined by a mother and juvenile Humpback and are treated to the most spectacular show as the juvenile fully breaches 3 or 4 times, less than 300 ft from the boat.
We continue around the East end of St Thomas, through Current Cut and pick up a mooring ball in Christmas Cove on Great St James. Some great snorkeling is followed by Pizza from Pizza Pi, the floating restaurant.
Day 8. Friday. Breakfast is followed by a lesson on Boat systems, then some snorkeling, before we head off back to St John. We do a few final MoB drills, then pick up a mooring ball in Cinnamon bay for our final night. The students complete their tests against the beautiful backdrop and we have Dinner on the boat.
Day 9. Saturday. Breakfast and then up early to sail back to Redhook, one last docking practice and then our students depart for their midafternoon flights.
