On January 1, we went for a hike in the hills surrounding Coral Harbour. Wow, there were very steep hills, fit for donkeys! (There is a diner in towm called Donkey Diner offering "Kick Ass food"...we have no idea what kind of food that might be except that it might be fuel for climbing those hills!). Donkeys don't seem to have a problem there...

Then it was New Year's Eve or Sylvester for German...we had arrived at Coral Bay on St-John's Islands. The town is mainly populated by American Ex-pats and very very friendly..everybody greets you, and there is a 1970's peace and Love atmosphere. We had read that the Skinny Legs Bar was one of the best of the US Virgin Islands and so, that is where we celebrated the end of 2008...before having our sparkling wine on board the boat at midnight!

After a few days in St-Thomas busy Charlotte-Amalie harbour, the whole crew moved onto a quieter area, on St-John's island...Uwe was so happy to be sailing in the trade winds!

We went for a little tour in Cruz Bay where we sampled Painkiller and other exotic concoctions at a beach restaurant!

It was not New Year yet and Uwe had not yet taken good resolutions, like stopping smoking for example! Marleyne could not let him smoke alone....

so, to counterbalance their decadent behaviours, Heiner went onto organic foods!

He has arrived...after a long and tedious flight, our German friend Uwe made it to the Virgin Islands. He was thrilled to have warm weather greeting him and we celebrated his coming on board La Buena Vida with beer and Cruzan rhum...

The next days were spent in St-Thomas, visiting the sights that we already enjoyed such as the Rhum factory ...

St-Thomas...Charlotte-Amalie Harbour...the most popular cruiseship destination in the Caribbean and so, thousands of tourists come and go every day of the year to SHOPPPPPPPPPP! We don't care much about jewelry or Hugo Boss suits right now, so what have we done here?

We found a charming site, up on the hill, called the Rum factory, in an enchanting decor with rum from all over the world and besides sampling the Cruzan, we enjoyed their punch and the veranda!

Notre coup de coeur à St-Thomas est sans contredit la Rum Factory pour la variété de ses rhums et aussi pour le site tropical!

There are several areas of town that are quaint and deserve a visit. We visited the Frederic Lutheran Church with Steel Drums at the upper level and decided that we would attend the Christmas service there.

The pastor of the church was a latino woman with lots of humour and warmth and we enjoyed the west indian music and other gospels.

We also visited a "less shiny" area of town west of the market place; "Savan" is referred as a red light district in our guide...of course, this makes the visit even more interesting, right? Many latinos lived there and salsa and merengue music poured from every little bar. We were hungry and so decided to enter one of them with pool and domino players...we ate pork and plantain chips which was delicious. While we felt a little our of place, people were kind and asked us several times if we were allright and needed anything else!

Finally, we went to visit Frenchtown where Huguenots once settled, coming from a neigbouring island, St-Barth. While the names are still French ("Aubain, Magras"..) nobody speaks french anymore as explained to us by the kind hostess of the French Museum . Frenchtown was settled by immigrants from the French Caribbean island of St. Barthelemy in the late 1800's through mid-1900's. Many of the men were fishermen and so the area became a fishing village and is still today. In the early morning you can watch fishermen coming in with their small fishing boats, or cleaning and selling their catches from the jetties and from the Quetel Fish Market. Many of the older French people still speak Creole. In the middle of Frenchtown is a hill crowned by St. Ann's Catholic Church. A small museum contains several hundred artifacts of historical interest related to the area and to the French community including photographs, pottery, tools and furniture.

Here am I with a view from St-Ann Catholic church overlooking the "modern" Frenchtown wtih restaurants such as Epernay ou La petite Fenetre... Me voilà sur la terrasse de l'église St-Anne dominant le quartier "français" appelé Frenchtown, dont les habitants sont des descendants des Huguenots venus de l'île voisine St-Barth...

Et encore dans la tradition française, nous avons découvert que le père de l'Impressionisme Camille Pissaro n'était pas français! Né ici a St_Thomas de père juif-portugais et d'une mère dominicaine, c'est ici qu'il a commencé sa carrière d'artiste avec des scènes du port et des environs de Charlotte-Amalie. Nous avons visité le petit musée sur la rue principale.
And to remain in the French tradition, we discovered that the "French" painter Camille Pissaro...was not French but born of a Portuguese-Jewish Father and a Dominican mother right here in St_Thomas! here is the house, located on Main street and now hosting a small museum.

These were some sights of this town whose charms remain unknown ... Et voila quelques aperçus de cette petite ville ou déferlent tant de touristes mais dont les attraits restent probablement méconnus!

Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands - an island named after a Dutch planter who inhabited the island long ago now inhabits about 175 people on a surface of 3 square miles with only one small road. We anchored in Great Harbour because there were no swells rolling in and also because from there, we were able to hike different trails. Nous voilà sur Jost van Dyke, une île réputée à cause de ses plages, où habitent 175 personnes sur une surface de 3 milles carrés. Nous avons choisi Great Harbour pour mouiller car c’était la baie la plus calme - sans roulis malgré les vents du nord-est qui causaient une houle assez dérangeante dans les autres baies adjacentes!






First, Heiner had the idea of climbing the hill to the top which we did...long and hot hike despite the morning hours. The path as the road and was a terrain fit for goats and sheeps , which abound in the area! We were rewarded with magnificent views of the caribbean sea and of our anchorage at Great Harbour.

Là aussi, nous avons aimé marcher..Heiner a choisi le sommet de la montagne comme première randonnée. Ouf, pas d’ombre! Très chaud même en matinée. Heureusement qu’il y avait du vent surtout en arrivant au sommet où la brise de l’Atlantique était plus vive!







One day later, we hiked to a bay west of Great Harbour called "White Bay". The reward, besides the white sand beach, was the "Painkiller" doused with fresh nutmeg that we had at the Soggy Dollar Beach Bar. These Painkiller drinks give pain management a whole new meaning !

Quelques jours plus tard, nous avons traversé les collines jusqu’à White Bay, nommée ainsi à cause de sa plage de sable blanc évidemment! Notre récompense pour cette marche ardue fut deux Painkiller, punchs au rum saupoudrés de muscade fraîche! Mium, ce traitement anti-douleur pourrait devenir dangereusement populaire....
On our way back, we were met by a hord of goats that crossed the road...there was a youngster that just did not have legs long enough to reach the rest of the family...








Sur le chemin du retour, une scène attendrissante: alors qu’un troupeau de chèvre se dépêche a traverser la route, petit bébé chèvre trouve qu’il a les pattes trop courtes pour grimper les rochers et appelle sa maman chèvre...cris lancinants! Pov tite bête!

La première île que nous avons visitée fut supposement nommée ainsi a cause de sa relation avec les pirates. Mais tout ici dans les Iles vierges autant britanniques qu’américaines est mis en relation avec ce gang de truands qu’étaient les pirates! Tous les bateaux loués arborent un drapeau blanc et noir à la tête de mort...çà devient un peu tannant à la fin! Voila notre voilier sans drapeau de pirate!


Norman Island - on the Sir Francis Drake Channel - often referred by the locals as "Treasure Island", is purported to be named after the pirates and legends of buried treasures. Sailboats Charter companies must have bought hundreds of pirate flags as every boat of their fleet harbour the typical back and white pirate head flag...everything is related to pirates...after a while it gets a little too much. Here is our La Buena Vida seen in the Norman anchorage - without Pirate flag...



Nous avons aime notre séjour sur cette île à cause des sentiers qui la traversent et qui nous permettent d’avoir des vues superbes du côté de la mer des Caraïbes ou de l’Atlantique! Parfois il nous est difficile de croire que nous avons vraiment traversé des Bermudes jusqu’ici!


We quite liked Norman for the good swimming, hiking and yes, happy hours that the island offers. The hike that we liked best was one that lead us to the top of the hill from where we had magnificent views of the Atlantic waters and surrounding anchorages. Looking at the Atlantic, it is sometimes difficult to believe that we actually have crossed from Bermuda to here!!!






This hike also offered us our first glimpse of the island’s plant life. Although there are frequent rain showers, the terrain is rocky and does not appear to retain water. What is striking about hillsides are the abundant greyish green Pipe Organ Cactus sticking out the bushes and the ochre brown cliffs. Other trees that we encountered were the Tamarind tree, West Indian Locust tree, sea grapes and humongous century plants. The only animal life encountered during that hike was the soldier crab, who lives in abandoned shells, mostly the West Indian Top Shell referred to as Whelk. They migrate in thousands during the month of August, laying their eggs on the beach and are found everywhere in the Virgin Islands.
As for snorkeling, there are caves at the edge of the anchorage that offers really good snorkeling. Many colourful tropical fishes, parrot fishes, sergeant majors, grunts, and groupers. We also saw squids and southern stingrays...all this in an underwater landscape composed of various corals.












Ces randonnées sur Norman nous ont donne un bon aperçu de la flore des Iles britanniques - terrain très rocailleux, peu propice a l’agriculture bien que bananes, plantains, papaye et autres fruits tropicaux y poussent. Il y a plusieurs arbres dont le plus commun sur cette île était bien le tamarinier! Dont les fruits sont souvent utilises dans la cuisine des îles! Quant à la faune, le bernard-l'hermite est la seule créature que nous ayons rencontré lors de nos promenades...





Après de si dures journées, nous avions le choix d’aller prendre l’apéro sur le William Thornton, un cargo danois de 1915 qui fut converti en...bar ou d’aller au resto Pirates (!) sur la plage.

Of course, after such outdoors adventures, one gets thirsty...anchored at Norman is The William Thornton, a 1915 black Danish Baltic trader sailing vessel that has been converted into a bar restaurant with a dinghy dock.

The other possibility is at the restaurant-pub Pirates (!) Located on the beach....both with different styles and atmospheres!

This is the sea playground of the British Virgin Islands...several islands and protected waters between most of them! We left Road Town and then sailied to Norman Island, (across the Sir Francis Drake Channel), went back to Tortola but this time to the West end or Sopers Hole and made it to Jost Van Dyke . We sailed across the Anagada Bank when we first arrived t the Virgin Islands from Bermuda.

US Virgin Islands - We left Jost Van Dyke with a light rain shower and made it in one hour to Cruz Bay, on St-John, US Virgin Island Another rainbow...we can not keep count anymore! There was a drastic difference between the pace when we arrived in Cruz Bay: traffic jams, American tempo, several liveabords boats rundown and scatered in the waters of the bay to the point that there is no space for transient boaters like us. Yes, many Americans of the mainland US have just moved here and do not have the money and the will to look after their boats - often looking like wrecks! After our check-in with US authorities, we sailed towards Christmas Cove on the west coast of St-John for a couple of nights. We did some very good snorkeling there, sighting a young southern ray, turtles, and enjoying the very clear waters. Our next destination was Water Island, just a few miles from Charlotte-Amalie Harbour where we were lucky to find a place to anchor , as once again, there is a good number of liveabords occupying the waters.

Next stop was at Sopers Hole which is a very deep harbour at Tortola’s west end....when we visited our friend Peter on Aquataurus in march 2003, the place was beaming with sailors and cruisers. We had enjoyed the Pussers’Pub atmosphere and longed to go back. This time, however, it was dramatically empty, and this can be very probably attributed to the economical situation faced by many Americans...no cash to play! Well, as you can see, some still have enough! We nevertheless spent three nights there and had a surprise encounter with a couple who, like us, had made the passage from the USA to Virgin Islands. Their boat, Liebchen, was part of the Cruisers rally that left Norfolk with 80 other boats. It was fun to exchange our stories ..we had easier passages than they had, with several days heading in south easterly winds of 35 knots! Ouch! We left Sopers Hole on Sunday morning with a special greeting from a feather friend...

We are in Road Town Harbour, capital of BVI...Christmas spirit! We replenished our water, fuel, rum and food, did massive laundry (lots of socks????) and are ready to sail to other islands ....

We hav been very busy "sommerizing" the boat - put all winter stuff away - and get those bathing suits out of cupboards!!! An dpreparing our 2 years cruise...

Depuis notre retour, nous sommes occuppes ...a nous preparer ainsi que le bateau pour notre periple tropical!

Technical Summary: In both our passages from Beaufort to Bermuda and Bermuda to Virgin Gorda, we were overall very pleased with the boat’s behaviour in rough seas. This boat is made for that stuff! The only problem we encountered was the furler profile (which was half-way furled) becoming undone from the lower drum which required us to drop the sail completely on deck. Of course, this happened at night with 20 knots of winds...Heiner knew right away what the problem was and next morning, in a 12 knots breeze, we were able to fit the sail back in the aluminium profile and hoist the sail back up. Otherwise, no other sail-related problem occured!
We made use of the engine much more than anticipated: our Volvo Penta MD11D (25HP) was put to a real test. It overheated between Beaufort and Bermuda and Heiner changed both impellers, raw water and antifreeze impeller. Of course, he had to do this in heavy seas...thank God for Gravol which allowed him to be in the engine compartment without being sea sick!
A couple of days after leaving Beaufort, our marine head did not seem as efficient anymore and too much effort was needed to rinse it clean so Marleyne, who is in charge of changing valves, did just that... and everybody was relieved to see it fonction properly. In our second leg, Heiner had to clean the pump for overboard discharge...An essential piece of equipment the marine head!
Vibrations: amazing what motoring for days at a time will do to a boat and its parts. Our stove problem was in part due to vibrations! The stove burner probably became untight and leaked thus imbibing the asbestos plate under the burner. After 20 minutes of burning, the whole thing ignited!
In summary, it is in most part due to the captain’s vigilance and good maintenance schedule that we have had so few material breakdowns during this rather demanding passage.
From Beaufort to Bermuda (November 9th to 16th ), these were 704 nautical miles that we did in 8 days. We ran the engine for 58 hours. From Bermuda to Virgin Gorda (November 23th to November 30th ) , these were 870 miles and we ran the engine for 93 hours; our Volvo Penta was super economical with a consumption of ca.1.54 litre per hour! Oh, I forgot, Marleyne smoked 4 packs of Marlboro light between November 2nd and November 29th!!!! She is now cigarette smoke free and only smoking cigars....with Cruzan rum! As for Heiner, he is now off Gravol and had noticed that after 3 days or so, he began having auditory hallucinations...like voices talking on the SSB. He was somewhat amused by them but this impaired his sleep at times...When he switched to Sturgeron, this did not happen but he noticed some queasiness near the 7th or 8th hours if conditions were rough. He took medications for the complete duration of both passages.
We would like to conclude by saying that this passage is not, as Don Street once wrote in Cruising World’s magazine, a straightforward passage. He had insinuated that you had to sail east and when the butter started melting, you had to go south...well, it ain’t that way and it was not a Cruising World’s passage. If we take into account all the written and experienced testimonies of sailors, it looks like conditions are very different for each passage and that one will have to be prepared for all types of weather and seas when undertaking this trip. Ideally, we would have done Beaufort - Virgin Gorda in one stretch and in about 11 days...ideally.
Bilan
Cette partie est difficile a écrire en français à cause des termes techniques que j’ignore malheureusement...mais l’important c’est que nous avons eu très peu de difficultés techniques et cela est dû, en grande partie, au zèle du capitaine qui a toujours veillé à inspecter le matériel aussi souvent que possible avant et pendant chacune des deux traversées.

Arrival: as the miles to go click rapidly down on our GPS, we feel a certain euphory and the heavy seas do not seem to matter anymore...we’ll get there! We don’t quite make it to Anegada way point before nightfalls, but we have our navigation program on the laptop which indicates to us that we are safely away from the reef and heading in the right direction. The wind is still 20+ but seas have diminished and make sailing easier. We have 15 miles to The Dogs, rocky islands north of Virgin Gorda...between which we must sail before coming to the anchorage. It is a bit eery to sail between these dark and ominous shapes...Thank God for the GPS without which such endeavour would not be recommended! When we are in sight of the Spans Town anchorage, I must go to the bow and prepare the anchor. First remove the plasticine which had been place on the hole of the chain well, then untie the anchor and last but not least, disentangle the chain in the anchor well (the rolling of the last days has tied knots in those chain links). We see anchored boats, some with anchor lights others without...we let the anchor and 160 feet of chain drop in a 35 feet deep spot. We have arrived! There are some cold beers in the fridge and we celebrate the conclusion of our second passage and our arrival in the Virgin Islands.
Dernière étape, l’arrivée. Nous avons des conditions assez sportives depuis dimanche matin mais la ligne d’arrivée nous donne une nouvelle énergie. On est prêts du but! Nous ne réussiront pas a arriver a notre GPS waypoint du récif d’Anegada avant l’obscurité mais...mais note GPS nous permet de naviguer sûrement ces 15 milles qui séparent Anegada de Virgin Gorda. Nous devons naviguer entre des îles rocheuses surnommées The Dogs et leur silhouettes sombres qui se profilent autour de nous nous rappelle de rester vigilants...Nous arrivons un peu a tâtons au mouillage de Spanish Town ou il y a des voiliers qui mouillent, certains avec une lumière de mouillage mais d’autres sans...nous trouvons une endroit de 35 pieds de profondeur et y laissons tomber l’ancre... Nous sommes enfin arrives! Quel bonheur..nous célébrons avec de bonnes bières froides cette fin du passage!

The last three days of the passage focused on gaining speed and easting. We were determined to get to the Virgins on Sunday, even if this meant arriving at night, in order to avoid the 25 knots winds forecasted for Monday. The winds were still light and from the southeast...There was a bit more cargo traffic, from west to east, which made us more vigilant...we had seen nothing for the first 5 days of the passage! Saturday morning, the wind is strong enough that we shut down the engine: unfortunately, still from a mostly southeasterly direction. We decided that we have no choice of directly aiming at our way point, which is just north f the Anegada reef and that we will then head to Virgin Gorda in order to have the shortest distance to our landfall. We are extremely pleased to see that the wind is going more easterly and enables us to reach with a speed between 5 and 6.5 knots, depending on gusts. By Sunday early morning, the wind speed has increased and seas are as predicted: 5 to 6 foot swells with a 3 to 4 chop on top..we need the 20+ wind speed to sail through that mess. The seas are very different from those we experienced arriving to Bermuda although the wind speed is the same: these choppy 4 feet waves remind us of Lake Ontario! We get no water in the cockpit but some spray comes in the dodger or hits us on the side; as we have weather clothes, however, we do not get wet!
Emmanuelle et La Buena Vida: trouvez une similarité!!!! Comme nous avions decidé d’arriver coûte que coûte aux Iles dimanche, même dans la nuit, nous devions aller vite et droit sur le waypoint GPS au nord du récif d’Anegada...le vent étant encore de l’est, il nous était impossible d’aller plus vers le sud-est et nous devions être en mesure de composer avec les conditions (vents de l’est 20-25 noeuds avec houle de 6 pieds plus vagues de 3-4 pieds dessus) qui étaient annoncées pour dimanche. Alors...comme être à la barre est quand même fatiguant et que nous voulions éviter le plus possible, nous devions faire appel à notre Pilote automatique où à notre régulateur d’allure au lieu de barrer nous-même...mais dans les conditions difficiles, ni l’un ni l‘autre ne faisant l’affaire, Heiner décida d’utiliser les deux en même temps, méthode assez peu orthodoxe mais qui me fit penser que La Buena Vida, comme Emmanuelle, aime les Intellectuels et les Manuels.........

Fire and Water, this could describe well our 5th day at sea. On Thursday after contacting our weather man, I was ready to put two loaves of bread in the oven. We were motoring and the seas were calm enough to prepare bread. It was important to have bread today because sandwiches were our evening and night meals...it’s unbelievable how hungry we are when on night watch! Anyhow, 20 minutes or so after the loaves are in the hot oven, my eyes begin to tear and burn. Nothing seems wrong except the strong vapours...until I notice flames in the oven, rapidly growing! Heiner who is in the cockpit removes the fire extinguisher and one little spray takes care of the fire. But what a mess...the 20 second long fire has sent sooth everywhere and the smell is overpowering. I removed the bread dough from the pans and put it in a plastic container... and then, it’s cleaning time. In the mean time, the wind has come up and we can sail a bit.(We are concerned with our amount of fuel and must sail whenever there is wind). We put all sails up and sail on a close reach for a while (which makes cleaning the galley a little more demanding...) until Heiner notices a water spout under a dark cloud at our back. The water spout is creating a pretty powerful stir in the water that we can easily see from our position. We try to guess its movement...it seems to be getting closer to us and not wanting to take any chance, we lower all the sails. (Waterspout are like tornadoes at sea...you want to avoid being in one!). The following minutes are very stressful; we are finally relieved to see the thing vanish but we keep a watchful eye on this huge dark cloud which will stay behind us until sunset...while we know how strong the forces of nature are, in moment like this, we feel it even more. That evening, the skies cleared up and it was the greatest of nights with clear skies, millions of stars illuminating the indigo coloured skydome over us...I felt, for the first time in the entire passage, at peace enough to take out my MP3 and listen to music for hours. (Oh! I forgot: after Heiner repaired the leaky burner we baked the 2 loaves of bread successfully!)
Le feu et l’eau! On avait déja gouté à l’Air...et en ce Vendredi on allait être en contact avec deux autres éléments! Comme on faisait du moteur, j’avais préparé mes deux miches de pain et j’étais tout heureuse de m’être prise de si bon matin, petite boulangère que je suis...Après 20 minutes de cuisson, mes yeux piquaient et brûlaient; tout semblait normal mais les sensations empiraient! Horreur: j’ouvre la porte du four pour constater que cà brule là-dedans et que le feu grossit. Je crie Au Feu (je garde mon originalité en tout temps) à Heiner qui est dans le cockpit et un petit coup d’extincteur chimique et le tout est sous contrôle! Mais quelle cochonnerie ce petit feu de 20 secondes a créé: de la suie partout! Et mes beaux pains? Je les enlève des formes et les remets ds un bac en plastique. Entretemps, le vent s’est levé un peu et nous devons mettre les voiles - bien que nous ayons beaucoup de diesel à bord, nous voulons le conserver au cas où... alors toutes voiles dehors même si le vent est dans le nez...çà rend le nettoyage un peu difficile!). Peu de temps après, Heiner apercoit une trombe marine à l’horizon, sous un immense nuage noir. La trombe marine: nous essayons de voir dans quelle direction elle se dirige...vers nous? Nous voyons l’eau blanche tourbilloner dessous et la peur nous prend: nous descendons toutes les voiles car on ne veut pas être pris dans une tornade, et encore moins avec toutes les voiles dehors!!! Quel soulagement lorsqu’elle disparaît! Nous restons vigilants pour le reste de l’après-midi car le nuage noir ne se dissipe qu’en début de soirée! Comme récompense, d’abord nous sommes en mesure de cuire ces deux miches de pain (!) et la nuit qui succédera à cette drôle de journée sera magnifique avec une voûte étoilée incomparable! Pour la première fois depuis le début du voyage, je me sens en paix et j’écoute ma musique sur mon MP3: Guelfucci, Vollenweider, tout va tellement bien avec cette atmosphère. J’écoute aussi MarieJo et la chanson Celle qui va, une chanson qui me donne du courage et de l’énergie...car le voyage est loin d’être terminé!

Day one and night one are as predicted: rough seas, high winds, squalls all night long, which means very very little sleep for both of us. Day two, only one or two squalls and 20 knots East-Southeasterly winds. Our weather guru announces that we will probably have North winds very soon and that, as the front approaches our area, the winds will clock towards the west, giving us a real good sail in the Southeasterly direction towards the Islands. Great. But they do not come the westerlies...nope, the winds remain Southeasterly, may be Easterly, but not West and not North. This means that we have the wind on the nose which slows us down, even when motoring as on the next following days. The swells from the Northeast are huge at times because of the gales north of us and this brings the boat to roll for hours at a time. Thursday, we are informed that in the time frame when we approach the Eastern Carribean, the trade winds will have gained strength and that we should try to head more southeasterly in order to have a better angle to cope with the choppy seas. More easterly???????? We’ll be in Africa in no time! But we follow the advice and this will prove to have been to our advantage because the winds will remain southeasterly up to the last 24 hrs before our arrival in the Virgins.
Les premiers 24 heures en mer furent comme annoncés: mer très forte, vents forts et grains (coups de vents violents avec pluie) fréquents ce qui ne nous permis pas de dormir...le lendemain, les prédictions météo annonçaient une diminution de tous les facteurs et notre moral fut à la hausse. Malheureusement, pour les prochains jours, les vents ne vinrent pas du nord ou de l’ouest comme promis...seulement de la direction où nous allions, soit le sud-est...nous nous devions quand même de faire un effort de rester à l’est pour pouvoir approcher les Iles comfortablement malgre les Alizés qui souffleraient assez fort pendant le prochain weekend...du stress en perspective.