We noticed a little hurricane damage in Puerto Rico and it was more than obvious in the USVIs. From a distance the blue coloured roof lines looked fashionable but not up close ……so many people are still living under tarps, its more than 8 months since the hurricanes.

Christmas Cove is a small island off the east coast of St Thomas that provides a protected anchorage. We spent a fair bit of time here last year as it was Simon’s home base while I went back to Australia… it felt like coming home. Nothing much had changed with the exception of new mooring buoys. The water was still crystal clear with plenty of turtles, rays, tarpin (2 meters long) and other sea life. In between our boat jobs, we enjoyed the paddleboards and some snorkelling. I was not too happy about a big barracuda that took up residence under Aura. He would pop his head out to see what we were doing…fine as long as you are not in the water with him.

The wind and water was calm so we decided to take Helios the 2 miles across the bay to the marina do some food provisioning. There were many sad looking boats that had been damaged by the recent hurricanes. Many of the docks were still in disrepair but the boat yard had replaced many of their docks so we tied up there and popped across the road to get some supplies.

We had been in touch with Greg and Cathy on BnG and knew they were in the area. We had very limited internet so decided to see if we could find them somewhere around St John. Our first stop was Francis Bay. On our last trip, we had loved this beautiful bay. Since the hurricane much of the trees have been stripped and the white beach is not as pristine as itis now blended with a little black sand. Already you can see a lot of regrowth. It will take time but St John will eventually come back to its former glory.

The following morning we did our regular VHF call out to BnG hoping they were close by. This morning they were just around the corner so we dropped our mooring and joined them in Waterlemon Bay. It was great catching up as have not seen them since we stayed with them in Canada last September. We took their dingy ashore and walked through the ruins of the Annenberg sugar mill plantation. It is currently closed as many of the old buildings have structural damage due to the hurricane. The shoreline and cove was littered with a number of wrecked yachts. They had likely been blown across the channel from neighbouring Tortola (BVIs) and smashed against the USVI shore.

We did some great snorkelling. The coral was a bit worse for wear but the visibility was great and there were plenty of fish to look at.

We even caught up one evening for dinner and a game of Mexican Train. Great catch-up…now we are on our way back to Christmas Cove for Steve’s (La Mischief) birthday. We passed Caneel Bay where we had celebrated my birthday the previous year at the resort overlooking this bay. It is now a modern day ruin, the buildings are just a mess.

We raced BnG the 7 nm back to Christmas Cove…BnG won of course even with a head start. We just assumed that they had their engine on but I think they are just faster :-)

Later that day, Steve and Dee on La Mischief arrived at Christmas Cove so the pre-birthday celebrations commenced. It was great to see Dee who had been in California for several weeks helping her mum move. We spent the next three days catching up…went to the yacht club for lunch then did the dingy trip around to Red Hook to do some provisioning and stopped at a bar for happy hour.

The following day was Steve’s birthday and perfect weather with a no wind day. We took the dingy to the outer reef and did some great snorkelling on the rocks. We were all there to greet Tourterelle as they arrived for the days celebrations. With all the gang together, we proceeded to celebrate Steve’s birthday in style with ribs, rum and wine.

The day was without incident with no new winners of the Ken Robertson swimming award! A fun time but it was all too short as the following day we all sad a tearful goodbye and parted ways.

Happy Birthday Tully

We had a couple scheduled to look at Aura, this was originally agreed to be scheduled on March 30. However they didn’t realise it was Easter Friday so the inspection was rescheduled for the 3rd April. We had committed to Steve’s birthday celebration at Christmas Cove so back to the beautiful Celubra we went. Unfortunately they did not like the cabin layout of Aura. You would think they would have been familiar with the configuration of the Sense (All cabins are forward) before they signed a contract to do an inspection and waste our time. Fortunately the winds were still light so the next day we motored back to the USVIs.

We stalked Tourterelle on AIS and found them in Beautiful Francis/Maho bay. We enjoyed a few days relaxing after all that polishing and preparing for the inspection on Aura. We also caught up with Tim and Maria (Mina 2) and Trip and Nicole (Kalyra). We had some great catch-ups over sundowners. Si even got the dive hooker out for Sam (Ian and Ann’s daughter) and Kyle to get them familiar with diving. Before long we needed a change of scenery and internet so headed back to our favourite USVI anchorages, Christmas Cove.

Back at Christmas Cove, we also met some other Aussies, Peter and Debbie, on Chat Eau Bleu (no comments about the French grammar) and Dutch friends we met in Ponce, Nicol and Ronald, on Fairy Queen (they are also aware of the translation). Also Mina2 joined us for a couple of days. Their beautiful Oyster 48 has covered a few miles including a trip to the frozen Antarctic. It has all been very social as we enjoyed more sundowners and a curry night.

Curry Night

On another evening, I have to make a special note about Peter and Si finishing a bottle of single barrel rum in record time just because the cork refused to go back in the bottle…you really have to watch out for those Aussies. It took Si a good two days to recover :-(

Meanwhile under Aura, Big Barry (the barracuda) had moved on and we were joined by a school of tarpan (Up to 2 meters long). We also watch a baby dolphin play in the cove, jumping and practicing its breaching. We’d like to think it was same dolphin that we’d watch being born in the Cove same time last year :- )

We are now waiting for a weather window to Guadeloupe to catch up with Gilbert & Isabelle (Vent d'Ailleurs). The wind has decided to swing around from the South East so if we set sail now we would have the wind on our noise plus there are some big seas out there so it would not be any fun. We are happy to hang in the UVI’s for an extra few days while we wait for better weather.

La Mischief turned up again with new crew Clare (Steve’s daughter) and Cain (boyfriend) minus Dee she’ll catch up soonish.

We revised a few of our favourite bays, Si favourite is Honeymoon Beach (between Cruz and Caneel Bay). The beach has more than doubled in size since our last visit. We also popped over to Josh Van Dyke. This island hosts two of the famous BVI bars, Soggy Dollar and Foxy’s. Way back in 2008 we didn’t make it JVD so it needed to be crossed off our ‘list’. The sea and wind angle made the anchorage a little choppy plus the beach front has had considerable hurricane damaged.

The bars are back but we didn’t feel the love so we turned around and went back to the flat aqua water at Mahoe Beach for a paddle board and to do some more turtle grazing.:-)

Steve took these photos of Aura while at Mahoe.

A small weather window has opened up so it is finally off to Guadeloupe we go. Back in France, where is the champagne?