From Antigua to Puerto Rico
Jae and I have chartered in the Caribbean 7-8 times and never felt particularly challenged by the weather. Those charters have been in prime season, Christmas with our kids a couple of times, in February, November, March and in the summer. The winds were always brisk, but pleasant and seas were never a big challenge except through the Bequia Sound, which is a pretty short, but boisterous, passage. This season, however, the sea state (swells, waves, etc) has proved a big challenge. We have had several bumpy passages. Experienced Caribbean sailors tell us it has been an unusual season. Many times we saw people stay in port far longer than planned because of the seas.
So, when we left Falmouth Harbor, Antigua, we knew the seas would be large, but we would be running with them, sailing downwind, not fighting them. Our weather forecasting service, Chris Parker, advised that it was a good time to leave in that direction. Falmouth is a large, but well protected harbor, so gives you no clear indication of the weather outside the harbor because it opens to the south and weather rarely comes from the direction. We left the harbor with a reefed main (2 reefs, I recall) and turned west, toward Nevis. We put out the jib as we left the harbor. I hoped the sail combination would dampen the boat motion, but that was a vain hope.
Outside the harbor, we saw wind gusts above 35 knots, which is a lot of wind. Swells were above 6 feet and pretty close together. One of our crew, Pam, became nauseous pretty quickly, despite having taken motion sickness medication. We ducked inside a reef on the southwest side of the island for temporary protection, but once we emerged, we were back in the big seas. The boat handled the conditions just fine, as it has done continuously on this trip, but some of the humans did not do so well. Pam became ill and threw up in the cockpit. She went below to the head. Her husband Byron became ill over the rail and Jae was quite queasy. After a while, I coaxed Pam back into the cockpit and kept Jae and Byron away from her and the vomit smell. Byron recovered somewhat, but Pam remained quite ill. Jae and I were worried about dehydration. Six hours later, we reached the lee side of Nevis and decided to spend the night rather than press on to St. Croix. Once anchored off Nevis, we got her into the ocean and she seemed to recover somewhat. We all decided, however, that she needed to leave the boat, so in the morning, we motored up to the capital city of St. Kitts/Nevis, Basseterre, and they booked flights home. She kept apologizing, which was totally unnecessary – why should anyone apologize for their illness; no one chooses to be ill.
Jae and I had a bad impression of Basseterre. First, there is really no protected anchorage. We anchored off the town in 20+kts of wind and 3 foot swells. I was somewhat doubtful we could even do it, but the anchor held. Then, getting into the dinghy was a roller coaster ride, we had to time the swells so that I could step down into the boat at the right time. As is customary in many of these islands, the captain goes ashore alone to clear the boat and crew in, so I went ashore first for that purpose. Pam had to spend another hour on the boat.
After successfully clearing in, I returned to the boat, we got her and their luggage into the dinghy, another minor miracle, and we made it to the dinghy dock without further adventure. Because Jae and I had some time before we had to leave and their flight was not until later in the afternoon, we walked around the town a little bit and had lunch. In my view, the advent of a cruise terminal in Basseterre has blighted the town. The government built a large concrete jetty next to the cruise ship piers and the jetty’s tenants are a variety of shops that cater to American tourists with duty free jewelry, T shirt shops and chain restaurants. By the time you walk through it to get to the actual town, you have been solicited many times by locals to spend your money. One such hawker told me that since he had given me directions to the immigration office, I should hire him for a taxi tour.
I wonder if the majority of Americans who travel aboard are uncomfortable being exposed to other cultures. How else can you explain the proliferation of Americanized shops and restaurants in otherwise exotic locations like St. Kitts? Why go to the trouble of visiting St. Kitts only to get a margarita at a chain like Senor Frog’s? Later, a fellow traveler told us that she loved St. Kitts. I would imagine she traveled well away from the central town. Unfortunately, we did not have that opportunity. I will add that we dropped St. Kitts from our original itinerary after learning that it has had a rash of crime lately. While that would not ordinarily put us off, it did in this case because it has only one reasonably comfortable anchorage.
In Basseterre, we could not find any of the restaurants described in our cruising guide – it seemed that the cruise ship terminal and Senor Frog have driven them all out of business. In the end, we had a pretty crappy lunch, bade Pam and Byron farewell and hustled back to the boat. We had about 16 hours of travel ahead of us to St. Croix and we were eager to escape the harbor’s turbulent conditions.
St. Croix
To some, St. Croix might seem an unlikely cruising destination. The cruising guide describes it in glowing terms, but it lies about 45 miles south of the principal Virgin Islands cruising area. As a result, it is a 3 day trip from all the other islands: one to get there; one to explore; and one to return. If your charter trip is only a week long, that is too much time to spend on St Croix alone. The north coast is fairly hospitable, but the south coast has little to offer a cruising sailor. One must be content to arrive and stay put, exploring the island by land.
I was eager to go for several reasons. First, I had been to St. Croix in the late 80’s to try a lawsuit there with a local lawyer named Brit Bryant. Brit has practiced law in St. Croix for his whole career. Now retired, he was glad to show us his island home. I wanted to see him again, for Jae to meet him, and to explore the island. My prior visits were all work related and I never saw anything much of the island. In addition, our trip has been partly about exploring less traveled areas and we thought St. Croix surely fit in that bucket.
Jae and I therefore set our course from St. Kitts for Green Cay Marina in St. Croix. We arrived early in the morning, shortly before the marina opened, and dawdled offshore, waiting to come in. Despite our best efforts, we always seem to arrive early after an overnight passage and have to wait. Green Cay is a very low-key, pleasant marina with many liveaboards. It has weathered many hurricanes, I understand and so it a safe place to tie up. We quickly discovered another Hylas 54 (Distant Star) in the marina whom we had met in St. John earlier in the season. We spent pleasant times with Tom and Sharon, Distant Star’s crew, over the course of our time on St. Croix. They are very experienced sailors from Mattapoisett, MA.
Brit picked us up the next day and we toured the eastern end of the island with him. The eastern tip is the easternmost point in the United States and it is a lovely, remote spot. We then drove into the capital, Christiansted, for lunch. Unfortunately, it was President’s Day and most of the town was closed. I did see the Hotel on the Cay, a nice hotel set on a cay in the middle of the harbor. During the trial, I stayed in this hotel and every day rode a small motor launch ashore. While I dressed in a suit, on my way to court, everyone else wore shorts, T-shirts and flip flops. I felt quite out of place then.
The trial he and I handled together involved a local man who claimed, thanks to his lawyer’s creativity, that he had suffered permanent lung injury while working on the docks of Hess Oil’s St. Croix refinery. A team of mainland experts and lawyers showed up to prove this claim and to ask for a lot of money. Our judge, a native Islander, was very hostile to the defense. I will never forget watching the plaintiff’s lawyer coach his expert with hand signals on the proper answers during cross-examination, in plain view of judge and jury. When I urged Brit to object, he shook his head, reminding me that the judge had glaucoma and could not see the plaintiff’s lawyer. As Arlo Guthrie once wrote, it was a case of “blind justice.”
The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff; Brit told me afterwards that with a 12-person jury of islanders, we never had a chance. The appeal was a different story. Appeals from federal court in the Virgin Islands go to the federal appeals court in Philadelphia. In reversing many VI verdicts, the appellate court has described trials in the VI as being conducted in a “game show” atmosphere with wildly disproportionate verdict amounts. We won our appeal and the case.
The following day, Brit brought us to his house for cocktails. It is an estate, high on the St. Croix hills with commanding views. We met his delightful wife Kay and she and Jae hit it off immediately. They were great hosts and asked what we might need for the boat. Brit offered to hack off a bunch of bananas from one of his trees. Jae demurred, explaining the sailor’s superstition about bringing bananas aboard a boat. Brit corrected himself then, saying they are not really bananas, but jacubas and so we need not be concerned about bananas sinking the boat. We took the jacubas and a few books that Brit graciously offered.
That same night, our friends Steve and Wendy Madden came aboard. Steve was onboard for the trip to the BVI from the Chesapeake, but Wendy did not make it because of a last minute illness. This trip to Puerto Rico gave Wendy a chance to enjoy a leg of our trip.
Culebra, Spanish Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico
In the morning, we left early for a lovely sail to Culebra, our gateway to Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgin Islands. Just off the dock, the engine made a horrible screeching noise that I immediately recognized as a loose fan belt. Having tightened the belt before we left, I knew there was a bigger problem, but I had to focus on the tight passage out of the marina, keeping the engine (and the screech) in low gear. Once out of the marina and safely in deep water, we turned the boat toward Culebra, set sail and shut off the engine.
Going below, I saw immediately that the alternator was not properly aligned, causing the screech of the belts. Steve and I studied it further and determined that the alternator bracket had failed. As it turned out, six steel bolts sheared off. We could not use the alternator, which limited our ability to charge the house batteries. More on that later.
The sail to Culebra was one of the best we have had on this whole trip. It was a 6-hour downwind sail with a nice easy motion. As were passing Christiansted, Brit called me on the phone to ask why we were motoring. I told him he was looking at the wrong boat. Later that day, we arrived into Culebra’s large, well protected main harbor, found a nice spot to anchor and settled in for the night. No one was in a big hurry to go ashore
In the morning, we popped into the dinghy and tied off at a popular cruisers’ spot known as the Dinghy Dock. From there, we explored the town. Just as I had read, Culebra is not overrun with charter boats or the typical BVI horde running around trying to cram too much into a one-week vacation.
Its relative lack of popularity could be the result of a few factors. First, the prevailing wind direction is from the east. This means it is a tough slog to reach Culebra from the Puerto Rico mainland. There is a charter business on the PR mainland for boats going to Culebra, but it does not seem too large. Large powerboats, because they can travel the distance quickly, will run over to Culebra from Fajardo, while sailboats are less likely to do so. Coming from the USVI and the BVI in the east, Culebra would be an easy sail, only 10 miles from St. Thomas. But, going back is a tough 10-mile slog. I guess for this reason, most charter companies do not permit their boats to sail to Culebra. It is a shame; I am sure they would enjoy it.
As you might imagine, none of us complained that there should be more boats, T-shirt shops or tourism. We did discover that there is a big day tripper business of people traveling by ferry from the PR mainland to Culebra. When they arrive, they shuttle to a rental car/golf cart lot, and spend the day exploring the island. At the end of the day, like an ebb tide, they scurry back to the ferry terminal.
We were eager to visit Culebra’s most famous beach – Flamenco, which is reputed to be one of the best beaches in the Caribbean (how many times did we hear that claim?). We took a local taxi to the beach.
In my experience, Flamenco is a typical Latin beach -- everyone is having a good time. The beach itself has a beautiful crescent shape with fine, white sand, some reefs and palm trees swaying and offering limited shade. It is truly beautiful. A U.S. tank lies rusting at the tide’s edge and everyone poses for pictures there. It is a reminder that the United States used these islands extensively for military purposes. I don’t know how the local population felt about those exercises, but there must have been some economic good, at least.
After inspecting the tank and reflecting on the imperial aspects of the U.S. presence in Puerto Rico, we swam, lazed, walked and enjoyed. For lunch, there is a pavilion with a variety of food stands offering local fare. We ate local fish with rice and beans amidst an atmosphere of general revelry. Of course, we sampled their rum punches, as we have done everywhere along the way. PR rum is quite good, but for the record, Bacardi’s is not PR rum; it is based in PR now, following the Cuban revolution, but it is originally Cuban rum. I am not sure what we drank, but it was good.
The next day we rented a golf cart, almost the last one on the island and tooled around. As one might expect, if you range far enough away, you leave even the Culebra “grid” and in those spots, you will find some truly luxurious estates. On the eastern end of the island is a narrow, wild beach that was not very hospitable for swimming. I don’t recall the name, but I know there are pictures of it on this site.
The following day, we booked a beach and snorkeling excursion with German to Culebrita. He took about 15 people aboard and we bashed through the easterly swells to reach an idyllic beach in Culebrita, on the east side of Culebra. This is one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. A few other boats came in during the day, but we mostly had the place to ourselves. As we were leaving, German told us he had one more place to take us. As it was late in the day, we were surprised about a last stop.
I don’t know if the last stop has a name, but I will call it German’s Floating Bar, which is located near the entrance to the harbor, behind a long reef. German came barreling through the reef, and spun the boat right around to tie up next to a tiny houseboat with a bar, a patio and several other boats tied up. Several locals were having an animated conversation in Spanish. German hopped onto the houseboat, went behind the bar and served up pineapple Culebra moonshine. He said it is illegal except when locals like him make it – then it is ok. We all enjoyed it and naturally took pictures of the whole scene. To his credit, he did not try to sell us anything, but I would have bought a bottle of the moonshine if it had been available.
We did not visit any of the other Spanish Virgins, choosing to spend all our time on Culebra. This has been Jae’s and my philosophy throughout this trip; don’t leave as long as you are enjoying yourself. As a result, we had no time to visit Viecques in particular. We heard a variety of opinions about Viecques and we now come away not sure if we missed the most beautiful island of all, or a crime ridden backwater that has not recovered from the economic consequences of the Navy’s departure. I was eager to visit its bioluminescent bays, but here too we learned either that they were better than ever after the hurricane or, had not recovered from it and were not worth visiting. With that much ambiguity, it is hard to know what you missed. But, because I liked Puerto Rico overall (see next blog), I am inclined to return and find out what I missed.
While in Culebra, we also ran into a fellow sailor that Jae and I had met in Road Town on our last day there. We were walking to my final doctor’s appointment when a South African chap came up to me on the street and seemed to know us. It turned out we were moored next to his boat and he recognized us. We had a nice talk and parted ways. Later that day, we left the harbor together, spotted a flare and both sent out radio calls asking if anyone was in distress.
Somewhere along the way, we learned that he is a former North Sea underwater welder who is now salvaging boats in Puerto Rico and the BVI. In the Culebra harbor, he was operating his catamaran as an Air B&B and had three guests aboard. That night, he joined us for drinks at the Dinghy Dock and we heard some fantastic tales about his various exploits. While I know Steve enjoyed meeting a fellow South African, we might have heard a little bit of SA blarney that night.
From Culebra, we sailed on to Fajardo, on the eastern coast of PR. It was another lovely sail, except the whisker pole broke when the wind piped up. Ah, the life of a boat owner, just one broken thing after another to add to the list. By the time we reached Fajardo, we had a boat bottom badly in need of painting, a broken alternator bracket, a broken whisker pole, a blown sensor for the windlass counter and a few other things. Just another day playing the marine version of whack-a-mole in paradise.