March 26 to April 2 2019

It was another early morning flight from MSP to get to a Caribbean destination. The flight departed at 5:30 am so we needed to be at the airport at 4 am when TSA precheck opened, which meant we needed to get up a little after 2 am.

We had a plan that would allow us to get more sleep. There is a new Intercontinental hotel at MSP airport. If we stayed there, we would be able to get an extra hour of precious sleep, maybe more.

We checked into the Intercontinental an about 7 pm. We went down stairs and had dinner at the bar. The bartender was very chatty and had a good sense of humor so dinner was entertaining. We ended dinner by splitting a dessert and we each had decaf coffee. We were back in our room by 8:30 pm and ready for a good six and a half hours of sleep.

The hotels had recently opened so everything in our room was new including the crisp white sheets and comforter on the bed.

When we folded the bedding back to get in. We noticed an unnatural rustling. Both of us laid in bed awake for over half an hour. This is normal for my wife but I can fall asleep anytime and anywhere.

 At this point I was sure we were served caffeinated coffee rather than decaf. To add to our distress every time one of us moved the sheets made a loud crinkling noise. It was like sleeping on newspaper.

We might have gotten two hours of sleep at the most so our brains were foggy and our tempers were short when we took the shuttle to the airport.

It’s odd that the hotel appears to be attached to the terminal parking ramp but there isn’t any access to the train that brings parkers to the terminal. Instead we had to take a three minute shuttle ride to the main terminal.

We had a 55 minute layover in Atlanta. We hoped to have time to get a quick breakfast once we deplaned but there were long lines at every restaurant so we were only able to get a coffee from Caribou Coffee.

I got Silver Medallion on the flight to Kauai over Christmas so we were upgrade for our return flights. I didn’t think we would be upgraded into ATL but I thought we would get Comfort Plus on the flight from ATL to St Thomas. I was wrong. At least we got exit row.

We quickly cleared customs and immigration and then it was a 45 minute cab ride to Red Hook.  We met our friends at Bernie’s Bar and Grill. We were starving because we hadn’t eaten anything yet so the chicken fingers and shrimp basket tasted fantastic.

After lunch Shane and Sara took our luggage to their boat, which involved rolling the suitcases (filled with dive equipment and clothes) to the pier,  loading it into the dingy, motoring to the sailboat, taking the luggage out of the dingy and moving it onto the sailboat, then returning for us.

Karen and Sara had agreed ahead of time that each couple would be responsible for their own breakfast and lunch and then we would take turns cooking dinner.

One of the challenges of a sailboat is you have to stock up for the trip, you can’t just go to the grocery store once you have left port. So while Shane and Sara where bringing our luggage to the boat we bought groceries and alcohol for the week. Shane and Sara returned just in time to help us bring our supplies to the dingy.

Back in 2015 we spent a week in USVI and BVI with Shane and Sara. I think they wanted to show us as much of the islands as possible so we did a lot of sailing. We went all the way out to Anagada. That is the furthest eastern island in the BVI. This time we did less sailing and more diving.

A brief Description of a Catamaran

I am not a sailor so the description below is from a landlubber’s point of view.

On Shane and Sara’s catamaran the entire right hull is their cabin. The left one is split into two berths. We had the rear birth and the forward birth was used for storing our suitcases and dive equipment. Each berth had its own head (bathroom).

The kitchen and dining area are in between the hulls. The galley is enclosed on three sides. The dining  area is enclosed on top but open on the sides.

Because of the catamaran design the boat doesn’t heal over like a monohull does. This means you don’t have to worry about (generally speaking) securing everything in your cabin. You can leave your beer on the counter and it is not going to fall over. You can also roam the deck of the boat when under way without too much fear of falling in.

Their cat is designed to be sailed by one person. The sails are hoisted and lowered by electric motors. The anchor is raised and lowered by an electric motor but dropping and raising the anchor is a two person endeavor.

It also has “sailboat cruise control”. You enter your course and the boat will sail to your destination taking wind direction into account. If we were sailing during a meal Shane would join us but from time to time he would look through one of the front portholes to make sure nothing was in front of the boat.

Their cat is newer so it has a lot of features that make sailing much easier than on an older boat. The boat has a desalinization system for making water. Meaning you don’t have to carry large containers of water on board. It also has a water heater so we could have hot showers.

The cat has a charging system to run the water heater, desalinization system, charge our phones and run the other necessary electronic equipment.

The charging system consists of solar panels, generators, batteries and a control unit. Shane has to play a daily game of chess trying to figure out if the solar panels and batteries have enough power to heat water for our showers and provide desalinized water for everything else or does he need to run the generators and which will use fuel.

Sailing The British Virgin Islands

The BVI is popular for sailing because you are almost always in sight of land. This means that if something goes wrong it is usually a short sail to an island where you can resolve the issue. As opposed to having to sail a long crossing  where if something goes wrong you have to resolve the problem because there isn’t anyone else to fix it.

The other nice thing about the BVI is you never get lost. If you’re not sure where you are , in the words of Captain Ron, you pull over at an island and ask for directions.

Our Sailing Trip

All of the islands listed we either dropped anchor there to spend the evening, go diving, or go to a bar or restaurant. We also stayed at different location on the islands listed. We started and finished on St Thomas. We also went to Little St James, Jost Van Dyke, Peter Island, Norman Island and St James.

We spent a lot of time sailing when we were here in 2015. I think I like the more casual schedule this time. We had more time to explore the islands and scuba dive and snorkel.

Scuba Diving and Snorkeling

We are lucky, Shane has a compressor on his boat so we only needed eight scuba tanks and I would refill them after each dive. If he didn’t have a compressor we would have needed forty-eight tanks to do the amount of diving we did.

We dove the Ledges at St James, a dive site at Soldiers Bay on Norman Island, Blonde Rock (twice), and Spyglass on Norman Island.

The diving was spectacular. We saw large sea creatures like sharks, tarpon and turtles but also beautiful corals and sponges. We also saw many small fish, crabs and nudibranchs.

I am happiest when I can be in the warm ocean waters. I can spend hours snorkeling, swimming and wading in the water.

Every time we dropped anchor I would put my fins and mask on and check that the anchor set properly and nothing was tangled in the chain. We never had a problem so one time I skipped checking the anchor and went for a snorkel and of course that is the time the anchor chain was laying over a submerged log.

Every time I snorkeled I saw tarpon, rays, needlefish, starfish and more.

Bars and Restaurants

We went to Corsairs for drinks one day and enjoyed talking to the owner so we went back there for dinner that evening. We also liked the free beer tomorrow sign outside the restaurant. The food was good but the portions were extremely small, especially for Caribbean prices.

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Our last evening on the boat we got pizza from Pizza PI VI. It is a sailboat located in Christmas Bay on St Johns. You have to radio in your order with a specific time you want your pizza ready. They can deliver or you can motor over in your dingy and pick it up. Everyone working on the boat seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties.

We went to Foxy’s on Jost Van Dyke for drinks and we played Jenga. Their Jenga game was about four feet tall and made with pieces of 2 by 4 boards. Since the game was outside in the humidity and rain some of the boards were warped which added another dimension of difficulty to the game. You had to pay attention when the pieces were removed, you didn’t want so have a stack of 2 x 4 lumber fall over on you.

Almost twenty years ago Karen and I did a windjammer sail in the BVI for our honeymoon. One of the stops was the Soggy Dollar in White Bay. We went back this trip. Things changed a lot in the past  20 years. There was only a hand full of bars then. Now days the bars line the beach and they are building more. The Soggy Dollar Bar was the place to go back then and it is still very popular. We had drinks and enjoyed the band.

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I bought a T shirt at the Soggy Dollar and I keep getting comments about it. I have people stop me in the street to tell me they have been there and how much they like it.

The Willie T- If you are a sailor in the BVI you know about the Willie T. It is a floating barge that is a restaurant and bar. At any time, you will see dozens of runabouts and dingeys tied up at the Willie T. It is only accessibly by boat.

It was last destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017. It has been destroyed multiple times over the years. Since it floats it has changed locations too.

It is tradition to jump off the top if the Willie T. There is a sign that says Do Not Jump Off the Boat attached to the railing and on the other side of the railing is a platform to jump from so I am pretty sure the sign was just for legal reasons.

I decided to jump off. I climbed over the rail and stood on the platform. People actually started chanting- jump, jump, jump. It was less than twenty feet to the water but after I leapt it seemed to take way longer than I would expect to hit the water. I surfaced, swam to the dingy dock, boarded the boat and went back upstairs. I did it one more time and Shane joined me.

Tradition at the Willie T is if a woman jumps off she has to do it topless. As we were sitting there finishing our beers a slightly intoxicated woman decided to try it. Our table was next to the railing. She took her top off and climbed over the railing directly in front of our table. She raised her hands over her head and waived at everyone in the bar, then turned and jumped.

Our wives were ready to go at that point. Not sure if the topless woman had anything to with that or not. As we were walking down stairs to the dingy it occurred to me that the woman’s boyfriend and swimsuit top were still upstairs. Just then she came out of the water, high fived several people and went back upstairs to find her boyfriend and the rest of her bikini.

Of course, over dinner that night we had to have a conversation about the topless woman. The criteria was- how old is she, thirties or forties? Is she good looking? Are they real? The guys were in agreement: she was in her thirties, she was good looking and they were real. The girls were also in agreement: she was in her forties, she wasn’t that good looking, they were fake.

Going Back Home

Shane and Sara took us and our bags by dingey to the Red Hook pier. We were early so we stopped for lunch at the Tap and Still. It has great burgers and your lunch is delivered to your table in a brown paper bag. They also had my favorite, Belgian beer.

I noticed that lunch break on the island is different than in Minnesota. There were several construction workers at the bar having a few beers with lunch. You usually can’t do that in Minnesota.

After lunch we dragged our bags to the taxi stand and took a shuttle to the airport. The shuttle made several stops to pick up people until it was full.

Once at the airport we got in line to check in and drop our bags. We forgot from our last trip that they have a cut off time to get through security. If you aren’t past a certain point an hour and a half before your flight you will not be getting on your plane.

We made it no problem but if we would have had a second beer at lunch it might have been close.

Again, no upgrades on the flight home but we had exit row so it wasn’t that bad.