Late March we sailed south to ST Croix (pronounced St Croy which probably annoys the French, but who cares). It is the southern most of the US Virgin Islands and a really good downwind sail for us, about 6 hours. We anchored in Christiansted just before a massive rain storm hit. Just after we came in ARVA arrived, an Australian couple, Dave and Sue, who we then met the next day. Christiansted is a pretty little town with a basically undamaged waterfront where we drank green beer left over from St Patricks Day. It was Easter but plenty was going on and we all went to a very good Jazz in the Park on Easter Sunday.
After a few days of lunches, dinners and haircuts there we all sailed to Buck Island. It is a lovely pristine nature/marine reserve with the clearest water. Quite good snorkelling by our new low expectations standards! The anchorage (strange really as all the other parks don’t allow anchoring) gets really busy from about 10 to 4 with local day trippers and charters but once they went home there was usually just us and ARVA. Sue even swam with about 6 dolphins right in front of their boat! Lots of turtles too. Had a bit of entertainment when Pete stepped off the boat and the dinghy wandered off to one side and he went in the water! Not so funny was the hearing aids and the blue tooth booster that went in too. Luckily my phone is a X that is waterproof. We put all the other things in a bowl of isopropal alcohol and guess what? Next day after a night in the dehumidifier they were OK - Phew.
ARVA sailed off to Calebra (Spanish Virgin Islands (?!) and we went to Teague Bay where the St Croix yacht Club is. We had one of their special Wednesday night 5 course special nights, quite dressy and proper with good table ware etc. Very nice.
We spent a bit more time around St Croix and sailed back to Christmas Cove and had pizza from the pizza boat for lunch.
Here we met Simon and Kim, another Aussie couple on Aura. Pete and Simon murdered a bottle of rum and suffered a bit.
Pete and I sailed back to St John to fill in a few days before heading back up jto BVI’s to get ready for the ARC. Saw Aura and Arva at Cruz Bay on the way.
