Sailing the BVIs continued…

If you’ve been following along, you may be wondering if we located a water pump and got it fixed? The short answer was YES! The long answer was it took some doing. Several places we called said they were four weeks out for delivery, and we would have had to check back into the USVI which would mean another COVID test. Being “Good Monday,” several places in the BVIs were still closed for Easter. However, we lucked out when a person from Power and Parts just happened to be in the office and answered the phone. He indicated that they had 3 pumps in stock! What were the chances??? We told him we would take 2—I tell Ben to never buy just one of anything as we have two of everything. If one part had failed, it was a good chance that the other would fail soon especially when you had a 9 year old boat.

Bright and early on Tuesday, a lady from Power and Parts, in Nanny Cay called to assist us in obtaining the parts. One water pump had to be carried over from Road Town as she thought they had one in stock. However, when the one from Road Town arrived, and she went to pull the one in house, it was not there! So we had to wait for another one to be delivered from Road Town. She then, had a coworker who lived in Soper’s Hole deliver the parts to the ferry dock where Ben picked them up at 1800. It took all day, but we finally had two new water pumps!

Once we knew for sure we were getting the water pumps, Ben began uninstalling the leaky one from the port engine. That went extremely well until he tried to get the gear off which he was needed to install the new part. We did not have a gear puller which would have made the task easy. Ben and I worked all evening trying to remove the gear without ruining it. We banged, pulled, hammered with a screwdriver for leverage, but nothing worked!

Finally, we decided to call it a night. Ben would go into the shipyard tomorrow and ask if they could remove it for him. Meanwhile he continued to watch You Tubes to see if they would spark an idea—which they did!

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

This morning Ben put two wooden stools together to use as a vise to hold the old water pump and banged away at the screw in the middle—success!!! The gear was off. After that, installing the new water pump was a breeze and 4 days after observing the leak, we were fixed!! Yippee!

We spent the rest of the day, cleaning up and making dill bread (see earlier blog for dill bread recipes; or link to bread maker dill bread). Ben also talked with Chris Parker about a weather window to St. Martin. We thought we would be leaving on Saturday, but it turned out that the seas would be flatter and the wind from a better angle if we left on Monday. We just needed to get anchored in Simpson Bay, Sint Maartin by Tues p.m. before some 10-foot swells began to invade the area. So that was the plan.

This meant we had a few more days to explore the BVIs. There was nothing wrong with that! So tomorrow we planned to motor over to the Bight on Norman Island and snorkel at the Caves if the wind and sea state allowed. Then hopefully we could find a vacant mooring ball as they were all first come, first serve.

Tonight, we ate taco salad outside in the cockpit and enjoyed the sunset, enhanced by the surrounding clouds.

Thursday, April 21, 2022

We both awoke fairly early this morning as we were excited to be on the move. It was a beautiful day; the wind had laid and the sea state was pretty calm as well! It was a perfect day to head over to Norman Island through the Francis Drake Channel passing between Tortola on the north and St. John on the south. The proximity of the islands was why so many people came here to sail. There were islands everywhere just a few hours apart and you were never out of the sight of land unless you travel to Anegada. The first time I came here, I thought it sort of like sailing in a big lake.

I had found over the years, that when chartering in the Virgin Islands, you could have a great snorkel trip with less sailing because the wind was light, or you could have a fun sailing trip with less snorkeling because the snorkel areas were blown out. Today looked like a good day for snorkeling—fingers crossed!

We lucked out when we arrived at the Caves as there were several morning balls available and the water was calm because Norman island was protecting the snorkel area from the east wind.

We donned our snorkel gear and set out, but really didn’t even have to leave the boat area. When we entered the water, we were surrounded by Sargent Majors and lots of other fish. It was a marvelous fishbowl.

Most of the coral was decimated by the hurricane in 2017, but there was evidence that it was trying to make a comeback. One purple coral was hidden among the rocks and protected.

The Caves are mostly rocky with large boulders where fish like to hide. Ben saw a barracuda hiding among the rocks. I decided to skedaddle rather than take a picture.

I saw one of the smallest trunkfish that I had ever seen and several other fish munching on the coral.

I even saw a sand dollar hidden below.

The water was very refreshing, and we both enjoyed the swim. Back on the boat we had dill bread sandwiches and relaxed before setting sail to Cooper Island. We sailed past the Indians, another great snorkel spot, and the lovely beaches, coves and cliffs of Peter Island on the way.

We didn’t expect to find an open mooring ball at Cooper Island as they fill up quickly, but we thought we’d do a drive by just to see. Lo and behold, there was one left! We must be living right to get a ball at the Caves and Cooper Island on the same day!

It was too late to get dinner reservations at the excellent restaurant as it was totally booked. So we just went ashore for a drink and watched the incredible sunset for which Cooper was famous.

Friday, April 22, 2022

We had planned to get up early to race to the Baths for a snorkel. This was another place where mooring balls filled up quickly. However, neither Ben or I slept much last evening because of the squalls that came and went all night. The boat was twirling all which way and slamming against the mooring ball at times. I got up just to be sure we weren’t ramming into another boat. The torrents of rain at least gave the boat and dinghy a good wash!

We headed out at 0830 to make our way to the Baths. Would we find a vacant mooring ball? It would be a miracle, but you never know until you try!

We must be doing something right as we found a ball on the front row so that we could swim from the boat to the beach and/or snorkel! YAY!

The Baths on Virgin Gorda are made of large majestic and visually interesting boulders tumbled about in such a way that you could walk through them like caves, where puddles of water had accumulated, hence the name of Baths. We did not walk through the boulders as there were oodles of people on shore and we had traversed the Baths many times before.

The beaches that lined the shore of the Baths were incredibly inviting with gorgeous white sand next to the amazing aqua water.

We opted to snorkel around the boulders. Ben and I both saw a barracuda almost just as soon as we entered the water. This time it was close enough that I snapped a picture before quickly giving it a wide berth. We also saw a school of Blue Ting fish.

Again, the coral was not as it once was, but we still enjoyed the swim and watching the frolicking fish. I even found one purple fan that had survived the hurricane and some yellow coral on the mend.

After our invigorating swim, we relaxed for a bit and enjoyed another dill bread sandwich with turkey and cheese. Our friends on SV Change UP were coming back from Anegada today and going to Leverick Bay Resort and Marina. This was one of my favorite spots. So we decided to put up the jib and sail to the North Sound of Virgin Gorda.

After the rain last night moved out, it left us with a spectacular day for sailing. The wind was around 13 knots, the sky was beautiful blue, and the water chopped was almost nonexistent. It was perfect and relaxing. We past several picturesque settings on the large island of Virgin Gorda.

When we arrived at Leverick, we snatched up a mooring ball and headed to pool to meet Kevin, Becky, and their adorable children, Luke and Jackie.

We visited in the pool for quite a while and then decided to have movie night again on Change Up.

We headed back to our respective boats, had dinner, and then we dinghied over to their boat. It was a lovely evening to sit in the cockpit and watch “A League of Their Own” on a screen made of a bedsheet. Yep boat life—making do and having fun!

Saturday, April 23, 2022

We had planned to check out the new Bitter End Yacht Club resort and Saba Rock resort today to see how they had recovered from the hurricane. We had heard they had come back better than ever. However, last night when I was cooking the spaghetti, the generator died AGAIN!! Luckily the spaghetti was done, and we still had a great dinner.

Nevertheless, this was something Ben needed inspect this morning.  Then as he was looking at the generator, he noticed a lot of oil in the bilge, this was very demoralizing for Ben that there seemed to be another problem with the port engine! I wished we could go a week without having to fix something (especially the port engine) or I’d even take 4 days!! This was probably the least fun thing about boat life, more than dragging laundry to shore or carting groceries to and from the dinghy.

So we moved to another mooring ball where we could stay for a bit and Ben got to work. The generator issue was due to crude in the fuel filter again. Luckily that was an easy fix. The oil leak though did not seem to be an easy thing to diagnose, and we needed to find a solution as we plan to leave for St. Maartin on Monday!!

Meanwhile, I completed the health form for St. Maartin and we got approval to enter the country. It was nice that we were not required to take a COVID test since we were vaccinated. Way Cool! In addition, I decided that while we had Wi-Fi, I would work on the blog.

I also made dinner reservation at a house across the bay. Sunday is our 29^th anniversary, but we decided to have a nice dinner tonight since we were not traveling around the North Sound today. Hopefully we could do that tomorrow and then have a relaxing dinner on the boat tomorrow night.

Ben, after a phone call to our friend, Ron, finally got to the bottom of the oil leak. It was an O ring from when we replaced the water pump that had slipped. Whew, glad we found it now, and not on the way to St. Martin! It took Ben all day to wrapped it all up, but by 5:45 he was showered and ready for dinner.

We had a delightful dinner at an up and coming restaurant, North Sound Bistro.

Ben had some scrumptious ribs and I had shrimp alfredo. Then for dessert we split a piece of amazing caramel like pecan pie!

Happy Anniversary to US!! While we have been married 29 years, but we have known each other 45 years. Damn, we are old, but going strong!!

Stay with us to see if we leave for St. Martin on Monday as planned????

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Thanks again for following along with us as we traverse the Islands of the Caribbean!