March | 2023 | Cement Donkeys

We’ve Come Full Circle – Norman Island, British Virgin Islands, March 24, 2023

It’s been a long journey, but we are back. We have been chartering here (it is charter boat central) for the last 10 years…ever since I have been sailing with Hubby and now we are here on our own accord on our own boat. Yesterday we actually snorkeled “The Indians” again which is one of the top three places I have seen under water. The other two being Blue Tang Reef in Puerto Rico and the other Molokini Crater in Hawaii. It’s great to know we made it here, but we are already ready to go. It’s our 4^th time here.

Last night we watched the sunset from the helicopter pad at the top of Norman Island overlooking the Bight Bay. It is a special place since the last time we were here, Ron spread his mother’s ashes here and it was the most beautiful place we had been to thus far…it still is but I feel like the secret is out and it is much more crowded this time. It’s a bit more like Georgetown with nearly 80 boats now.

I have to say though being here makes me think about how lucky I have been in my life to never have lost a parent, sibling, spouse, or child and I have to say watching my husband go through the process of grief is excruciating. I dread the day. Today we have decided to leave the crowded anchorage and head to Virgin Gorda. We spent the evening at Jumbies, the local beach bar, to catch the fire twirlers, which was fun. It’s out 10^th Anniversary this week and we will be celebrating at Jost Van Dyke Island. Happy Anniversary Sailing Hubby.

The Credit Card Debacle – Great Lameshure Bay, USVI – March 19, 2023

The trade winds are going to start to kick up again starting Wednesday night and we needed to get to the Virgin Islands before then. Culebra ended up being a bit of a bust anyway. We were there on a Sunday and the grocery store closes at 1:30 (which we didn’t know) so no fresh bread for us. Then, all the restaurants were closed as well since the town had no water. We ended up finding one small place to stop and grab a quick beer and headed back to the boat. We had an uncomfortable moment and didn’t want to leave the dinghy too long anyway. There was a group of teenagers hanging at the dinghy dock and one of them asked if ‘he and his friend’ could take our dinghy out and drive it around the bay…uh no! What? Best we got back and prep to head out Monday morning to USVI.

Our trip over to USVI was uneventful and it was a good day to get over here since the winds were now predicted to start picking up on Tuesday to 15 knots and then by Thursday gusting to 35 knots. We originally planned to stop at Christmas Cove but the only moorings there were private and there was no room to anchor so we stopped over to Rendezvous Bay, which was a bit rolly but much better. Sailing Hubby had some work to do and the next morning we settled into Princess Bay. We needed to scrap the bottom of the boat, so we set up shop for a few days. Since we had a few days, we drug out the paddleboards and both of us learned to paddleboard!

One of the days we headed into Coral Harbor to check out the town. It was as fancy as I expected it to be but still a couple nice restaurants. We had lunch at “Skinny Legs” which actually had a veggie Reuben and this made be very happy! The next day we tried out the swim up bar…Lime Out. That’s when it happened…our credit card was stolen. It started with a text alert from chase. Then since we track all of our finances through personal capital we could see the day that someone charged three flights on Allegiant Air. Chase caught one of the charges but missed the other two. Our credit card company removed the charges and we now have a new card being mailed. The problem is, it’s being mailed to our land address which means we won’t get it til we get back to the states. Oh well – good thing we have a backup. So, instead we decided to take advantage of the USVI national park on St. John and take this nice long 5-mile hike with friends. Hopefully today we get to snorkel around here before heading to the British Virgin Islands in the next few days.