BVI - SXM trip report

Little different from the standard report, I joined a friend who just took possession of his new (to him) boat in Nanny Cay and delivered it to SXM after a few days shaking it down in the protected confines of the BVI.

First, the boat. Captain Rob bought it about 6 months ago, he stayed at CRC for a week and did some serious shopping before settling on a Hunter 450. It was a cut above most of the older charter boats in the fleet that were on sale for pretty much the same price. A good boat, privately owned, professionally maintained, and equipped with pretty much all of the cruising equipment you can imagine. Only 2 cabins on a 45 footer, so you can imagine the size of the owner's stateroom - it's enormous, with a full sized queen bed and tons of room. Say what you will about Hunter's (and I've said my share!), it's a real beauty.

I arrived in STT on Dec 1 via Toronto, JFK and SJU. At no point did I have more than 90 mins between connections. Also, at no point was I able to do anything other than sprint through the airports, I felt like OJ in those old Avis commercials. Arrived before my luggage, of course. Apparently it may make its way into STT tomorrow morning. Or maybe not, who knows. Anyway, I've been flying for about 16 hours so I just check in to my hotel - the Windward Passage - and fall asleep.

The Windward Passage is conveniently right across the street from the ferry, but she's showing her age and a little expensive for what you get. I'm only there for the night, so no biggie. I realize the next morning that I stayed here when it was a Sheraton or something like that in the 80's a week after hurricane Hugo. There were boats all over the downtown that day, in the bushes and stuck on hillsides where the surge left them. I think I chartered with CYC then, I remember it was a little weird heading out with sunk shipwrecks all over the place but we had a great time nevertheless.

Next morning the ferry's on time, more or less, and I head off to west end with no luggage. Meet the captain, have breakfast at D'Best which is great, as expected. Then we drive to Nanny Cay via the scenic route on the north of Tortola. Great drive, but there's a big ship in town, so all of the scenic cut-out's have buses parked in them with people taking photo's. Confirms my long-held belief that the only people who make any money off cruise passengers on most islands are taxi drivers. Get to Nanny Cay and check out the boat, she looks great but there's a few things we need to do before we leave. The first thing being, drink some beer. So we do that, at the bar at Nanny Cay with Devin "the best bartender in the ilons, mon." Too right, Devin. We have a great time there over the next few days as we work on the boat and I recommend the bar there to anyone. Very friendly, and you feel like a regular before you even finish your first drink.

My luggage arrives 48 hours later, after a couple of conversations with the AA agents in STT and also with some dude called "Love Cat" who delivers it to the ferry for me. Good to have some clothes, I was starting to look a little ratty. The next 2-3 days are spent doing boat work, and getting rigged up for an ocean passage. Not quite as laid-back as my recent charter experiences, I'd forgotten how much work goes into running your own boat. It's doubly hard, since we don’t really know how anything works yet on the new boat and have to diagnose each problem by first finding out where everything is before we can even begin work. We spend a lot of time in the Nanny Cay yard, and see the remains of a 45 ft Leopard Cat that got grounded off Sandy Cay on it's maiden voyage. She's a complete write-off, both hulls destroyed right to the waterline. I feel so bad for that poor owner. I also feel a little nervous about our passage, I haven't really been to sea in a while, and the SXM passage is a helluva way to get back into it.

Finally, we are ready to head out and sail this thing for the first time, so we have one last "best Bushwhacker in the ilons, mon" and push off. Tight quarters in the marina, and a pretty heavy tailwind to boot, but with judicious use of spring lines we manage to make our egress without any damage. First challenge surmounted, we are at sea! As usual, the wind's coming directly from our destination at about 20 knots so we just motorsail to North Sound and pick up a mooring at Leverick Bay. All afternoon the winds been building from the NE and its prety fresh now. I'm checking windguru obsessively to see when it may die a little bit so we can grab that window and get going to SXM, as I'm going to run out of time if we don’t get on the road fairly soon. Looks like it should drop from the low 20's to 15 or so in a couple of days so that's the likely plan for now. Pretty quiet at the Jumbie's bar, but the food's good. It is also good to be at sea, after a few days stuck on the wharf.

She's a little choppy in Leverick the next morning, so we decide to blast over to the bitter end to get out of the wind. First, though, we need to see if this boat will actually sail. We tack and reach around the north sound for a bit, which is fun, since seas are small and it is very windy. It would be a blast to be sailing a dinghy or racing small keelboats in here today, but we need to do some sea-trialing. Next we head out the channel, and get all of the sails up and head for Anegada. She sails pretty well hard on 20-25 knots of wind, and nothing breaks. We get about halfway there and turn around. We do find a couple of issues with the reefing lines not running properly and a couple of minor other things but there are no major gear failures and she seems to be pretty solid. Looks like we are ready to go.

We sail back to the Bitter End and pick up a mooring. They are pretty efficient at the Bitter End, the mooring guy is by to collect our fee before I've even had half a beer (ie less that 15 seconds or so). After we pay him he tells us that someone has rented the whole resort and we aren't allowed on shore after 5:30 and we can’t use any of the restaurants. I'm not too happy with that, he could have told us before taking our cash, but he's only doing his job I suppose. I show them the next day, though. I drive our dinghy in and just throw our trash directly on the garbage barge, bypassing the dollar collection fee. HaHa, power to the people!

Since we can’t use the bitter end, we go over to Saba. I always liked Saba better anyway. Burger's are good, and it's always fun to sit at the bar and watch the girls work. They always seem to have fun at Saba. Since its our last night before we head out on our voyage, much stress is released. If you fear the beer you are drinking may be your last, it always easier to justify having another <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cheers.gif" alt="" />.

Next morning, the kite flyers are blasting around the anchorage at Saba. The wind's off a bit but it is still not quite the predicted 15 knots. Definitely calmer than the last 2 days though, so we are good to go today. The cruising guide says that you can checkout at gun creek so we head over there. Actually, they say that you can anchor in the protected anchorage of gun creek or anchor at Leverick and take a short (and uneventful) dinghy trip over to customs. Whoever wrote that has clearly never been to Gun Creek. The NE wind funnels down into that area of the sound and it is neither calm nor protected until you get right into the dock, which you cant do in a keelboat so you need to anchor in a pretty windy unprotected area with a nasty lee shore.

We decide to unload the captain with all of the paperwork into the dinghy and he will go in and clear us out while I hold station in 20 ft of water just outside the inner harbour. Sounds easy enough, but the wind is howling, and all I can think of is the racing around I'm going to have to do in a hurry if the engine dies. We haven't actually anchored this boat anywhere yet, but we did check to make sure the tackle was all in working order, so there's that. Anyhow, all's well that ends well, a spray drenched Captain Rob makes it back after I circle slowly for 20 minutes or so, and we are officially checked out.

It is about 4pm on December 6, 2012 and we have checked out of the BVI - we are now men without a country, embarking on a treacherous ocean voyage. I feel like Magellan, if Magellan was nervous, hungry and needing to pee.

Next installment to come ...
Rod