I usually post on the BVI board, but wanted to share my recent St. John sailing/trip experience. Took a red-eye out of Denver, through Atlanta, to San Juan and onto St. Thomas. This in itself is not unusual for me – I like red eye flights – but I hadn’t gone straight to picking up a boat before and in hindsight, that was a mistake. My dear friend, the Captain from Chicago, had arrived the night before, and done all the provisioning and boat briefings and met me at the airport. It was a long cab ride to Compass Point Marina, where we picked up the boat a Jeanneau 40 named “Better Than Popcorn” from VIP Yacht Charters. I stowed my stuff and we were away in less than 15 minutes after arriving at the marina. Steve took us out to the Bay and gave us some landmarks to get to Cruz Bay, and we were off. Since it was late in the day and we wanted to get where we were going, we motored instead of sailed. But my fatigue and not enough food made me feel kind of seasick (almost never happens to me) so I just chilled trying to find a second or third wind. We noticed as soon as Steve left that our depth finder was at a consistent 6.1. It never varied - and we were going 0 – in other words, we had no instrument panel at all. A call to VIP resulted in the response of essentially ‘Oh, well, you’re experienced, we trust you.’ Hmm.

Even with several sets of charts and Steve’s landmarks, we overshot and pulled into Chocolate Hole instead of Great Cruz Bay. (A GPS would have been nice.) The Captain dinghied ashore to figure out where we were, and we got it right on the next try. Had a ball reserved through Proper Yachts for all four nights. Our friends who were getting married (and the rest of the guests) were staying at various villas in the Beach Estate area, so the Captain dinghied to Iguana Villa to have some pizza and beer and get to know the other guests and see our friends. ‘Popcorn’ had a massive bimini that was impossible to take down to a reasonable height, so I could only get some of the stars, but I wrapped up in a sheet and dozed and listened to music and looked at the moon for about three hours. The Captain returned with cold pizza about 9:30 and it was off to bed.

In the morning, I felt better and we headed back to Iguana Villa for some more acquaintance making. What a gorgeous place! Several bedrooms, all quite separate from each other, each with a wonderful private stone shower (one was probably big enough for 8 people), a lovely little pool and hot tub, a beautiful great room with a completely open wall that flowed into the deck. TV, books and games. Nicely set up kitchen. We headed back to the boat to make sure everything (else) worked before taking anyone out sailing with us. We toodled around the bay and the channel – everything seemed to be working fine except the instrument panel, but the boat was pretty slow and the winds were very flukey. The Captain is very experienced, but I am a relative novice and still learning a lot. Picking the ball back up in Great Cruz Bay, I made the rookie error of running over the dinghy line – which off course got caught in the propeller to such an extreme extent that we had to ask one of our fellow guests, who was a diver, to come rescue us, by diving down to get it free! So much for the afternoon! We cleaned up a bit and taxied into Cruz Bay with the some other guests. Spent a little time at Joe’s Rum Hut, had a couple slices of pizza (really good) and wandered around the shops, listened to some music at the Beach Bar, another drink at the High Tide – we wound up back there for dinner – good (huge) burgers. Back to the boat.

It was a rolly anchorage every night, and I think I slept well every other night. Still was feeling the queasies – did for most of the trip, but I don’t know why. On Monday, we all met up in Cruz Bay and took the Ocean Runners water taxis over to Jost van Dyke. We had met our friends who were getting married about a year ago on Jost, and it’s their (and of course, my) favorite island, so I couldn’t have been happier on this excursion. Had BBQ at Foxy’s, with Foxy playing, checked out the Endeavour, chatted with Kevin. Taboo decided to play keep away with my flip-flops but didn’t do any serious damage. Chi Chi came hobbling up for hugs just as we were on the dock to head over to White Bay. A quick motor to White Bay, and we invaded the Soggy Dollar. (I was glad to have the chance to give Lorna an early wedding gift of a black lace sarong.) The wedding couple had just spent five days or so at Sandcastle, so it was a mini-homecoming for them. But I felt weird being a day-tripper as I usually am a longer-term guest. I didn’t use a chair or a hammock, based on recent threads on the BVI board. A little time in the water and then a walk over the hill to Ivan’s. Boy, what change on the hill! Actual concrete steps leading up to the path! A guardrail across the top – the path has been widened even since my trip in May, and as we were crossing, there was a backhoe digging things up even more – I fear that Ivan’s may not be the isolated little spot I am so accustomed to, once access from the other side of White Bay becomes easier. It was busy at Ivan’s too, though – was hoping to see himself, but he wasn’t there. A stress-free punch in hand, it was back over the hill to stop in at Seddy’s and then, all too soon, it was time to head back to Cruz Bay. Through Customs (though some in the group were reprimanded for being too loud and rowdy while waiting in line) then we went and had another pizza at the place next to Joe’s Rum Hut. The Captain wanted me to have a remembrance of the trip, so be bought me a lovely sterling silver anklet at Freebird. Off to the villa – though the taxi had a hard time finding it – and back to the boat, with the promise that we’d sail in the morning.

The weather had been consistently mixed – sunny/rainy, hot/humid, lots more ‘weather’ than I am used to, but this was my first trip in June. TS Alberto had been stirring things up in the vicinity for a few days, but I knew he was well to the north by now.

We headed out, with the intention of going to Lameshur Bay as a first stop, put up the main and the genoa and then everything seemed to fall apart. It felt like we had ten minutes of good sailing on a beam reach – serious heeling – and suddenly the winds picked up and the seas kicked in. So in 30 knots and 7 foot seas, the dinghy broke free, not once but twice – lost the boat hook before retrieving it the second time, and let’s just say I had some serious trial by fire learning before we got ourselves back to Great Cruz Bay. Nice to know I can singlehand her if I have to in such conditions.

We were pretty adrenaline pumped by the time we got moored again, so we tried to just relax a bit before heading into town to try to replace the boat hook (note to self: there are no marine supply stores on St. John). Into Cruz Bay we went, but were unable to fulfill our mission, so we had great BBQ at a wonderful little place by the National Parks building. I slipped on something and took a tumble (and I hadn’t even been drinking), which added to the bruises from the ropes, lines, halyards and everything else during the morning’s ‘sail’. Back to the villa to clean up, shower and change for the wedding. We all cabbed over to the Peter Bay Beach House – again, a gorgeous place – and the wedding took place at sunset on the beach. It could not have been more perfect. (There’s a large netted bed set up just at the edge of the beach, too, with a huge gong at the headboard, should the happy couple choose to spend the night there – my kind of place.) The vows were touching, the officiant properly mystical/spiritual, only about 35-40 guests, so we could all stand around in a semi-circle. Dinner was catered by East/West Catering (I think) out of St. John, and was awesome. Painkillers for toasting instead of champagne. Half the guests were ready to head back to Joe’s Rum Hut, but we were ready for the boat, as we were leaving the next day.

Conditions were little better in the morning, so VIP said to leave the boat in Great Cruz and they would pick it up. Even so, the cab didn’t arrive in time to get me to the 9:00 ferry, so my whole schedule for departure got screwed up and I had to switch my flight into San Juan to Caribbean Sun (from American) which was a nice little airline. (Another note to self: it takes at least 90 minutes to get from the ferry departure time in Cruz Bay to the airport – if you have to be there two hours early, plan accordingly.) But I dozed on that flight and on the other two back to Denver.

General observations: Right now, I’d say I’d go back to St. John for another occasion, but probably not for a vacation, since the BVIs are so close. I didn’t find the people as relaxed or friendly, driving seemed worse than on Tortola, and more visitors seemed more focused on getting drunk and shopping than relaxing and soaking up the island vibe. I will admit that I didn’t get to spend time on any of the beautiful beaches, except Peter Bay, so I think my experience would have been completely different if I were to try to make a vacation for myself on the beach there, as I do in the BVIs. St. John was lovely and lush though, larger than I had expected somehow. I had a wonderful time with the folks I was with and it is a great place for a destination wedding. So overall, the trip wasn’t really relaxing (I didn’t expect it to be) but it sure was interesting! And as always, island time kicked in, and 4 days felt like 8 days. And there’s sure nothing wrong with feeling like you just spent 8 days on St. John.