Posted By: jagmansr
May 15th Trip and dingy crawl report - 05/30/2015 04:53 PM
This was a short trip as we could only get our boat between May 15 through the 20th. We landed in St Thomas on the 14th around 4PM. Last time down I had promised Kevin our taxi driver I’d bring buffalo steaks for him on our next trip so he was happily waiting at the airport to run us over to Emerald Beach for our overnight on St. Thomas. We had a great happy hour and dinner at the beach bar. Kevin picked us up in the morning and got us to the docks for the first ferry out on Friday. Rightway had our supplies sitting on the boat when we arrived. After getting water, ice and a few other things at the grocery in Sea Cow Bay, we organized Island Fun and got off the docks before noon. There were four of us on board. We brought down our son’s future inlaws. Bob couldn’t wait to get there. Julie doesn’t swim. Luckily, this adventure didn’t “jeopardize” the wedding, lol. Actually, Julie did in fact snorkel and discovered she loved it. We decided to head first to JVD, got a mooring ball in Great Harbor and took the dingy over to the Soggy Dollar for the afternoon. We introduced Bob to snorkeling plus Painkillers. After a great afternoon we returned to Island Fun and enjoyed a dinner of jalapeno/lime marinated grilled shrimp. In the morning we motored over to Foxy’s Taboo to visit the Bubbly Pool. We had it all to ourselves but ran into a few people on the trail as we headed back to the cat. Next, we headed over to Monkey Point for some great snorkeling and lunch. From there we went into Trellis Bay and had our friend Capt. Carol from Captain’s Compass over for grilled chicken dinner. On Sunday we headed over towards Liverick Bay and stopped at the Dogs on the way. We had a slip waiting for us a Liverick. Once docked, the dock hands told us Nick, Monica, Vicki and Bridget’s crew were waiting for us on the dock. So, after a “small party” on the dock, we had 2 safaris waiting for us. Only two of us “acknowledged” we knew how to drive a stick so for the first time ever, I got to drive on the left side of the road. By 1 PM, 14 of us headed to Savannah Bay and then on to the Baths followed by drinks with a million dollar view at Hog Heaven. We managed to get the safaris back one piece and continued with more fun on the dock. With a very gracious invitation, we all had breakfast at the Duck & Dive hosted by Nick and Monica. Carol baked up a batch of apple/cinnamon muffins that along with eggs and bacon, Bloody Mary’s, beer and wine got us all in the proper state on mind for the dingy crawl. As our three dingy’s left the dock, at least three more dingys from the mooring field joined us on our quest to conquer the North Sound OR at least try to drink it dry. I know I’ll be corrected if wrong, I believe our first stop was Biras Creek. After a drink there, we set sail for The Bitter End and in classic pirate style, we engaged in numerous water cannon encounters. Without losing a single ship, we docked and quenched our thirst at the Bitter End. The manager requested permission to take our picture as they had never been invaded by pirates before. He even offered to start “happy hour” early (as in right then and now) if we would stay. But being the pirates we are, we still needed to conquer Saba Rock and Liverick Bay so off we went. Once back to Liverick Bay and adding food to the drinks the crew was able to continue partying the night away. Some more than others,,,,,,, and rumor has it, some paid the price the next day for too much indulgence. Once sober, Tuesday morning we said our goodbyes to all our new TTOL friends and set sail for Norman Island where we snorkeled both the Indians and the Caves. That night we grilled delicious buffalo steaks for dinner. Wednesday morning we headed over to Nanny Cay to the fuel dock and drop off Island Fun back into the care of Captain’s Compass in time for the 10 AM ferry. Got back to St. Thomas with plenty of time for the ladies to do some shopping before heading back to the airport. We sailed clockwise this trip and never encountered a full mooring field anyplace. Great Harbor wasn’t more than ¾ full. Trellis Bay was maybe half full, North Sound maybe half full and the Blight wasn’t even 1/4 full. There was virtually no wind all week so sailing wise, it didn’t matter what direction we took. We needed to be in Liverick on Sunday so this time a clockwise direction worked great. I think going the opposite direction of most people assured us of no problems finding mooring balls.