On the morning of day 3 of our SVI trip, we left the Best Western Emerald Beach and hauled our 200 lb of gear to the curb for a short Taxi ride to CYOA in Frenchtown.

Soft-sided rolly-bags really come in handy for this. Great for traveling, and then they fold flat once aboard, to conserve space.

The taxi driver dropped us off in front of Hook, Line, and Sinker, which is a great lunch and dinner spot that is literally within spitting distance of the CYOA dock.

Here we were met by CYOA's mascot, Iggy, the iguana.
We've been been chartering from CYOA for over 30 years, and I don't remember a year that we didn't see Iggy (or maybe Iggy's father or grandfather?)



After poking our head in the office to say hello we walked down the short dock to see Big Papa Lulu - our home for the next 10 days. The rear sunshades are wonderful in the afternoon sun because the east tradewinds almost always point the stern west. There's even a sunshade at the raised helm station! The dingy is on davits, and there's even a power winch to lift the heavy end (with the outboard).

Here's a pic...



The main living area is the cockpit, which is huge. To the left of the sliding door into the Salon is a ice-maker. To the right of the sliding door is the cockpit refrigerator, or "Beer Dispenser" as I liked to call it. Helm station is up the short ladder that has a life-raft underneath. There's even a hatch in the top of the cockpit to pull a breeze down from topsides. We used that a lot!



Rank has it's privileges, and being ranker than most, I got to pick cabins, and so picked the master-suite which occupies the entire starboard hull. I've lived in smaller apartments! There are Two! Two! individually controllable AC units in just this cabin alone. Large double bed, sofa, desk, private head with separate shower, multiple AC outlets, a DC outlet, fans, and multiple lockers and storage. It's the largest cabin I've ever occupied on a sailboat! An embarrassment of space! It sucked up our measly 200 pounds of gear and said "Ha! I can take another 400lb if you've got it!"

Here's a view of the cabin from the head...



Here's a picture of the lay-out from CYOA's web-site. I urge you to go to the site and see the section on Big Papa Lulu. Much more detail that I could ever write down here. Prominent features of the boat include a Onan 8kw generator, 6 AC units, 25 GPH water maker, ice maker, cockpit fridge, fully battened main, underwater stern lights, power dingy davit, and much more.



For details see cyoacharters.com - they are a sponsor of TTOL.

Here's a shot of Charlotte Amalie Harbor. It's fun to watch the sea planes come and go during the day. They fly right by the CYOA dock at about mast-top height.




We spent the afternoon in air-conditioned comfort settling in, inventorying food (the boat came provisioned with cold beer already in the cockpit fridge!), and checking out all the equipment and systems. Some of the crew went to town for some last minute shopping, but Iggy and I stayed behind to guard the Heineken. It's a dirty job... but somebody had to do it! After a wonderful dinner with all of our crew at Hook, Line, and Sinker, we were tuckered out and retired to sleep aboard Big Papa Lulu and dream of our adventures that would start for real the next morning.

To be continued...

That owner's cabin is pretty nice! A desk? A sofa? Wow. We were pretty surprised at the amount of storage on a Helia 44. 10 + luggage + provisions was no problem.

Cheers, RickG

Eagerly awaiting the rest of the trip

Hope you got a shot of a seaplane on take off at mast height. Love for you to post.

They come by CYOA at mast-top height when they are landing. Very cool.

I got a little video of one taking off from the middle of the harbor... need to figure out how to post it.

I think you can upload to youtube or photobucket and provide the link. I would love to see it.