Safety Course and St Croix

I am writing this on March 10th, playing a little catch up. A lot has happened since the last log, as usual. This log covers what we have been up to since our guests left in mid January until February 24th when another gang joined us for 10 days. I will then write another log covering just those 10 days, as there is a lot to tell about that cruise! So, stay tuned.
After our guests left we had a few weeks to chill and get caught up on boat projects and other stuff on our never ending list of things to do. The difference with our chore list down here tho is that we can tackle one chore a little bit at a time and when we get tired we can have a swim and a cold drink. We looked forward to some quiet time and the chance to mellow. First thing on our list of “to do’s” tho was Doug’s birthday on the 15th of January. While we sailed back to the U.S. Virgins from the B.V.I. we enjoyed Bloody Caesar’s and I baked a double chocolate cake (Doug is a chocolate freak, like most people). We checked in with customs in Cruz Bay on the island of St. John and then spent a leisurely afternoon swimming and laying in the sun. We were pretty secluded on our mooring and with this belief we started to get a little amorous in the cockpit. It was much to my consternation when a hobie cat with a young couple aboard sailed by real close and got an eyeful. Of course, we were so into what we were doing we didn’t notice until it was far too late! Needless to say, there was a lot of good natured laughter from us as well as the couple on the hobie cat. After that fiasco, we decided something a little more low key was in order; a lovely Italian dinner with a good bottle of wine, so we dinghied into Cruz Bay again and headed to Café Roma and shared a romantic dinner. All in all, I think Doug had a pretty good birthday.
The next day after Cruz Bay, we sailed a short distance to one of our favourite places where we feel very much at home, Christmas Cove. We planned on pretty much hanging out there for the next 3 weeks or so, as it was good base to work from. The St Thomas Yacht Club was a short dinghy ride away where we could access Internet to get our logs out and update pics, reply to numerous emails, and call family and friends over Skype. Also, everyone at the yacht club always makes us feel like family. Red Hook was around the corner as well and that’s the place to go for laundry, groceries, pubs (yummy! bar food!) and a course (S.T.C.W.) that we had planned to take with the Captain School. We had chores on the boat such as dog grooming (you wouldn’t believe how much of my time is spent grooming two small dogs), defrosting the fridge and freezer, polishing stainless (an ongoing chore), replacing a throttle cable, patching dinghy leaks (on our brand new dinghy!!), runs to the big Cost U Less (just like Costco at home) for provisions (a special thanks to Bill for the rides back and forth in his jeep), laundry…the list goes on….. you get the picture.
The S.T.C.W. course, which is an anagram for Standards of Training and Watch Keeping, was a four day course. The first day we would learn about all the types of fire that could potentially happen on a boat and what type of extinguisher would put out what type of fire. We learned and discussed all about fires in the morning and in the afternoon the entire class got on a safari bus and we were taken to the St. Thomas dump where they had a fire training facility. It wasn’t all that pretty but we toured thru this surprisingly large and seemingly organized dump to the very top of a hill with a breathtaking view. This is the spot where we would actually put out all the different types of fire we had just learned about. I was nervous but Doug was eager to get going. We donned the firefighter gear, the jacket, the hat and the boots (we all had long pants on) for safety. Our first task was to enter a container where a fire was roaring inside. We did not know where the fire was in the container which was full of smoke, making it very difficult to see. Doug and I were a team and so we went in. We did everything we were supposed to do right except I did not crouch low enough, and as a result, received a big blast of smoke in the face and found it hard to breathe until I clued into to what Doug was doing and crouched down, almost crawling on all fours, which made a huge difference. The heat from the fire was oppressive and felt like a wall slamming into your chest. We put the fire out with our extinguishers and we backed out of the container (you never turn your back on a fire even if you think it is out). Whew! I couldn’t believe we had done it! I was so excited. We went thru the rounds of putting out a diesel fire, a grease fire, and a wood fire. At the end, we smelled like smoke and we were tired and ready for a coldie but pretty darn happy to have learned about fires and actually put them out.
The next day was all about how to save yourself if your boat is sinking (God forbid that should happen to anyone). In the morning we learned the theory of immersion suits, life rafts, lifejackets, how to step off a boat with lifejackets on (most particularly a large ship, such as a cruise ship), man overboard drills and how to throw a life ring. In the afternoon dive boats took us all out to Christmas Cove where we would then learn the theory by doing the practical. What an experience wearing an immersion suit (aka Gumby suit)! It’s a very claustrophobic feeling and your maneuverability is severely limited. I thot it was tough righting the inverted life raft in the water and getting into it while wearing a lifejacket! With the immersion suit on it is nearly impossible but if ever in that situation you must be able to do it. We felt tired but pretty exhilarated after that.
The next two nites we talked CPR, primary and secondary first aid and role played. I’m ashamed to say that for me, it had been a long time since I had taken first aid and CPR and a lot of things have changed. Doug was current in first aid and CPR as he was a member of ski patrol back home for some time. We both felt that the S.T.C.W. course was extremely worthwhile for anyone, not just boaters. I personally had never used a fire extinguisher before and felt better just knowing how to do actually do it. I feel much more confident now than before and as First mate on Mustang Sally and therefore as part of a team, I think the Captain feels better too, as we only have each other to rely on in the event of an emergency.
Super Bowl Sunday was fast approaching and although we sometimes get some channels on our TV we did not get the Super Bowl channel and so had to find a place to watch the game. It turned out that our home away from home, the St. Thomas Yacht Club was having a Super Bowl party, complete with the 52” screen TV, chicken wings and beer. What more could you ask for?! We really enjoyed the game, as we don’t get to see many sporting events anymore and we were happy to see the underdogs win . With bellies full of chicken wings, roast beef dip and beer we happily dinghied back to Mustang Sally and enjoyed a good nite sleep.
The natives were getting restless; we had decided we were tired of sitting in one spot. Why not go and see the third island that makes up the U.S. Virgins, St Croix? We had not sailed to St. Croix before as it is off on its own, as it is 40 nautical miles south of St. Thomas and St. John, which are pretty much on top of one another being only 3 miles apart. The St. Croix Yacht Club was having a regatta on the 8th and 9th of February and numerous sailors we knew from the St. Thomas Yacht Club were heading there to race. What the heck! Let’s check out Christiansted, St Croix. We headed off from Christmas Cove close hulled with the wind blowing 25 knots and the seas 8’-10’. It was a “jaunty” sail so to speak. You think you have everything secured below decks when all of a sudden you hear a crash. The sound of our favourite glass hurricane globe smashed to smithereens. Oh well! We would get another one. Despite the sea state we averaged 9 knots and arrived in time for lunch.
St. Croix is very different from the other U.S. Virgins islands. She is the biggest, being more than twice the size of St. Thomas. St Croix is also flatter and more fertile and is still relatively unspoiled. Christiansted is considered by many to be the most beautiful town in the Caribbean and we certainly felt that way. The town is lined row after row with pretty pastel coloured buildings dating back to the 1700’s. We explored Fort Christianvaern, a building where the Danes auctioned off slaves, the Scale House which weighed produce for merchants before shipping abroad, and the old customs houses and numerous other buildings that are administered by the National Park Service. We then strolled up and down the streets admiring all of the beautiful courtyards and cobblestone streets. We couldn’t help but notice however, that Christiansted’s many beautiful buildings where empty and there weren’t many people milling around. It seemed almost like a ghost town. We had heard that cruise ships used to come here but had stopped due to the amount of crime in the past. Since that time Christiansted has been working to restore the buildings, cut crime and bring back the cruise ships. We both felt that St. Croix would become popular again very soon.
We stopped to partake of some beer and poppers at the local brew house which is located on the boardwalk which follows along the water way. We were enjoying sitting quietly looking over the water and people watching. I noticed that the bartender kept ringing a brass bell. I assumed it was for a food order that was “up”, except for some reason everyone time the bell would ring, the male customers and the bartender would clap. Slowly it dawned on us what was going on. Every time an attractive female strolled past the bar on the boardwalk they would ring the bell to notify the other males in attendance to check her out!! Unfortunately, not all of the females were worthy of the bell ringing (bellworthy?). Thankfully, they were oblivious. The bar patrons all chuckled and thot it was all good natured fun….as long as you weren’t one of the “non bell worthy women!
While at anchor in Christiansted we would hear horses whinnying very close to the cat. It didn’t make any sense until we looked around and saw a local fellow swimming while leading a horse by the bridle in the water. They swam quite far out and fairly deep. This happened twice a day, sometimes with the same horse but we noticed other people would show up with their horses on the beach and he would take their horses swimming too. We figured it was a form of exercise for both the horse the fellow
Our timing for visiting Christiansted was good as we found out that it was “Jump Up” on the Friday after we arrived. Jump Up is a big street festival where all the shops stay open late, there are BBQ’s on every street corner and everyone dances in the street, including the Mocko Jumbies (similar to clowns on stilts). We had a great time enjoying all of the sights and the friendly people. But it was early to bed (10 p.m.) as we wanted to get to the regatta for the next morning.
The wind had been blowing 25 knots for the last week and was still blowing 25 knots plus when we reached the St. Croix Yacht Club. Several of the smaller sailboats had chosen not to race as it was too rough. We noticed several racing sailboats from our St. Thomas Yacht Club were there and we were rooting for them. We enjoyed cocktails at the club and the after race atmosphere of BBQ and beers, with everyone rehashing the course and their adventures during the race. The next morning we rose to another beautiful day and as Doug was looking around the anchorage to see what was up when he noticed one of the racing sailboats from St. Thomas Yacht Club had gone up on the rocks. It turned out that “Ghost” a brand new, beautiful, sleek Etchells 32 had come free of her mooring the evening before while everyone slept, unbelievably drifted thru the entire mooring field without anyone noticing and the wind pounded her onto the lee shore. It was a very sad sight to see with the crew just watching her sink while waiting for the salvage boat to come from Christiansted.
After we determined that there was very little anyone could do, we decided to head back to St. Thomas. We had another interesting sail as the conditions had not changed much from our sail out to St. Croix. We were again close hulled with same winds and sea state. We averaged 8.5 knots, and this was despite a reefed main and we also had the jib reefed as she was beginning to come free of the head foil.
We sailed to Saba Rock on Virgin Gorda where we hung out for a week doing more Internet stuff and we met Joel and Kathy, on Triumph, a beautiful Privilege 48, who we spent many evenings enjoying cocktails and dinner and many laughs. We then enjoyed a great downwind sail to White Bay on Jost Van Dyke and hung out there for another couple of days, where I power walked the beach every day and we enjoyed coldies and people watching at Soggy Dollar. Our next guests would be arriving on the 24th of February, just a few days away, so we made tracks for Road Town to provision, fuel and water the boat in anticipation of their arrival. We couldn’t wait!
Until the next log……fair winds!