Sailing Ohana

We stopped at St. John for a brief but enjoyable visit with our friends the Olsons, who live there. We grabbed a mooring ball in Caneel Bay, and dinghyed to Cruz Bay where Stirling picked us up. We got to see their home which is a lovely open-air house, with screens for windows. We went…

We motored to Marina Cay which is a small Cay off of Scrub Island, and grabbed a mooring ball. There is a “diamond rated” snorkeling spot close by between Marina Cay and Great Camanoe Island, so that was convenient and cool. Scrub Island Marina and Resort is a fancy resort that welcomes cruisers from the…

I am so far behind on these blog posts that when I started to write this, I had to review our path on the charts rather than what I usually do, which is to write from memory. The BVI’s we’re a bit of a blur, anyway. Our passage from St. Croix, USVI to Tortola, BVI…

Photo credits for a lot of these go to Kevin & Jewel Afflerbaugh and Polly & Fritz Moriarty As far as I can tell, there are no great weather days to sail to St. Croix from the other Virgin Islands. We checked the sailing weather apps off and on for weeks to see what we…

Our first few days on St John were peaceful and fun. We stayed in Fish Bay with our two buddy boats. Our friend Stirling from Colorado who moved to St. John in 2020 also joined us with his youngest son on their family’s catamaran. Our four boats were the only boats in the bay while…

We arrived in St. Thomas after a short sail — the Virgin Islands are all really close together. Our first stop was to anchor at Honeymoon Bay where our buddy boat Malusi had a mooring ball. We dropped the anchor in the only open area, only to find that it was dragging when we tried…

Culebra and Culebrita are known for a couple of outstanding beaches on both islands. We loved the little harbor we anchored in, surrounded by a picturesque bustling town. I prefer using cruising guides and paper charts over Google and our electronic charts, and I always consult these, referencing “my book” frequently when talking with other…

Our first stop after leaving Puerto Real was Boquerón, a little beach town just south of us. We liked the look of the little bay, and the protected anchorage. The town gets over-run with college students on the weekends and we were lucky to be there on a weekday and it was totally quiet. There…

We enjoyed Puerto Rico so much more than we expected to! It feels very much like another country, but it also has the conveniences of being a US territory. We stayed on the west coast in Puerto Real, which is a sweet fishing village. We rented a car and drove to Mayagüez which is the…

We left from Jamaica Cay on a calm Sunday morning at 0900, and began the loooooooong journey south. An interesting thing to know about what we all refer to as traveling “South” from the Bahamas is that it’s actually mostly going East, and going East is the hard part. So much so that cruisers refer…