Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, VIrgin Islands

We left Vieques Monday morning even though the wind was a little stronger than we wanted.  The day started off great and we had both sails up.  A few squalls were coming our way so we reefed both sails and didn’t have a problem.  We continued the rest of the day with the reefed sails without a problem, or so we thought.  We noticed as we were coming in the Charlotte Amalie Harbor that our sail had ripped from the strong winds.  We have been sailing all week with reefed sails and haven’t had a problem.  We will just add this to our list of bad luck along with the fishing line getting tangled in the motor, and the 5 gallon fresh water bucket spilling into the door of our cabin and emptying all over the floor.  Good thing I needed to mop the floors!  We pulled into the Virgin Islands 5 hours after we left, dropped the anchor, and headed to shore to find the post office.  We have been waiting for our paddle boards since December.  They had already been shipped back once and we were getting worried they were going to ship them back again.  We went to 3 different post offices before we got to the correct one.  Of course it was the one farthest from our boat and we had to take a bus to get there.  It was really a sight to see.  Us carrying our gigantic paddle board boxes plus 2 other boxes trying to hail down the bus and jump on before the light turned green.  We made it back to the boat and opened all our goodies.  It was our Christmas, only 2 months late.  We got new filters for the water maker, paddle boards, dog poopie bags, candy, Christmas cards from home, water-fuel separator, and a few other goodies.  First things first, we pumped up the paddle boards and took them out for a spin.  The Virgin Islands are beautiful.  Around every corner is another bay that we can anchor in.  The water is clear and the sky is blue!  The sail is at the sail shop getting fixed and we are going to hang around Charlotte Amalie for a week until it is done.  This is cruise ship haven.  Three new ships come into port every night, stay the day and leave at sundown.

A guy stopped by our boat yesterday asking us what hull number we have.  This refers to our PDQ specifically.  Each boat was given a hull number and we are 89.   Usually other PDQ owners ask us this question and this was no different.  Turns out he owned hull number 54 and get this, he is from…….. Salt Lake City!  It will no longer surprise us when we run into someone from Salt Lake City living on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean.  We will be going out for cheeseburgers later this week with him at a beach pub that he claims has the best cheeseburger in the islands. 

I was telling Preston’s mom yesterday that living on a boat can be hard sometimes because when we drop our keys on our way in the house from the driveway we can’t just bend over and pick them up.  Between our house and driveway is water, so of course today as we were unhooking the dinghy we dropped our lock, plunk, into 20 feet of water.  I know, I know we chose to live on a boat, but this had to happen on shower day.  Shower day is the best day of the week!  We no longer feel sticky or salty and my hair feels hydrated and not dry.  Too bad, in I went to find our lock.

ü  Snorkel

ü  Fins

ü  Weight Belt

ü  Swimsuit

10 minutes later I found the lock and we were in the dinghy headed into town.  This is just one example of how when you live on a boat everyday things are just a little bit more work.

Sea glass collection so far

Dodging fishing buoys

Bus system!!

Haircut day for Lucy and Preston!!

Full parking lot

Is the one on the left still considered a yacht?  The boat on the right is the size of the biggest boat we had seen yet.