Finishing the Face Lift

Ahh! a very nice dinner!



Our new mattress has arrived!

With water and food low we left St. John and sailed back to St. Thomas. There, the first order of business was to fill up the fuel and water at Yacht Haven and then anchor in our normal spot amongst the Pirates to dinghy in and go provisions shopping. Ahhh! We made arrangements to put in at Crown Bay Marina and have our new mattress delivered.  Sleeping on boat cushions finally got old.  While there we stopped by the mail and wow! the water maker parts were in.

There are some interesting boats in Honeymoon Bay

 

 Feeling much more secure we headed  to Honeymoon Bay as friends told us it was a great place for cruisers.  The beach always has something going on.  We anchored in 30 ft. of water, not Carl’s favorite depth.  He donned SCUBA gear to set the anchor which had gone down on it’s side.  We arrived on Wed. and went in for Bingo on the beach.  The beach is anchored by two bars, Joe’s and Heidi’s at either end.  In between is a covered deck for Yoga and a concrete pavilion.  Besides Bingo on Wed’s there is Pizza nite on Fri’s, Candle Lite dinner at Heidi’s on Sat., Pot Luck on Sunday afternoons and Movie nite on Mon’s, with Yoga thrown in on Wed. morning.  The Island itself offers interesting hiking and exploring both above and below the water.



Carl installs the new boat horn

With all these activities we still had to finish the work.  Water needed to be made and the flooring put down.  In finishing the water maker, Carl discovered the booster pump already installed in the boat was 24volt not 12V and it was causing the water maker to suck air as not enough water was going thru so a trip to Budget and a new 12V booster pump and the water maker is now making lots of water.  While this was going on of course lots of water ended up in the bilge and upon trying to pump it out, discovered the bilge pump was broken, but we got lucky and the people at Budget found the $25.00 part saving us $300.00 for a new one-----more Champaign for me!!

New pressure vessels in and working

Now that the water maker was working and the bilge pump pumping we focused on the floor.  We had to remove the table and nav. stool and the cabinet we had temporarily put in.  Our neighbor on Sandy Annie, Joe, had put in a floor last summer so he gave us lots of good advice. It took one and a half days of solid work to lay, Carl doing the cutting and Leslie making the templates.  It came out beautiful and is so much more appealing than the scarred, bleached floor of before.

Carl cuts a piece of floor

The last piece gos in

 

 

 

 

 

It's done!



Everything is back in place

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter is coming so we particapated in the Palm Sunday prossesion.

we meet in the town

Honeymoon camping on the beach

 

Since it is the end of March we must now dedicate time for dreaded taxes. UGH!!!

Back to Exploring

The new cabinet is installed, along with door catches and fiddles on top! It was a chore, but we persevered! However, now we need to replace the flooring as the cabinet isn’t the same size as the bench was. The generator arrives and we test the water maker only to find the pressure vessel has a hairline crack! Now we wait for new pressure vessels. We also got an ice maker! It makes 10 ice cylinders every 10 minutes so now we have cold drinks!

The new cabinet replaces the bench

New ice maker Yeah! ICE!

Cabinet all done!

On one of our trips to Budget Marine for more stuff I ran across the Happy Island Yacht Club at the edge of Independent Boat Yard. What a cool place! It was a boat that ran aground in a hurricane that became a bar, restaurant and yacht club. The people were really great and we had a blast before staggering to the bus back to the dinghy. 

The Happy Yacht Club. Cool place!

Fern streches Leslie

Dinner at the Eco Lodge at Maho

With us now waiting for water maker parts we head off to Maho Bay and meet Laura and Fern. Fern is great as she is a yoga instructor so she and Laura come aboard and teach us some couples yoga so we can be flexible.  Friday is Maho Eco Lodge roast beef night so we meet up with our friends on Ocean Wings and have a wonderful dinner! Unfortunately the land the Eco Lodge is on was sold so they will have to close and vacate by May 15^th. This is a bummer as it is a great place with eco tours and class blowing classes and a variety of activities for the guests and visitors. They also have a water sports center which also has to go which again is unfortunate as they also rent equipment and have dives for visitors as well as guests. However, I did buy a scuba tank for $100 which isn’t bad.

What a view!

Lameshur Bays

The north swell has come in and waves are crashing on the beaches up here at Maho and the north shore of St John so we head to the south shore and pick up a mooring at Little Lameshur Bay. There a lot of hikes here we haven’t done so we stay a while to do some hiking.

We rest at the end of Ram's Trail

This is a big Tree!

The VIERS camp site

Painting of the habitat

While hiking we discover VIERS, Virgin Island Environmental Research Station, and go to visit their facility. It is a good looking camp run by volunteers for visiting High School and College classes who come from the states.  It is also the location of the Tektite Museum, the underwater habitat from the 1970’s.  It was 50 ft. below the surface and was used for 13 missions, one for 90 days straight,  to see how people would react in close quarters in space and living under the sea for research.  Fascinating! 

Leslie with Drunk Bay art

Interesting rock art

The hikes in this area were really fun.  Drunk Bay hike is short but the end is bizarre, Bordeaux hike is meant for triathlete training, 1200 ft straight up.  Not one we will repeat soon.

We also got a chance to check out Concordia which is Maho Bay Eco Resort’s sister facility in Coral Bay on owned property.  It is eco but a step up from Maho and smaller.

ruin on the hike

The fish were by the boat, but I caught nothing!

The beach in Lameshur is great! We decided to make coconut candle holders while we were there with some coconuts Leslie found.

Lamesure Bay beach

Leslie sands a coconut

Ahh the finished product

Now we must return to St. Thomas, we are out of water and food, and hopefully pick up water maker parts, flooring etc. and finish this phase of the lady’s face lift.


Happy Easter to all!!

Frolic gets some Upgrades

There comes a time in every boat’s life when upgrades need to be made to accommodate the owner’s lifestyle. With the parts for the water maker aboard it was time to do some upgrades to Frolic. We unpacked and set out the parts we had received and examined the instructions. Man that is a lot of parts and still more were needed! I figured 3 days to assemble and install the water maker.

That's alot of parts! and it isn't all yet

Will this all fit in here?

 

 

 

 

 

pass me the instructions please!

Hey! it looks pretty good!

 

 We also needed to order a 2KW generator to power it. Well, after a couple days of talking to the dealer, Mayberrys in NJ, and Tropical shipping we ordered it. The generator took 2 weeks to get to us. In the meantime the 3 day project became 8 days as I hadn’t counted on 3 days of traveling around to get various plumbing parts and fasteners. Of course when you are anchored in clear calm water off a beautiful sand beach next to an airport, one can get distracted watching the planes come and go and porpoises swim by, so production is not extremely proficient.

It has to mean good luck today!

It's a busy place and fun to watch

 

During one of our forays we went to get a drink and do Wi Fi at one our favorite places, Hubbly Bubbly, only to find them dismantling it. Apparently landlord demands became excessive and, unbeknown to us, two days earlier they had a last day party, which about 500 people showed up for, and closed. 

Kelly and Leslie talk as they disassemble the Hubbly Bubbly

 Also in the middle of the project during our normal maintenance time, we found the port raw water pump was frozen which entailed 2 hours to remove it and a trip to Crown Bay to get a new one, $300.00! The new one’s metal mounting bracket and belt shield was untreated! So we disassembled it, painted it, and reassembled it before the 2 hour reinstallation. 

This is $300!!

Get in there you bum!! Ahrrrr!

Now after a week the water maker is assembled and installed, but when I test it running off our inverter the 15A breaker on the new electrical panel keeps tripping after about 2 seconds of the motor running. This means another hour trip by Safari bus to Budget Marine for a 20A breaker and an hour back. After I install the new breaker it holds, but the motor starts to vibrate a bit after a couple of seconds so we will see how it runs with the generator. The generator came in and we test the water maker. After tightening a few leaky connectors I notice water dripping from a hairline crack in the pressure vessel. A call to the dealer reveals we are missing the support bolts for the pressure vessel. Now we wait for the support bolts and new pressure vessel.

The generator is in!

Leslie varnishes the cabinets

In the meantime a second upgrade starts. Leslie has found a cabinet she likes at Home Depot to replace the bench at the inside table. This eliminates an ugly bench and adds more cabinet storage space. So it’s another Safari bus to Home Depot, but a taxi back with the cabinets and a careful dinghy ride to the boat with the new cabinets where they were sealed with varnish before we start the installation. Cutting out the old bench proves to be tough and we go through all the blades of the multi-tool and another trip to Home Depot is in the offing.

Before the upgrade

The bench is out at last!

One cannot work all the time so one night we walked up the hill from the beach to the University of the Virgin Islands amphitheater and watched Cirque Zuma Zuma. It was a great show with circus like performances.

Leslie looks good in bubbles

she is quite the hulla hooper

unbelievable!

One of the beach bars at Honey Moon

The pig roast begins

  Then one Sunday after church we went to Honeymoon Beach for a pot luck pig roast. It is a great beach with swing ropes for kids, bars at each end of the beach for adults and horse shoes for the adventuress. It was fun, but there was no work that day

 We also decided to upgrade the main sheet and halyard winch to an electric winch and order it. Unfortunately we were informed it is back ordered until the end of March, so we can look forward to another upgrade period.

Ahhh Life is good!

 

First Visitor of 2013

With our delayed launching we were still in Leverick Bay in the BVI taking on water and fuel and cleaning the boat as the time came for our friend Diane to come spend a couple weeks with us. Our plan to meet her in St. Thomas was not going to work out so a call to her and an added flight to Virgin Gorda with a taxi ride brought her to us in Leverick Bay. It was a fortuitous event as now all our sailing back to the USVI would be down wind and with the waves to our back. We were excited to show her some of the BVI and started in North Sound with a local pirate show, Happy Ahrrrr, in Leverick and a Tarpon feeding at Saba Rock,

Diane arrives

A ranbow herolds Diane's arrival

The Happy Ahrrrr show

Michael Bean is smoking!!

 

 







a great burger at the Fat Virgin, and a hike around the Bitter End Yacht Club.

The Fat Virgin has the best burgers in the BVI

The hike on Bitter End

We worked our way around the North side of Tortola with a stop at Trellis Bay to see the Last Resort and happy hour at the Loose Mongoose. We spent the afternoon at the Scrub Island Resort in the pool and hot tub with drinks and snacks before mooring at Marina Cay and seeing where the movie Virgin Islands was filmed with a great sunset at their bar.

Relaxing at Scrub Cay

The infinity pool at Scrub Resort



Cane Garden Bay Sunset

Callawood's distillary

At Cane Garden Bay we walked the beach and toured Collawood’s Rummery started in the late 1800s, the only distillery left in the Virgins.

Bottles of Rum

The still made in the late 1800s



The buffet

The sign says it all

On the way to Jost Van Dyke Island we stopped at Sand Cay, a little sand island which is now part of the park system, and hiked around the island. We moored in Great Harbor and took the dinghy in to Foxy’s for his all you can eat barbeque buffet.



JJ with his dog tiller in a kayak at Maho

We checked out of the BVI and sailed to St Johns in the USVI to check in and spent the day in Maho Bay, one of our favorite places. However the north swell had really stirred up the water so the visibility on our snorkeling was really bad. We hiked Francis Bay and visited the Eco Lodge before heading on to Caneel Bay.

I love these cute snails

Erin loves the dive

It is beautiful down there

From Caneel Bay we took the dinghy to town and spent the afternoon and next day exploring the town. While Diane and Leslie toured the town, Carl took the opportunity to go on a 3 tank dive with Cruz Bay Watersports on the South side of St. John which was a good first dive of the year.

Aug, Peg, and us on Midnight Rambler

We sailed to Christmas Cove where we met Aug and Peg for an evening of catching up, food and drinks. The next day we were off to Long Bay in St. Thomas where we anchored in our old spot inside the pirate ship fleet. As it was late, checking out Charlotte Amelia would have to wait a day.

That is some heavy equipment

After hiking around town in the morning we took the dollar bus up to Crown Bay to pick up our water maker. It was a good thing we brought 2 duffle bags as the two packages weighed 100 lbs.! Carl was able to put about 90 lbs. of equipment in the bags and carry them down to the marina a half mile away. There after lunch Diane and Leslie watched most of the equipment while Carl took the dollar bus back to the dinghy with about 40 lbs. of equipment to drop off at the boat and then bring the dinghy to the marina to pick up the ladies and the rest of the equipment.

The Rising Sun 10th largest yacht in world

The 3 schooners

Our last stop would be Brewers Bay.  On the way we passed 3 old schooners anchored off of Hassel Island, the Virginia, the Armistead, and the Harvey Gamage. They are some classic schooners! We anchored in one of our spots from last year and immediately went for a swim in the clear warm water.  We recognized some boats of people we met from last year so will be making neighbor calls.   Diane will fly back and we will start figuring out the water maker and how it goes together.