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A Change Of Scenery

Lately all of us have been feeling like we were long overdue for a change of scenery. So we did a thing…

A few days ago we moved to the dock at Sapphire Beach Marina here on St Thomas!!

The slip we wanted finally opened up and we made the move as soon as Peter had another day off. As much as I despise dock life and would much rather be at anchor, it’s really the best option for us right now. There just aren’t very many good options for being a liveaboard permanently based in USVI. Ideally, we would love to be in an anchorage that has good protection from waves and open ocean swell, water clean enough to swim in, and easy access to shore, but that really doesn’t exist on St Thomas. Plus, Brig is at the point where he really needs to run off some energy every day and meet some other kids his age, so dock life is the next best thing.

Peter is currently signing on long term for a really awesome job opportunity (more on that to come!) which means we are ready to plant some roots again. Some days I can’t stop thinking about how much I loved our mooring in Sopers Hole on Tortola, but then I remind myself that it’s not even close to being how it was before. There’s nothing there for us right now. Our new life after Hurricane Irma is here… on a different boat, just an island hop away. I absolutely love living in the islands and eventually I hope to love it here as much as I loved our home in BVI.

Sapphire has a pool and a really nice beach. There’s a beach bar/restaurant, coffee shop, smoothies, and ice cream. It’s close to the safari taxi route and there’s even a taxi stand by the restaurant. Parking is free, but you have to pay for showers. There’s self service laundry on site. Water is cheap at only .10cents a gallon reverse osmosis. The slip rental cost is pretty pricey but we don’t have many options to choose from. We get a decent breeze on deck but it’s coming from our starboard side so it can get pretty toasty down below. In the evenings it’s imperative that we get screens in all the hatches and zip up the cockpit or the no-see-ums and mosquitos can get pretty vicious. Our electric bug zapper racquet gets used once or twice a night even with the screens in. I think the part I like the most about our new home is that we don’t get ferry wakes anymore!! Those Tortola ferry captains lay on the throttle and when we were out in Christmas Cove we got some catastrophic wakes every now and then. Nothing like red hook gets – but still.

I think this will be a good thing for us. At least we are still able to live Where The Coconuts Grow

A New View

It’s Hurricane Season here in the Caribbean and we’ve got a new backyard view! We’ve actually been here since just days after Brig was born but it’s been hard to find time to keep up on the blog during these first newborn weeks ;)

It’s a time of year where anxiety can make you sick to your stomach. When your home is floating in the path of a potential named storm, all kinds of thoughts start racing through your head.

We spent our first two hurricane seasons down in Grenada, which is statistically in a zone that gets less hurricanes, luckily without any action.  Last year we hauled out in BVI and this year we are staying aboard in BVI. So far we have not experienced any named storms (knock on wood!) but we are always making sure we’re prepared.

This year has already been fairly active and there were a few systems that looked like they were coming our way but either dissipated or redirected before reaching the Virgins. Peter and I have spent countless hours discussing what we would do in the event of a named storm.

While we trust our mooring ball (that we’ve spent the last two years on) in heavy weather, we don’t necessarily trust it in a named storm especially because now we have Brig. For the duration of Hurricane Season this year we decided to move our boat into a marina that is tucked way inside a designated hurricane hole here on Tortola just so we don’t have to worry about moving it if something comes up. Also, since we have to wait until the end of September to get Brig a passport, we can’t just haul our boat out of the water and fly back to the states to wait out the rest of the season there like we did last year. Not to mention, it’s incredibly expensive for us to do that. Aside from sitting on a mooring, hauling out, or moving to a dock, the fourth option would be to anchor out and hope for the best. We know a few people that have literally been the last boat floating while being anchored in a major storm.

Unfortunately, there are very few spots in BVI to anchor your boat – let alone considering if they would be safe. There are so many mooring balls installed for the charter boats that it leaves very few places left to drop the hook. Given our options here in BVI, we are pretty happy with our current situation from a safety standpoint. We will make every effort to secure our boat the best we can in a named storm, but when it really comes down to it, we’re insured. In fact, I’ve been finalizing our renewal this week. It’s definitely a relief to know we are completely covered for crazy things like hurricanes.

While I ABSOLUTELY despise being tied to the dock, it does have a few perks. For one, the Virgin Islands are H-O-T this time of year so being plugged into shore power allows us to use the air conditioning 24/7. Well, it actually requires us to run the A/C 24/7 because if we didn’t we would roast. Its even hotter tucked away inside this hurricane hole than it would be back on our mooring in West End. There are also a ton of mosquitoes when you’re close to shore so that’s another reason we have to keep the boat all closed up. Even though I’m not pregnant anymore, I’m still concerned about Zika. I must admit it’s also nice to have air conditioning when I’ve got a fussy baby though. Secondly, it makes it much easier to take Betsy for a walk. She can practically take herself potty – something she can’t do from our mooring.

Then of course there’s the fact that we can park our car right next to the boat, there is laundry, a gym, our favorite restaurant, and a little grocery market all within a very short walk. Sure it’s convenient, but it’s just not the same as floating out on the water away from everyone else. I look at dock life like being in an apartment complex and our mooring as more like a neighborhood with big spacious lots :)

I cannot wait to get back to our beautiful home in West End!! Yes, I’ll probably miss the air conditioning, but I sure do love when the fresh Caribbean breeze blows through our hatches to cool us down.