Back to Christiansted St Croix and then on to Frederiksted USVIs

We had a very pleasant sail back to Christiansted from Buck Island on the morning of Friday 27 April.  With the wind blowing at about 15 knots from the east-southeast we were very lazy and just unrolled the genoa and pottered downwind under that sail alone.  It’s only 5nm from Buck Island back to ‘our’ anchorage off Christiansted so we hardly needed to race there and, even so, the whole passage only took us 75mins from engine on just prior to raising anchor to engine off having dug it in again.

We spent the day doing chores: Nicky visited the laundry and the food store, whilst I tried to make a dent in the backlog of blog entries – and failed to make much of an impression. But the reason that we had returned to Christiansted was to attend the Jazz in the Park concert, a weekly event in season and one which sounded great fun.

And it was.  We arrived shortly after the band had started and, not having deckchairs, managed to find a seat on a public bench some way from the bandstand but still in good earshot as well as being in a decent position to people-watch. It was a lovely evening: the band and the singer were excellent, the crowd enthusiastic and the mosquitoes kept a low profile until late on.

Back on BV we enjoyed dinner on board with a view of the lively boardwalk before retiring for a not-so-early start the next day.

Saturday 28 April dawned bright and quite brisk.  We had decided on a leisurely start and didn’t raise anchor until 1130. Unfortunately, that meant that we had to stooge around in the harbour and yacht channel whilst we waited for a gas tanker to make its way into the main channel, where it was met by a couple of tugs (one very elderly looking) to accompany it along the winding ‘deep-water’ channel, past myriad sandbanks to the gas and oil quay.  We both commented that we wouldn’t have cared to have had responsibility for the tanker going into that port and wondered what the weather limits for it are.

Passing (top) Salt River Point and (bottom) the entrance to Salt River, close to where we had dived a few days previously

It was another downwind passage along the north coast of St Croix so, again, we just unrolled the genoa and with a brisk 16+kts from the east-southeast BV bustled along making a reasonable speed.  As we passed the reef off Salt River where we had dived only a few days previously, we agreed that we had been very lucky with the weather then.  It certainly didn’t look like a great place to moor a dive boat today!

Sailing down the sheltered west coast of St Croix – it doesn’t look like the same day as in the photos above, but it was!

After an hour or so we reached the northwestern tip of St Croix and gybed.  Shortly thereafter, and with the land now providing shelter from the sea, the clouds began to clear and suddenly it seemed like an entirely different day. But with the wind off the land our progress slowed and as the wind dropped away to just a few knots we decided to switch on the engine, rather than remove the sailcover and hoist the main for just a couple more miles.

Frederiksted from the pier

We reached the anchorage, just to the north of Frederiksted pier, shortly before 1500.  The seabed off Frederiksted comprises a relatively thin layer of sand covering a rocky bottom.  The sand layer is deeper to the north of the pier but on out first attempt we put the anchor down either on a very thin patch of sand or on rock and so, unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t dig in.  Happily, our second attempt hit an area of deeper sand and the anchor dug in well, but it’s certainly a place to be well aware of your anchoring transits and to keep a close eye on the weather.  It’s a true roadstead anchorage, with the only protection being from the island to the east, but the diving/snorkelling on the pier is said to be excellent so we were looking forward to that the following day.

Frederiksted, St Croix USVIs