{"id":3773,"date":"2014-03-21T19:10:23","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T23:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/?p=3773"},"modified":"2014-03-24T20:34:32","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T00:34:32","slug":"british-virgin-islands-to-st-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/?p=3773","title":{"rendered":"British Virgin Islands to St. Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prior to clearing out of BVI we had spent a few nights anchored near Saba Rock in the North Sound.\u00a0 With good Internet access we were able to catch up on things including the weather predictions, email, bills and our previous post.\u00a0 Saturday evening we dingied across the sound and had a nice dinner at the Fat Virgin Cafe.\u00a0 Remember Virgin Gorda translates to fat virgin.<\/p>\n

Sunday morning we raised the anchor and motored over to Leverick Bay Marina, got some fuel, dumped our trash, had lunch, and headed over to Gun Creek to clear out with customs, hopefully for the last time.\u00a0\u00a0 Once cleared out you must leave the country within 12 hours.\u00a0 We motored out of the sound and dropped anchor again to waste a few hours before heading out to the passage.\u00a0 Since our plan was to arrive St. Martin in daylight, we did not want to leave the BVI until around 4:30pm.<\/p>\n

While having lunch in Leverick we watched a video crew filming for advertising rental of jet skis in the area.\u00a0 Up until the past few days we have not seen jet skis anywhere and were sad to think their population may grow but we really enjoyed watching the guys operating a remote control helicopter with video camera to film the action.\u00a0 What cool thing!\u00a0 We could really have some fun with one of those.<\/p>\n

The afternoon was spent anchored in a bay between Eustacia Island and Prickley Pear, overlooking Necker Island which belongs to Richard Branson.\u00a0 It is a beautiful spot and seems very well protected in all conditions except possibly a northerly swell.\u00a0 We would certainly spend some time there if back in the BVIs.\u00a0 We swam in the crystal clear water then dingied out to the reef just off Bitter End Yacht club for some great snorkeling. We have truly enjoyed the snorkeling in the past several weeks with beautiful sites and great conditions. Still haven’t done any diving but hope to soon.<\/p>\n

\"dingy <\/a>
dingy travel <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Snorkeling <\/a>
Snorkeling in Virgin Gorda <\/div> <\/div>
\"reef <\/a>
reef near Bitter End <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

We raised anchor about 4:30 and headed out in very calm conditions.\u00a0 We did drag a lure in the water until dark but once again, no luck.\u00a0 A few hours into the trip we realized a hose had become disconnected from the water heater and was pumping water into the bilge.\u00a0\u00a0 It was not dangerous because we were only pumping the fresh water from our drinking water tanks, but it does waste our water and makes a big mess.\u00a0 Jeff had one of those “living the dream” moments repairing the situation while underway in the Anegada Passage. \u00a0 Good thing conditions were calm and we caught it early.\u00a0 We also took the opportunity to respectfully dispose of a tattered American flag and gave it a proper burial at sea.\u00a0 Other than that we had a very quiet night motoring along at 5 knots with several other boats taking advantage of the weather conditions. We did have a bird catching a ride with us for a bit and saw a fair amount of bio-luminescent creatures in our wake through the night.

\"DSCN3166\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Flag <\/a>
Flag disposal at sea <\/div> <\/div>
\"Old <\/a>
Old flag with rocks <\/div> <\/div>
\"Provisions <\/a>
Provisions for night watch <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"DSCN3181\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div><\/p>\n

We arrived near St. Martin about 7:00 am and dropped anchor to await the first bridge opening at 9:30.\u00a0 We opted to enter on the Dutch side of the island.\u00a0 Once inside the anchorage we encountered several friends we had met in Luperon DR:\u00a0 Simple Life, Xanadu, and Mezaluna.\u00a0 It will be nice to catch up on everyone’s adventures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prior to clearing out of BVI we had spent a few nights anchored near Saba Rock in the North Sound.\u00a0 With good Internet access we were able to catch up on things including the weather predictions, email, bills and our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"British Virgin Islands to St. Martin http:\/\/wp.me\/p2y1a7-YR","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2y1a7-YR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3801,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions\/3801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svecho.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}