New? New!
We just got news our (2nd) flow pump is on it’s way from Italy and is days away from living out the rest of it’s life in our engine room feeding the high-pressure pump for our water maker. It’s honourable work.
Once this pump arrives and is tucked in we have our sights once again on the horizon. Except in this case we can see the destination actually on the horizon!
We have been in the USVI for what feels like a long time now. However, it’s actually it’s the shortest time we’ve spent anywhere in the last year.
A lot has happened here, giving the illusion of time passing. As of today we are about at the 7-week mark. In that time we’ve been to 3 islands (St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John), had 2 COVID shots each (Greg and I got Pfizer 1 & 2), anchored or moored in 11 bays (with a few more to go before we leave hopefully by the end of this week), snorkelled most days of the week, seen sea animals big and small (biggest being a large nurse shark, smallest being probably the tiny stuff that gets stuck in my hair while swimming but technically I can’t see it so I’ll say the smallest being the teeny tiny minnows that live between the spines of the black sea urchins that are so small they look like dust). We’ve done laundry twice (which is a bit more frequent that usual and very nice) and have hit the grocery store 3 times (which is a bit less frequent that unusual and also very nice). We’ve received one (broken) pump from Italy and (related) filled our water tanks twice at a marina).
I forgot how close everything was (and how small the US Virgin Islands actually were). It makes moving from place to place almost a no-brainer! I say almost because there are hundreds of rocks, shoals, and various other hazards that could rip the hull of your boat if you aren’t watching the charts. Regardless, the proximity certainly makes comfort a real possibility. Case in point: the other night we were on a ball in Hawksnest Bay which is fairly open to the North and as the wind died in the late evening a lovely little swell began rocking our boat past the point of leaving things on the counter in the galley. Normally dropping a mooring at 10:30pm isn’t our jam. We tough it out and move in the morning…but here! Here, under a full moon, we slipped the mooring lines and motored for 20 minutes to the next bay that had protection from the north, picked up a free mooring ball and were snuggly tied up by 11:00 with zero boat rolling. Perfection! Even in the Grenadines when there were dozens of anchoring possibilities we wouldn’t have done that probably since you are looking at a much longer process.
Obviously this is also Charter City so there are loads and loads of tourists on boats. And loads and loads of tourists not on boats. It’s been fine and actually I’m surprised at how little we’ve interacted with people on vacation. I think I’ve said hello in passing to a few people but that’s about it. I’m not sure if it’s me or them…or COVID making us all a bit more insular. Don’t get me wrong, people on vacay here are partying (as I would be too in their shoes)…but I don’t get the feeling of a big communal love-in (probably a good thing). Beaches are busy but not jam packed, mooring fields almost always have open balls, restaurants have free tables (more than they would like I’m sure). So maybe my perspective is off. Being down island for so long and not seeing tourists per se has me seeing this as loads and loads when maybe it’s just one “loads”. I know it’s not for everyone (the anxiety is real) and I know it’s not available to everyone (by a long shot). But it is nice to see land lovers enjoying life again a bit down here…from a distance ;)
While our time in the USVI has been a busy and productive, tourist-watching-and-bay-hopping-adventure for us it is time to move on. We got the email about the pump this morning which was the sign we were waiting for in order to make the next move. Which is where you ask?
Somewhere new for us!
We’ve not been somewhere NEW-NEW since Dominica. Crazy. We chartered in Grenada about 10 years ago and on that trip we went up to the Grenadines and we’d been to St. Martin in 2019 (where we landed after our passage south from the USA) and we’ve rented a house in the USVI 12 years ago.
But we’ve never been to the Spanish Virgin Islands!! Culebra and Culebrita are visible on the horizon from here and we are so excited to check them out. Similar land, different vibe. Awesome.
Following that…Puerto Rico!!
Greg and I have only spent about 1 hour in transit at the airport there so this is another New for us ;) Also…whoa. It’s freaking HUGE! It’s a legit landmass!! We’ve been on some “big islands” in the Caribbean but PR is bigger than all of them combined! So our experience there will in someways be the opposite of here. I don’t see us bay-hopping every other day but I DO see us renting a car and trying to remember how to drive on a highway for some land exploration! This exploration will include a trip to Walmart (I know I know but options are limited) for some home electronic toys that we’ve been looking forward to adding to our tiny floating house (I will let Liam write about this later).
If you are looking at the calendar as you read this you will probably start to wonder what’s after PR? Well we have confirmation of our marina slip reservation in Bonaire so that’s next! Official arrival date is July 1 down there but of course plans can change. FYI a marina reservation is required to get into the country and spaces are very limited down there. The pro of this is that it won’t be jammer packed full of boats like Grenada was last year…the con is that some of our friend boats are on a wait lists :( This plan gives us about 2 weeks to enjoy the Spanish VI and then a month in PR which will be VERY FAST compared to the time we’ve spend here, which was VERY FAST compared to the time we’ve spend everywhere else since COVID started.
Quick and approx recap of Matriarch timeline in the Caribbean thus far:
St. Martin - 7 weeks
Antigua / Barbuda - 5 weeks
Guadaloupe - 3 weeks (I still can’t believe we only spent 3 weeks at this amazing island...I know we will never move that fast again…what were we thinking!?!!?)
Dominica - 16 weeks
St. Vincent / Grenadines - 8 weeks
Grenada - 20 weeks (this felt like forever, despite us loving Grenada)
St. Martin - 9 weeks
USVI - 6 weeks
The other day, a couple zoomed up to our boat outside of Water Island in St. Thomas. We met them back in 2019 at Herrington Harbour in Deale, Maryland who were preparing for their life aboard at the same time we were. Over 30 minutes we swapped tales of how we’ve spend our respective past 18 months. In sharing our recap I was struck by how GD fortunate we’ve been to see so many places in a year that for so many has been between a pause and a nightmare. This isn’t lost on me as we excitedly plan for another new experience for us. I’m not sure how to honour it. I’m not sure how to appropriately and graciously live it, capture it, revel in it while also knowing it’s such a privilege, more maybe now than ever. I do know that I am deeply triggered when cruisers complain about having to change their travel plans, about having to test before entering a new island, about how they’ve had to move slower*.
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*SIDEBAR RANT INCOMING
It saddens AND enrages me to say that many cruisers we’ve met here and there have been more negative than grateful about their experience living this way during COVID. Lamenting about how much more stressful it has been to plan (which is true), focusing on how expensive it is to test (also true), complaining about how redundant and illogical policies can be (also can be true)….rather than acknowledging how lucky we are to still have choices, recognizing that testing costs people time to administer and process and that everyone is doing their best to have policies that protect their populations and are creating them in real-time during a rapidly changing context. Like fuck off people and get some perspective.
RANT OVER
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In looking at our time south we are anticipating about half the time in Curacao and the other half in Bonaire…about 5 months total between the two. That is going to be lovely and we are really looking forward to the newness there as well. The water and sea life will be spectacular. We hope to get PADI SCUBA certified and spend a lot of time on family dives. Again the vibe will be different and we look forward to exploring and settling in a bit :) Greg and I are debating on signing the kids up for some online sailing-related courses like navigation so they can start mentally preparing and building some confidence regarding our 2022 Atlantic passage. We will continue to focus on typical homeschool subjects as well but want to integrate in some other stuff more formally. We are thinking of buying an electric piano and starting up their music lessons again…so many new things on the horizon.
I am so so so grateful we get to experience new. Multiple New. We are living in new all the time. New hike, new food, new animal, new challenge, new repair, new phase of kids development, new people…
At the end of the day, 20 weeks in Grenada isn’t that long. There wasn’t any shortage of new hikes there for us. Being in St. Martin two times is awesome, there are literally hundreds of amazing places to eat there. Diving in Dominica over 4 months was new every. single. time.
The only thing that isn’t new is our constant appreciation of the new.
Much love,
Megan
P.S. You will notice that I am not including many (if any pics) in my last blog posts…I’ve noticed that the photos are the big barrier to my posting. it takes a lot of time to sort through them and upload them and then I end up holding back content. If the cell signal isn’t good then we have to wait to get somewhere else to upload pics. I’ve decided, in the interest of keeping a living diary of our adventures, to just post what I have when I have it. I’m sorry if you miss the pics, and I will try to include them as much as possible still. If you are on social, check us out on Instagram where we have lots of pics and daily stories available as well :)
