A Month “On Island”

I feel like I blinked and suddenly, a month was gone! It’s been a whirlwind of a May on St. John for us, so here’s a very short update:

We hit the ground running, obtaining health cards (required to handle/serve food in the Virgin Islands), meeting local captains, attending fundraising events, cleaning our hull, and even joining a drum circle one night! Needing activities to keep me sane, I got a part-time job at a local bar (High Tide) where I worked several shifts a week while we weren’t training for chartering or busy with other activities. On Derby Day, we hiked another set of trails, connecting to several different beaches and then made our own mint juleps and watched the Derby from the boat.

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I started work on May 6^th, so we filled our off days that week with a sail around the entire island and boat chores. Our buddy boats, Music and Aquatrek finally arrived on island and we were delighted to spend time with them after being apart for a month.

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The week of the 13^th, we enjoyed exploring the British Virgin Islands on our first training charter. We went to Tortola, snorkeled at the Indians and Diamond Reef, toured The Baths, Spanish Town, and White Bay. We had an awesome time and are very excited to start chartering “full time.” I’m slowly improving on free-diving and was able to get to about 30ft on the trip!

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Once we returned from the five day trip, we met Nate’s friend Steve, his wife, and their five friends who were on island for vacation all week. We had an awesome Friday night of drinking, eating, and socializing with them. The owner of the charter boats, Chris, was kind enough to let us use Kindred Spirit II to take our friends out on a free day trip. Jay and Willow joined, too. We all had a great time sailing north for a few hours, then relaxing and swimming around in Cinnamon Bay for the afternoon. We continued the fun even once we moored the boat again for the night. The following day, we took paying guests (locals, actually) on a day trip around the island to the famous “Lime Out” floating taco bar. The tacos were delicious and we were happy to be working together.

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Our new dinghy arrived this past Monday, so we are thrilled to introduce you to Molly, our “star of the sea.” We plan to keep Lil Willy as a backup for the time being, as it’s nice to have two “cars” sometimes! I worked several shifts at the bar this week and we filled our off time together with relaxing evenings, social time with friends, and catching up on sleep from the past weekend. Jay and Willow are planning to work on island for a few months, so we’re pleased to have friends so close, again.

Saturday was my birthday, so we rallied Jay, Willow, and our local friend Hillary to join us for another round of a hike to Caneel and Margaret Hills (they ought to be called mountains… “hill” does not do them justice) We had an awesome hike and keeping with my tradition, had delicious beer after. Hillary headed home but Jay and Willow joined us for a round of nachos and margaritas and then more birthday fun on our boat. We managed to find a key lime cake, sufficient substitute for my favorite dessert, key lime pie, and shared an evening of laughter and fun – a wonderful birthday.

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Don’t forget we still have coozies available! Email or message us for more details.