St. Martin to Puerto Rico

 On March 23rd we crossed from St. Kitts to St. Martin.  We were very lucky to get a perfect weather window the day after the kids flew out.  St. Martin/Sint Maarten is an island divided by French and Dutch rule.

Since strong winds were forecasted for the next few days, we decided to enter the lagoon and spend our time there on a mooring ball.

We entered on the French side, and picked up a mooring on the French side, but we did our grocery shopping on the Dutch side! The orange line shows the boundary between the two countries.

I must confess…one thing that has worn me down a bit, regarding Caribbean cruising, is the lack of protected anchorages. It can be exhausting to be on a boat that rocks constantly, while at anchor. This, however, was an amazingly protected spot, and well worth the $100 we paid for a week of peace and tranquility!!!

I don’t ever remember being so excited about grocery shopping, but this might be the nicest store I have ever seen…and it was certainly a huge contrast to most Caribbean store😲

There were soooo many veggies, and even an entire cooler of microgreens😲

It felt strange to be surrounded by such an abundance, of everything!

Of course…per usual…getting there was an adventure! We tied Alma (our dinghy) to the mangroves, walked the plank, climbed over some rocks, and walked 1/2 mile to the store. Then did everything in reverse while weighed down like pack mules🤣🤣

We left our ball two days early to stage for our next crossing to Virgin Gorda. This was a 95 mile crossing so we needed to get a very early start to ensure we would arrive before dark. However, the bridge to enter and exit the lagoon only opens at 8:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. so we had to abandon our perfectly calm mooring to anchor in Marigot Bay the night before departure. As always, the weather forecast drives all of our travel decisions, and winds were going to get quite ugly starting on the 30th, and we’re scheduled to blow for 6-7 days. My cousin and her husband were scheduled to fly into Virgin Gorda on April 6th, so we needed to move while conditions were calm.

On March 29th, we left St. Martin at 4:00 a.m. for a pleasant cruise to Virgin Gorda. Once we were checked in we moved quickly to find protection from the incoming NE winds. We made the short hop to Peter Island and enjoyed a gloriously calm week at anchor, while the winds screamed! On April 5, we returned to Virgin Gorda to meet our guests, and as you can see from our tracker we spent the next 9 days zigzagging around the Virgin Islands. 

If you are a Virgin Island aficionado you might say that we went to the wrong places, but let me assure you went to perfect places! Our goal is always to avoid crowds and avoid tourist attractions.  I was a little concerned, while planning this portion of our trip, that we would be in the Virgin Islands during Easter week. This area is known for heavy tourism, and large numbers of rental boats…racing each other from place to place, and fighting over mooring balls. I am happy to report we had no trouble avoiding the crowds.

Angie and Matt arrived on time, and we picked them up from the dinghy dock at Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour.

We did visit the Baths, but we took the dinghy to avoid mooring ball congestion. I also selected the time of our visit using a ‘cruise ship crowd prediction’ app, and our visit was perfect!

The hike provided beautiful views! Keith and I screwed up a little🤣 we didn’t know the park was set up as a one way loop, and we told Angie and Matt to wait while we walked up the trail to purchase tickets. This was a BIG MISTAKE! They wouldn’t allow us to go back down the way we went up…so we essentially ran through the entire loop trying to get back to them. These pictures were taken on our second time through🤣

The geology was definitely worth any problems faced that day. This place is amazingly beautiful!

We enjoyed several hikes during our week together.

And found some fantastic snorkel spots!

For the most part, our weather was wonderful, but a quick downpour during a snorkel was a whole new level of cool!

It’s hard to believe 9 days could pass so quickly! We absolutely loved our time with Angie and Matt! We thoroughly enjoy sharing this lifestyle with family and friends, but it is true that visitors need to have a certain level of Chason (hardiness)!  Whenever we are considering whether or not guests will be comfortable I ask them to describe their camping comfort. We aren’t like tent camping, but we aren’t luxury bus either. I would say we fall around pop up plus🤣 Anyway, Angie and Matt were flexible and seemed perfectly happy with the accommodations. A great time was had by all!

And once again, it is time for us to focus on putting some miles behind us. Our next planned meeting point is at Staniel Cay, in the Bahamas.  Essentially, we have six weeks to travel almost 800 miles. That might not sound like much to you 70 mph roadsters, but it is a LOT for an 8 mph (weather dependent) vessel. To put this distance into perspective, since leaving Trinidad in November we have not traveled 800 miles😳

However, this was part of the plan. We wanted to take our time exploring islands we have never visited, and now we are at a point where we have seen the upcoming islands, and will move as weather allows.

Angie and Matt flew out of St. Thomas on April 15, and immediately we are planning for a forecasted weather window of April 22 to cross Mona Passage. This crossing (between Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic) is notoriously difficult (if you want to know why, please revisit my post from April 23, 2025), and requires excellent weather! The forecast for that week wasn’t great, but was doable along the south side of Puerto Rico, and so we were off!

On April 16, we left St. Thomas for an easy 22 mile hop to Culebra. I used the ROAM app to check in, as I did to check into the USVI, but this time…

😳😳😳Denied?? What does that mean?? I decided to try again when we entered the channel, the second time I got a FaceTime call with an official. He informed me that I needed to be at anchor (or in the marina slip) before I submit a ROAM arrival notification.🤷‍♀️ I always thought I needed permission before I got there. When entering the U.S. we always submit about 3 miles offshore. Anyway, he gave me 10 minutes to get anchored and said he would call be back…

So, we ducked behind this sandbar and quickly anchored. When he called back, and saw we were anchored, he approved our arrival🤷‍♀️.  Anyway, this turned out to be a lovely place to anchor. I had originally planned to travel farther inside the harbour, but this sandbar offered excellent protection with an amazing view!

Another very nice anchorage, on the southern side of Puerto Rico, is this amazing bay (Bahia de Jobos) protected on all sides, by mangroves. The mountain views are incredible.

On April 19, we decided to do a long 95 mile hop to Bahia de Boqueron, where we would stage for our crossing to Dominican Republic. This was a long day, but it gave us two down days (after traveling 4 consecutive days) to rest and prepare for the Mona Passage crossing.

We had a lovely beach day, on our last day in Puerto Rico, and we were both sorry we couldn’t slow down and enjoy more time in this wonderful place!

We discovered some very interesting organisms on the beach, and the green parrots were not happy with our intrusion!

Thankfully, the weather forecast was correct, and we had an absolutely splendid crossing of Mona Passage. I will share highlights in the next post.

Guadeloupe, Monserrat & St. Kitts

 On February 23 we left Dominica for Terre de Haut, Guadeloupe. We have previously visited these islands during our trip south, but wanted to return to one of our favorite spots that exudes the feeling of French streets and French bistros.

The geology is fascinating.

This is the only beach, we have visited, that has roped off lap lanes for swimming.

Enjoying the French Bistro experience.

Normally, purchasing fuel in a European country would not be something we would consider. However, this happened to be the day after the U.S. bombed Iran and we wanted to make sure we had enough fuel to get home…no matter what happened in the world.  This fuel cost $7.31 per gallon😳

After a relaxing few days in Guadeloupe, it was time to move on.  We were scheduled to meet our niece and nephew in St. Kitts on March 13, and the weather outlook was not great.  We were hoping to arrive there about a week before them so we could scout out the area since we had never been to St. Kitts.

On March 6, we decided to take a weather window that looked doable, but certainly not comfortable! The forecast was for 5-6 ft. waves, with conditions deteriorating after that day. We left at 4:00 a.m. for a 95 mile crossing to St. Kitts. Conditions were actually fairly nice for the first few hours, but that was only because we were still behind the ‘shadow’ of Guadeloupe.  About 4 hours in, conditions deteriorated quickly! 

Waves built to over 8 ft, with us definitely seeing some 10-12 ft waves hitting us on the starboard quarter and causing the boat to slide sideways down the face of the wave. Keith watched the Lev-O-Guage (inclinometer) and saw a 35° tilt on one of those drops. This caused a drastic change in our steering practices, watching for the large wave chains, and turning the bow into the waves. With this, our headway progress was down to about 3 mph. We quickly reevaluated our options and decided to ditch in Monserrat, which was thankfully halfway between Guadeloupe and St. Kitts.

We call this an interior redesign, by Mother Nature.

We were aware that Montserrat was home to one of the most active volcanoes in the Caribbean. However, we were surprised by the amount of smoke spewing from the top.

The chart clearly marks restriction zones where anchoring is not allowed, and as we passed through this area the smell of fire and brimstone was very strong.  Little did we know that our plan to seek refuge would end up being one of the most interesting and educational experiences of this adventure.

In 1995 the volcano showed signs of high activity, and much of the southern part of the island was evacuated.  The big eruption came in July 1997, which left 80% of the island uninhabitable. This eruption destroyed the capital town of Plymouth, and totally whipped out the airport.

All inhabitants were relocated to the northern tip of the island. This area was safe from pyroclastic flows because of an extinct volcano located in the middle. This peak provides a bearier to ensure future pyroclastic flows cannot reach the northern tip of the island. Between 1995-2000 nearly 65% of the island’s population relocated, mainly to England. Montserrat was/is still a British ‘colony’ (only because it was always to small to rebel) and England offered all residents the opportunity to relocate and start over as full English citizens.

While we are here we might as well take the tour😳…or maybe we shouldn’t!

The town of Plymouth was destroyed, but luckily only 15 people died from this event. All 15 were people who were frustrated with the evacuation, and snuck back to their property for one reason or another. Our tour guide lost his cousin who went back to pick vegetables from his garden.

The pyroclastic flow buried the town in sand, ash, and rocks two stories high. This picture shows this three story building before the eruption. Now we can only see the top floor.

This was the harbor front near the port.

This was the town square.

Even houses and businesses on the outskirts of town were destroyed by several feet of ash and debris.

The main church ‘The Mother Church’ with the only pipe organ on the island, was destroyed.

Montserrat was a very eye opening, and educational stop, but a weather window has opened up on March 12…LUCKILY allowing us to arrive in St. Kitts one day before the kids arrive.

Thankfully, the seas calmed and we made it to St. Kitts with no problems.

Allison and John arrived successfully, and it was time to explore and have a little fun!

This man is crushing sugar cane to extract the juice.

St. Kitts and Nevis (pronounced Neevis) is a two island nation. After exploring St. Kitts we were excited to hop to Nevis.

From our anchorage, this was the view of the extinct volcanic cone that makes up Nevis. Of course, our young and energetic guests, were looking for a challenge, and decided to climb the peak. Keith and I were happy to sit out on this one out, and watch from this viewpoint.

We did send them with our Garmin satellite tracker so we could monitor their progress (and know where to send help should the need arise)😉

Apparently, the climb was brutal, at times…and they both discussed quitting more than once.

However, they fought through 

And made it to the top. Nicely done! And Keith and I were oh so thankful that we didn’t attempt to climb that peak!

The very next day we rented a car to tour the rest of the island, and they were willing to take a short hike to a waterfall.

Probably good to get some blood pumping through those sore muscles.

There were several monkeys enjoying the fruit from a tamarind tree.

We visited several beaches, on the east side of the island, and all had sargassum seaweed.

We enjoyed a lovely lunch at The Plantation.

On their last day, we all agreed that a relaxing beach day was in order.

This is the closest we have ever come to missing our guests arrival.  I’m sure most of you can understand the stress I was feeling when we couldn’t get to St. Kitts, as planned. I even checked on ferries or flights to transport them to Montserrat, in the event we were not able to make the crossing in time. Worst case scenario, I was prepared to book them a resort room, which still would have given them an awesome spring break. I’m so glad everything worked out, in the end, but reminder to cruisers…stay flexible and don’t let a schedule force you into a dangerous situation!

They flew out on March 22, and we are scheduled to meet my cousin and her husband in Virgin Gorda, BVI in two weeks…let’s get moving🤣