Sunday Jan 11 8:30 am AST It has been a busy 4-5 days. We left St Croix Tue AM for Vieques in the Spanish Virgins. This group of islands between St Thomas and Puerto Rico are rarely seen by most. They are an easy sail from any of the Virgins but getting back to St Thomas is a nasty motor into the 15-20 knt trade winds. I was here 15 yrs ago before fuel was 3-4 dollars a gallon. Now even the Puerto Rican's think twice before motoring over...except the weekends. Our 1st anchorage on the south coast was a beautiful spot behind a small island.
The beach was to die for..and only 3 other boats.
If this was in the BVI's we would have shared this spot with 50 damn charter boats and would be up all night fending them off as their anchor dragged. So the BVI's are off my cruising destinations and the Spanish Virgins are in.
The purpouse of our trip over was to replace 2-3 of our batteries that we have replaced back in October...free from Sam's Club. Back in 06 I needed a new set of batteries...either the cheap way...$950 at Sam's for a dozen deep cycle marine batteries or bite the bullet and go for the $2,500 Rolls priemum batteries.I had gone the Sam's route. 12 months later they were starting to fail...and damn Sams gave me a new set FREE under the 1 yr warranty. Last January on our way back from the Keys, we replaced them again under protest but under warranty. The flunkies in the tire and battery Dept hooked up this fancy battery tester and informed me that they were fine. I explained to them the only way to test a battery was with a hydrometer, which tests the specific gravith of the battery acid. Well they didn't have one so we walked next door to the Walmart , bought one for .88 cents and proceded to show the manager how to test a battery. $21.50 later we hauled our 12 new batteries back to the boat. If you followed last yrs cruise, you will remember my discovery of equaliztion of batteries. This where one slightly overcharges the battery to burn off the sulfate on the plates. Without equalization one can kill a set of batteries in a few months. Since we are going to be out of the US for 2 yrs I had decided to kill our new set by not equalizing them last fall. After the boat show we returned to Baltimore for our last provisioning and to get a new set under warranty. No problem ...Sam's was more than happy to replace them. We had called around to all the Sam's in Baltimore to find one with 12 of the proper size. To save my back..and well Joyces too, we had Troy do the heavy lifting. Back to the persent..... I had noticed while Joyce was back in the US skiing, I had noticed that even with equalization this set was loosing capicity. Looking back to Baltimore I remember that several of the batteries were old,...they put a sticker indicating the date of manufacture. 3 or 4 were 10 months old. My thought that these were bad an pulling the whole set down. On the way to Vieques we had equalized and checked each of the 144 cells with the hydrometer. Damn even after equalization all had some bad cells. So now we are asking Sam's for another dozen batteries 3 months after the last set. We check into the marina..$ 110 bucks a night and start calling the various Sam's in Puerto Rico. They speak spanish here...remember how we have to have everything in english and spanish in the US. Pisses me off that these residents of the US are not required to learn and speak our language and that our "government" cows down to them. Let me let you on to a little secret...there are no English signs, few people speak English, and Puerto Rico is part of the US. Where is our wonderful government now...well Joyce's Spanish was enough to find out that they had only 8 of the required 12 and that we would have to go to 2 stores to get all 12. It took us all day to get the dozen new batteries. In the US, all Sams have Energizer batteries, down here they have Interstate, a better(I hope) and $21 bucks more...so down $240 dollars we head back to the boat, tip the dock boy $20 bucks to get the batteries from the car to the cart to the boat and most of the way down below. This still requires Joyce and I to move these; way over my lifting limit into the box and down on my hands and knees to position them.
One still has to play the battery jigsaw puzzle to get them all in the box. Then hook up all the cables without touching an odd post ore wiring them backwards....in Europe red is + while black is -, just the opposite of the US...damn FRENCH. by 8 pm we had them all hooked up and on the charger for a nights charge and equalization. My back was already in protest. We were up (painfully for me, this was going to be a percocet momenet...well for the next few days for sure) early to make 1 last run to the market, get propane( while we had the car...2 tanks ..heavy) and turn the car in. Since it was the weekend ...Enterprise was closed and I had to take the Jeep back to some fancy hotel up on the hill..that took an hr and a half. We finally headed for Vieques to meet up with Phil my Britt friend. He had left Ft Lauderdale 10 days earlier and was having a nasty motor into 10-20 knots all the way down from the States. We Anchored in Sun Bay on Viegues and waited for Phil in this beautiful bay with only 7-8 other boats
Phil didn't arrive till 3am...and with the wind down to 10 knots decided to keep motoring on to St Thomas 27 miles to the east. He called at 9:30 AM saying he wad banging into 15+ knots doing 3- 3 1/2 knots. We hoisted the hook and headed to St Thomas.The wind shifted and we were able to motorsail between 5-6.5 knots ariving and getting the hook down before Phil made it into the anchorage
.They (Phil and his crew) came over for fajhites and Rum. Lots of rum..for my back pain...
A fun time was had by all..The last time I saw Phil down here on his boat was the spring of 05.
His new bride arrives Wed to cruise the Islands with us for the next 6 months. While cruising, one never says gooodbye..only till we see you again at some other anchorage.Welcome back Phil and Joanna.
The beach was to die for..and only 3 other boats.If this was in the BVI's we would have shared this spot with 50 damn charter boats and would be up all night fending them off as their anchor dragged. So the BVI's are off my cruising destinations and the Spanish Virgins are in.The purpouse of our trip over was to replace 2-3 of our batteries that we have replaced back in October...free from Sam's Club. Back in 06 I needed a new set of batteries...either the cheap way...$950 at Sam's for a dozen deep cycle marine batteries or bite the bullet and go for the $2,500 Rolls priemum batteries.I had gone the Sam's route. 12 months later they were starting to fail...and damn Sams gave me a new set FREE under the 1 yr warranty. Last January on our way back from the Keys, we replaced them again under protest but under warranty. The flunkies in the tire and battery Dept hooked up this fancy battery tester and informed me that they were fine. I explained to them the only way to test a battery was with a hydrometer, which tests the specific gravith of the battery acid. Well they didn't have one so we walked next door to the Walmart , bought one for .88 cents and proceded to show the manager how to test a battery. $21.50 later we hauled our 12 new batteries back to the boat. If you followed last yrs cruise, you will remember my discovery of equaliztion of batteries. This where one slightly overcharges the battery to burn off the sulfate on the plates. Without equalization one can kill a set of batteries in a few months. Since we are going to be out of the US for 2 yrs I had decided to kill our new set by not equalizing them last fall. After the boat show we returned to Baltimore for our last provisioning and to get a new set under warranty. No problem ...Sam's was more than happy to replace them. We had called around to all the Sam's in Baltimore to find one with 12 of the proper size. To save my back..and well Joyces too, we had Troy do the heavy lifting. Back to the persent..... I had noticed while Joyce was back in the US skiing, I had noticed that even with equalization this set was loosing capicity. Looking back to Baltimore I remember that several of the batteries were old,...they put a sticker indicating the date of manufacture. 3 or 4 were 10 months old. My thought that these were bad an pulling the whole set down. On the way to Vieques we had equalized and checked each of the 144 cells with the hydrometer. Damn even after equalization all had some bad cells. So now we are asking Sam's for another dozen batteries 3 months after the last set. We check into the marina..$ 110 bucks a night and start calling the various Sam's in Puerto Rico. They speak spanish here...remember how we have to have everything in english and spanish in the US. Pisses me off that these residents of the US are not required to learn and speak our language and that our "government" cows down to them. Let me let you on to a little secret...there are no English signs, few people speak English, and Puerto Rico is part of the US. Where is our wonderful government now...well Joyce's Spanish was enough to find out that they had only 8 of the required 12 and that we would have to go to 2 stores to get all 12. It took us all day to get the dozen new batteries. In the US, all Sams have Energizer batteries, down here they have Interstate, a better(I hope) and $21 bucks more...so down $240 dollars we head back to the boat, tip the dock boy $20 bucks to get the batteries from the car to the cart to the boat and most of the way down below. This still requires Joyce and I to move these; way over my lifting limit into the box and down on my hands and knees to position them.
One still has to play the battery jigsaw puzzle to get them all in the box. Then hook up all the cables without touching an odd post ore wiring them backwards....in Europe red is + while black is -, just the opposite of the US...damn FRENCH. by 8 pm we had them all hooked up and on the charger for a nights charge and equalization. My back was already in protest. We were up (painfully for me, this was going to be a percocet momenet...well for the next few days for sure) early to make 1 last run to the market, get propane( while we had the car...2 tanks ..heavy) and turn the car in. Since it was the weekend ...Enterprise was closed and I had to take the Jeep back to some fancy hotel up on the hill..that took an hr and a half. We finally headed for Vieques to meet up with Phil my Britt friend. He had left Ft Lauderdale 10 days earlier and was having a nasty motor into 10-20 knots all the way down from the States. We Anchored in Sun Bay on Viegues and waited for Phil in this beautiful bay with only 7-8 other boatsPhil didn't arrive till 3am...and with the wind down to 10 knots decided to keep motoring on to St Thomas 27 miles to the east. He called at 9:30 AM saying he wad banging into 15+ knots doing 3- 3 1/2 knots. We hoisted the hook and headed to St Thomas.The wind shifted and we were able to motorsail between 5-6.5 knots ariving and getting the hook down before Phil made it into the anchorage.They (Phil and his crew) came over for fajhites and Rum. Lots of rum..for my back pain...A fun time was had by all..The last time I saw Phil down here on his boat was the spring of 05. His new bride arrives Wed to cruise the Islands with us for the next 6 months. While cruising, one never says gooodbye..only till we see you again at some other anchorage.Welcome back Phil and Joanna.
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Hey there...let us know what you think...Capt Paul