Blogger's Block

Perhaps it's not so much blogger's 'block' as blogger's 'inertia'. Or blogger's 'lack of focus'. Blogger's 'not enough attention span to sit down, edit photos and write a post'? Take your pick. Whatever you want to call it, it means I have way too many photos from the past two months. So, in the spirit of getting things up to date I'm just going to plaster them all over this post and call it done!

I left you in St Martin and can wrap up our time there in this collage...

Clockwise from top L: On the lawn of the St Martin visitors center - a creative way to use all those plastic soda bottles, bridge tenders at the Sandy Ground bridge, relaxing my way across the Anegada Passage, lovely red sky the morning we left St Martin.

We can always find things to do to keep us in St Martin, but we had friends arriving in the BVI and we took a weather opening to make our way there. First up were John and Lauren, friends from home who came down to bareboat out of Tortola. We caught up with them about halfway through their week and had a fun few days.

Lauren and John - laughing and happy in spite of the week of steady rain and tricky mooring ball pick ups they had!

We wanted to spend some time with our friends Cindy and Steve who rented a great house on Jost Van Dyke for a few months. You'll remember them from their round house on Farmers Cay in the Bahamas, as well as for our time buddy boating with them a few years ago in the BVI. Luckily there was a perfect anchorage just below their rental house and we were the only ones there most of the time.

Evening sky heading in to the JVD anchorage

They brought along m/v Sunny, a speedy boat, to zip around the islands during their time there and we tagged along. Snorkel trips, trips to the killer pool at the YCCS, trips to take their visiting friends to and from ferries, trips out for swims and meals. We got accustomed to getting places in a hurry and had to readjust to the slower pace of traveling on Saralane after they left.

Skip, Cindy and Steve in the fabulous YCCS pool.

Having not spent much time around this part of Jost, we did a little exploring by dinghy and by foot. The bubbly pool is well known and heavily visited, but on the other side of the anchorage past some mangroves we found small deep pools carved by the waves around a few small boulders.

Take a right past the mangroves, and follow the shoreline

Deep pools around/between rocks. Nice!

View back toward the anchorage

When we spent time with Steve and Cindy in the Bahamas, we met a bunch of their friends - including Malcolm, who came to Jost for a visit while we were there.

Hi Malcolm! Steve waves from Sunny's helm

Little mangrove gets a foothold

Flowering cactus seen hiking on Jost Van Dyke

Big crashing waves on the windward side of Jost - the bubbly pool was pretty frothy this week

Tree hanging in there despite an eroding hill

Cindy takes the lead on the hill toward home

Kitty guarding the water tank

Papaya tree watches over Saralane, alone in the anchorage

Back at the house, Skip and Steve.....

.... and Cindy and Sally.

Sally, Cindy and Steve come over in Sunny to pick us up and go on an adventure

Steve in burrito/hammock in Great Harbor

We were joined in the little anchorage by Tim and Nancy on Larus, though they spent most of their time sprucing up Larus, getting her ready to head to the US to explore, and by Geof and Talia on the Outbound Wynot. Talia was kind enough to whip out the tools of her trade and give haircuts all around. Thanks Talia! We're all a lot less shaggy thanks to you.

Steve gets a shape up

Cindy, Skip, Geof and Talia on the haircutting dock

Eventually we all went our separate ways and it was time for Saralane to skeddadle from the BVI lest we overstay our welcome (and our immigration limit). Before we left, we lucked into a quick visit with Claudia and Ted from s/v Demeter, who are living aboard in Nanny Cay. When did these kids get so grown up?!

Anya and Claudia in Nanny Cay

Max and Claudia in Trellis Bay

Off we to the USVI first, then back to the BVI to stash Saralane for a few weeks to give work/family/house a bit of attention. We left her looked after in Trellis Bay where we have a new favorite place. Not a restaurant or cafe or secret place to swim. A fabulous new (to us), clean, inexpensive, do-it-yourself laundry. For better or worse, we're often compelled by places with good wifi and good laundry. One out of two isn't bad. If good wifi magically appears here we may never leave Trellis Bay.

One reason we went home was to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday... almost the whole extended family was there; cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, kids, cousins' kids, grandkids etc etc. It was a really, really nice gathering and it was worth all the traveling to be there. Happy birthday Pop!

Happy birthday tooooo youuuuuuuu.......

I know I'm on the verge of rambling, so I'll wrap it up with a few shots that will bring things up to date. We're in Francis Bay St John, which we always love. Saralane is getting a little TLC in advance of my friend Kim coming for a visit this weekend. We had a nice catch up visit here with our friends Greg and Barbara on Spitfire, who we haven't seen for a while.

Sailing along with friends Greg & Barbara on Spitfire

We're getting in daily walks and swims and we finally have strong enough wifi that I'm completely out of excuses not to get this post up.

These final few pix can go under the flora and fauna heading...

Crazy thick mangroves between Francis Bay and Annaberg Plantation

From top L: Walkway through mangroves, deer by the beach, water colors seen from Annaberg, lovely and fragrant Frangipani

Clearly not worried about me being too close

Climbing vines

SO fragrant!

That's it from me for now.... thanks for sticking with me through this long and winding mega blog. More soon?!