Culebra is an island in the Spanish Virgin Islands, about 20 miles from Puerto Rico. It is a favourite holiday destination for Puerto Rican's and has several ferries per day connecting it to the mainland. And, guess what, we arrived just before the Easter long weekend, a major party weekend. We had a good spot in the anchorage so decided to stay and let the festivities unfold. We were actually anchored off Dewey, the main town in Culebra. Dewey was doing an imitation of any Canadian city in the summer time - all the main streets were dug up with no sign of anything being completed.

For our first order of business, we went by dinghy with Julia B to a waterfront restaurant situated in a canal in Dewey and enjoyed a night out. We had a delicious dinner of Dorado and fried green bananas and recounted our high seas adventure. Over the next few days, we set about putting the boat back to cruising mode versus offshore passage mode, and doing boat and land chores (e.g. changing the engine oil, doing laundry, etc). We did manage to get Julia B hooked on playing dominos. The only problem was that Ken on Julia B became very good at winning. We also found an Internet cafe and managed to reserve a slip in Grenada for the hurricane season. We plan to leave our boat there for a few months during the hot, humid time of year and visit Canada. Grenada has become a popular spot to leave your boat and the spots were filling up. Now, at least, we have a place to go and hang out. The south coast of Grenada also looks really cruiser friendly and we have nothing but good reports of the area. Grenada also looks like a neat place to visit and do land things. So, Grenada will be our home for the summer.

So after getting everything back in order, we headed out to a small anchorage called Bahai de Almodova on Culebra. This spot was situated behind a reef with St. Thomas in the distance and surrounded by mangroves. The water was a bit murky but the location was great. We did, however, have a bit of excitement getting there. Just as we went out the pass between the reefs from Dewey, our automatic bilge pump went on. Now this is a very unusual occurrence. In fact, it had never happened before on Vagus. Karen took the helm and I popped below, lifted the floorboard to a bilge full of water, obviously the reason the pump went on. Karen turned back through the reef pass and headed to an anchorage just inside the reef while I checked for any broken water lines. As we were approaching the anchorage, the pump turned off, indicating that it was keeping up with the inflow; this was good a good thing. I could not find a source of the leak. Karen then asked if I had checked if the water was salty - good idea. I once again opened up the floorboard, thrust my hand into the water and sampled. It was fresh water and now I noticed that the pressure water pump was on. A fitting had come loose and our pump had emptied our full, starboard water tank of 40 gallons into the bilge. Well, at least we knew what the problem was, so we upped anchor and headed for Bahai de Almodova where I could make the repair. Our next event occurred as we were approaching Bahai de Almodova. I noticed that the engine water was not coming out the exhaust, as it should. We quickly picked up one of the free moorings and shut down. So instead of having a nice swim, we got to empty both cockpit lockers and quarter-berth, reconnect the water fitting and replace the engine water pump impeller. After messing about for awhile, everything worked, Julia B arrived and it was time for dominos (Ken won but who is counting). It was a beautiful surrounding to work on your boat.

The next day we planned to go to BVI as the winds were increasing after Wednesday and it was an up wind trip. Now something was still bothering me. My mother always told me that things happen in three's. And as most guys know, their mothers are usually right. Now only two things had happened and we were headed off in the morning with an unresolved third thing. I tried to invent a third thing (like losing at dominos) but felt that nothing was of the magnitude of losing a full water tank, or of losing engine cooling water.

Off we went at first light, heading East for our favourite chartering ground of BVI. After a bit of navigation getting through some reefs, we sighted Sail Rock and St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands in the distance. About half way to St. Thomas, Karen decided to check the bilge. She came up with a report that there was a lot of water in it and I had better go down and taste it. I passed over the helm, leaped below, pulled off the floorboard, thrust my hand into the bilge water and sampled deeply. It was fresh and therefore not coming in from the great outside. I wandered over and turned off the labouring pressure water pump that had dutifully emptied the port fresh water tank into the bilge. Fortunately, we only run one tank at a time. However, this was a moot point as the Starboard tank was already empty. Now a couple of thoughts occurred to me about this time. One was that this must be the third thing so I could relax about something else happening. Mom was right. The second was why I, and not Karen, had sampled the bilge water. Eau de bilge was not on my list of things I like to put in my mouth as a lot of things that are not very nice are cycled through the bilge. But sample I did and had never even given it a thought until now. She, obviously, knew what to do and how to get it done, so what was my point anyway. (Karen's side note here - I HAD tasted it and told him it was fresh, but who listens to your wife anyway???? Next time, hopefully there won't be one, but if there is, I won't have to worry about grossing myself out as Jim will do the honours anyway. So there!)

One of our goals was to bring our own boat to BVI where we have had several great charter vacations. In a way, it was like going home. We knew the place and could relax about where the anchorages were and about finding our way around. We wanted to get to BVI and wander about for awhile before heading South to new places. We anchored in the early afternoon at Great Harbour, Jost Van Dyke. The harbour was deep and we anchored in 35 feet of water. After settling down, we checked in at Customs and Immigration (we got 30 days before we have to pay something) and then headed back to the boat to fix the water line leak (same leak, different fix) in another beautiful location. We now have a new rule when under motor - the pressure water pump is switched off. As I was fixing the leak, Karen commented on the number of boats coming into the harbour. They kept on coming and coming and the anchorage kept getting fuller and fuller. We should have left but we were both tired after the long day. When we anchored, we thought we were well out into the bay. By 6:00pm, there were boats all around us, some closer than when we have been on a mooring, all in 35 feet of water. It was not a comfortable situation, but the night was predicted to be calm so we hung in there. The next morning, we walked the beach and noted how the area had grown but still retained its original character. Also we had to wait for two others boat to leave before we could raise our anchor as they were over our chain and anchor.

We then moved over to Sopers Hole at West End, Tortola. We had to fill our now empty water tanks, get diesel and provision. We had been living on the output from our watermaker that nicely keeps up with our daily demands. We just feel more comfortable with full tanks, like having some money in the bank. At Sopers, you pull up to a water dock as opposed to a fuel dock and take on water at $0.15/gallon, actually a pretty good deal. We got into Pusser's for a cheeseburger in paradise on the deck overlooking the bay. It was a great cheeseburger and we enjoyed the view of Vagus floating in the harbour. That afternoon, we picked up our supply of Pusser's rum, our rum of choice. Unfortunately the Ample Hamper grocery store had just closed down so we could not provision. We did wander through the stores and had a quiet day.

To provision, we really did not want to go to Road Town (too hot). So the next day, we headed to Fat Hog's Bay. There we found a great grocery store (for this area) and a marine store where we could replace a broken water filter cap. We were also able to buy a courtesy flag, which is a big deal as we were never able to get one while we were in Puerto Rico and began to despair of being able to buy one for the BVI's. It's nice to be able to fly the country's flag when we are also flying our Canadian one. After getting our groceries, we went across the channel to Cooper Island and took a mooring in Manchioneel Bay. We had a great snorkel on a nearby reef and a sunset dinner on the boat, hard to beat.