We spent an idyllic week in the BVI but were surprised by the number of charter boats jostling for anchorages. Fortunately most charter companies require that their yachts are returned to certain bases, which meant come sundowner time the congestion had diminished. We visited Virgin Gorda, Jost van Dyck, Norman island, Tortola and the Baths, amongst others. We also swam as close to Necca Island as possible without Richard Branson setting his dogs on us. The BVI is the chartering hub of the world, an archipelago of island surrounding an enormous lagoon, with crystal water and protected from all sides. Endless beautiful days merged into one another and all too soon we were on our way to the Florida Keys, in order to reach Florida in time for Nanna (my Mom) who was heading out for a visit.
We sailed the 1500 miles non-stop, passing Cuba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica, which we hope we will stop at on this next trip with Katlyn. We arrived at Marathon, having been water based for so long it was a fabulous novelty to get a car hire, which we needed to drive down to Key West, for Custom clearance. The even greater novelty was a left hand drive car, Doug was so involved in trying to negotiate the mirror image inside the car, that it was only after a km or so when we encountered a head on truck and realized the more important observation was which side of the road we should be on. Marathon was our first encounter with overzealous American authorities who reprimanded us and made us wear our life jackets whilst on a rubber duck and wanted to know where our rubber duck skippers license was – which of course we had never had. As it turns out Americans require small boat licenses but none whatsoever to skipper a yacht either coastal or off shore. We were fined $50 when even Doug’s Yachtmaster Offshore Skippers ticket did not suffice to drive a rubber duck! Another first encounter was swarms of mosquitoes which made cockpit living unbearable. Every evening at sunset, crop sprayer type planes would deposit gallons of chemicals over the Florida Keys to combat them and I shudder to imagine what we breathed in.
Nanna was due in a few days, so we headed up the west coast of Florida, anchoring off Anne Maria Island having planned to take up Hatty and Al’s offer of a visit. Somewhere to the east there must have been a massive celebration because we passed bunches of hundreds of balloons, and so we doglegged here and there collecting balloons to welcome Nanna.
– Val
Captions to be added at a later stage.
Sailing Katlyn 