Just through the cut is the customs office for
Charlotte-Amalie at the ferry dock. The
guidebooks say you can anchor off the ferry dock to clear customs. NOT!!!
The whole area in front of the ferry dock is mooring balls owned by the
nearby marina. Damn … we circled around
and headed back thru the tiny cut. Just
off Hassel Island, there were two boats anchored in a tiny bay. We thought we’d give that location a
try. Unfortunately, it was smaller than
it looked. We anchored but in order to
stay away from the other two boats, we had to anchor at the one end of the
bay. By the time we had powered down on
our anchor to make sure it was set nicely, we were too close to the
cliffs. Dragging out to open sea or
even into the shallow beach area is one thing … but dragging into a rocky,
cliff shoreline is something completely different. Nope … we pulled anchor to try some place different.
Again, the guidebooks say you can anchor off Water Island
(only about ½ mile away from Hassel Island) so we thought we’d try that. There were masses of boats but they were all
moored. Damn those mooring balls! These were private moorings too so you
couldn’t just pick one up. We tried to
find a spot large enough to anchor without interfering with the moored boats
but soon gave up there too!
So, now what??? Back thru the cut we go. First time through the cut was a little unnerving (since it’s such a narrow cut) and we took it REALLY slow. Second time through, we were a lot more comfortable. Third time through … we barely even thought about it. We headed for downtown Charlotte-Amalie in hopes that we’d be able to find an anchorage in that area!
FINALLY … there were tons of boats and they were almost all
anchored. Very few mooring balls in
this area! We found a nice little spot
between the cruise terminal and downtown and were finally settled! Once we knew we were securely anchored, we
headed to the customs office.
It turns out, since we have an American boat, we are both
American or at least, American Residents, AND we were coming from Puerto Rico
(part of the US), we really did not need to clear in/out. But, better safe than sorry so we didn’t
mind the trip to verify.
Something that was strange about St. Thomas … there were no
cruise ships in port! Almost all the
stores were closed. It turns out, in
the off-season (as it is now), the cruise ships only come into port 3 days a
week. And if the cruise ships aren’t
here, who cares about the hundreds of boaters that might need something … the
stores were all closed shut. It was a
VERY quiet place!
Realizing “town” was completely lifeless and void of any
notion of a good time, we dinghied over near the cruise terminal to the Yacht
Haven Grand marina. This place is
massive. It is a ultra modern,
“mega-yacht” marina that can accommodate yachts of almost any size. We have no idea what the cost is to stay
there, BUT … the place was almost empty.
There was one sailboat and about 4-5 very large mega yachts but hundreds
of slips were empty. What a waste! Even here, almost all the stores were
closed.
But … today is Cinco de Mayo (we just realized as we went
ashore) and this meant PARTY!!! Well,
at least it was an attempt at a party!
We had tacos and beer in honor of our Mexican neighbors. There was a decent turn out but it just
wasn’t the atmosphere I’d expected. No
one was dancing (okay, except for one drunk chick … and I’m being generous in
calling THAT dancing!) There were just
little “clicks” of people socializing amongst themselves. Other than the loud DJ making announcements,
it was kind of mellow. We didn’t hang
around too long. Once we’d eaten and had
a couple of beer, we headed back to the boat.
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