Posted on Saturday 19 May 2007
Jost Van Dyke - May 8th
Jost Van Dyke, named after a Dutch pirate who haunted these waters centuries ago, is a tiny 4 miles-long and is known for one man Foxy Callwood, owner of Foxy’s Tamarind Bar in Great Harbour.
An extraordinary entrepreneur and the founder of Foxy’s Wooden Boat Regatta held annually in late May. Foxy’s and Jost are synonymous and wherever you go, people who find out you’ve been to Jost will ask How’s Foxy?
A replica of Foxy playing the guitar on stage. Many people leave their shirts and hats plastered all over the walls to mark their stop at Foxy’s!
A wooden boat that Foxy and the local Hig School student were building, a replica Endevour sloop
Foxy founded the Island’s Preservation Society.
He even has his own brewery, literally in the backyard! Foxy’s was definatly fun and I cannot imagine what New Years would be like here as the harbor is really crowded. We bought shirts and a CD of Foxy’s doing his Shtick. The island has more than just Foxy’s though.
A bakery with delicious cinnamon rolls and other delictable goodies, as well as Corsair’s a pirate themed bar a restaurant.
Our highlight was the Ice Cream place that had Dove chocoalate covered ice cream bars! Yum, delicious!
This is an International, a cool truck GR wants when we get home.
From Jost Van Dyke we hoisted the Dinghy up on deck and headed out early am to Puerto Rico. Now that we are in the home stretch of this trip we plan to huff it all the way home. It was an overcast morning and we saw 4 rainbows and caught the tail end of some rainshowers. Overall a great sail between the Islands. Past the southern coast of Puerto Rico, land caused spoptty wind conditions and we motored into a calm, dry night.
Underway Wednesday May 9th
Woke up with about 12 dolphins on our bow, still love that!! At 10 a.m. We stopped at Boqueron for fuel, it was very rolly at their dock, picked up some Doritos and chips and salsa for fuel for our bellies. Overcast hot day and we put on the generator and air and passed out for a much needed nap. After waking up at 6pm we ate dinner and decided it best that we cross the Mona passage that night. Once we reached the end of the coastal area of Puerto Rico conditions worsened and we felt it best to head back call it a night and try to cross during the next day.
Thursday May 10th
Boy you don’t realize how much you love sleep until you do some overnight passages. That was all we needed to feel 100% better! Our crossing through Mona passage was unbelievably, insanely, cool, calm, clear and perfect. Left at 8a.m. Arrived in Mona Island at 3:30 p.m. And hit the coast of D.R. around 8:30 p.m. What a beautiful starry night we were comforted by the Southern Cross as we sailed into the night.
Passing Mona Island between P.R. and D.R., a lot of Pirates used this Island to hide their booty it has lots of caves.
Friday May 11th
At 5 a.m. Seas were pure glass not a stich of wind but as the sun rose so did the winds. Averaged 6.6 knots all the way. We thought about stopping for an overnight to catch up on our beauty sleep in D.R. But since the weather was so good we opted on heading to Turks & Caicos asap. So yet another night and the next morning we were approaching Cockburn Harbour to top off on more fuel.
Saturday May 12th
Cockburn Harbour, South Caicos. The only reason we came into this harbour was to tae advantage of a fuel dock and skip the need of renting a vehicle in Sapodilla Bay. We called ahead on the VHF since it was Saturday we weren’t sure if the fuel dock was open, if they even had fuel or if thir dock would allow our 5.5′ draft. All these questions were answered yes open yes fuel and yes our draft would allow us to tie up to the Government dock, not the marina dock. So we threw up the fenders and dock line preparing to approach.
Only to find a barge aground trying to be righted by a tugboat hogging up the traffic lanes. We circled around for a bit giving both the Tugboat driver and the Barge Crew ample time to get off ground only to lose patience and head over to the dock. This dock was a concrete slab with no cleats to tie to and a 2 ‘ swell so we decided we’d just rent a car in Sapodilla Bay and Jerry Jug it! Now we were off to Long Cay to get some Dinty Moore Beef Stew and biscuits in our bellies and some much needed sleep.
Wall mural here on the Island.
Sunday May 13th
Off to Sapodilla, another overcast, stagnant, hot day on the ride. As soon as we had Sapodilla in our sights we were surprised to see about 9 boats. Last time we were here we hadn’t seen that many boats in a month. Liahona a 37′ Pearson we made friends with the last time we were here was here to welcome us! It was so nice to drop the hook and enjoy their company over some delicous local pizza.
This is GR’s kinda shirt! HA HA!
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