Arriving in Jost van Dyke on our own boat contrasted sharply with our last time there. The trip had been a long flight from Atlanta, through Puerto Rica and then onto a puddle-jumper to Tortola. We had travelled with two other couples and chartered a Beneteau 43. Everything on that boat had seemed oversized, but the interior spaces were huge and easily swallowed six people. That had been a great two weeks, and we were looking forward to revisiting some of the places we had enjoyed.
Since then, though, Al and I had cruised the Bahamas for a four month cruise, and our tastes had changed. While there are crowded areas in the Bahamas there are also very secluded areas where you might not see another boat for days. This was very different to the BVIs. They are a chain of islands only twenty five miles long, but with a fleet of a thousand boats. It is very difficult to find a space to yourself there.
I was very keen to relax for a while. The lead-up to our departure and the passage down had taken their toll, and it was time to relax. The first night there we went out at Foxy’s and other bars on Jost. We had a great time sampling the different versions of the local drink – the Painkiller. This consists of various quantities of Pussers’ rum, orange juice, coconut milk and grated nutmeg. They come in numbers 2, 3 and 4, corresponding to the ounces of rum in them. We learned the next morning as we squinted out at the bright sun that the most dangerous part of cruising life is ashore.
Once we recovered we left Jost for Peter Island. I knew of a reef on the south side of a bay there that had looked promising as a dive site, and I was eager to try out the hookah. A hookah is a low-pressure compressor that pumps air down from the surface through hoses to divers. I had bought the most powerful one I could find, capable of supporting four divers to sixty feet, or two divers to over 120ft. We put ours in the dinghy and tow it around. The extra drag from the hoses is compensated by the lack of a tank on your back.
We anchored in forty five feet of water next to the reef, and then we grabbed masks and dived over for a look. I moved the anchor to ensure the chain would not touch the reef. It was a long way down, and I had to be careful to avoid being caught under the heavy anchor as I moved it. The water was crystal clear and the reef was full of tropical fish. The staghorn coral showed some damage from anchors, but was still in good condition. It was obvious that boats were at least trying to remain clear of the coral. We were to remain there for a week, diving the reef every day and filming the fish with my underwater video camera.
Eventually the craving for fresh food and loud music set in again, and we sailed the five or so miles to the capital, Tortola. We anchored outside of the harbour in the rolly anchorage and dinghied into town. We checked the email and ran chores all day before going to the yacht club to look for Jay, who we had talked to on the passage. While we were there we got talking to a bunch of Aussie yacht crew who worked on a huge charter cat. Jay eventually turned up and we met in person. We had a few beers and ended up inviting him and a friend to dinner the next night. It looked like we would be in town a while now.
The yacht club was a real ‘crew bar’, where commercial yacht crew hung out and spent their hard earned cash. These bars are much the same all over the world. I feel in two minds about them—sometimes we seek them out because they are a lot of fun, but other times the undercurrent of loneliness and boredom that can build among the crew gets to be too much. A lot of the crew took up the life with an expectation of an idyllic lifestyle and found instead hard work for poor pay, a sense of isolation and difficulty in being an outsider in a foreign country. It was certainly not all bad. I had read that the married couple is the best crew, and this seemed to be confirmed because a lot of the trouble we saw was due to incompatible people having to work and live together.
The locals seemed to be polarised about the whites. There was a smattering of black faces among the crowd in the bar and they were having a good time, but walking through the streets we were greeted by either sullen stares or radiant smiles seemingly at random. Tortola is a poor community and it must be inevitable that resentment of the tourists would build. I grew up in a holiday town, and we resented tourists too. I got a sense that the ex-patriot British found it hard to assimilate into island life, but it eventually became home.
We stayed in Tortola for a couple of days and then headed off for a change of scene. Dropping anchor off a beautiful beach and then jumping in for a swim washed away the stress of the town. It was good to be out.
We spent a month in the BVIs. It felt like a holiday and was great, but we were looking forward to continuing the adventure, and seeing places we had never seen before. Our next hop was to cross the Anegada Passage to the island of St Martin.

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The Anegada passage is considered to be a difficult patch of water. About eighty miles wide, it is the north-eastern corner of the Caribbean, and separates the Virgin Islands from the Leeward Islands. Our passage was perfect. A south-easterly wind pushed us north, and I was worried that we would have to tack, but as the sun set the wind swung around to the south. By early morning it was behind us and lunch was us sailing into the beautifully named Marigot Bay.
St Martin is divided between the French and the Dutch. It is incredible that such as small island is divided between two countries, and reflects its historical significance. We had arrived in the French side and checked in with the local Gendarmerie. I was concerned because True Blue only carried US state registration, and the French do not recognise this as sufficient documentation. This was to plague us for the next few months. We were not eligible for US documentation because we were not US citizens. We did not know of the easy solution to our problem, which was to register on the UK small ships register for a cost of only fifty pounds. Instead we intended to apply for Australian registration on the way. We had not known about the problem until we read it in the new cruising guide we bought in Tortola. We were told not to go to Guadeloupe without ships documentation at all, or face severe penalties.
In Marigot, though, it was an informal, cost free process. In some of the French Islands we were allowed to just fill out the paperwork and slip it under the door if there is no one there. Very different to Australian or US customs! The policeman stamped our passports, smiled and handed me our papers. I breathed a sigh of relief, took them back to the boat, and told Alison we were free to go ashore.
Marigot was our first non-speaking town, and we promptly set out to massacre the French language. We had been listening to a French language course, but were really a bit scared to go past ‘merci’ and s’il vou plai’. We decided to have a nice meal out, and ate at a place called ‘La Vie en Rose’. The life of red? Dunno. The meal was good but expensive, which sums up French life.
Eventually we tired of the town, and sailed around to the east side of the island to Orient beach. This was half nude beach and the other half topless, so we spent a week there. Unfortunately the nude side was full of fifty to sixty year old German tourists, but the topless side was full of twenty five year old French hotties. The beach was lined with bars, and it was good fun.
We eventually made our way to the Dutch side of the island, and found ourselves in crew bars again. St Maarten is cheaper than the French side, and a real centre of yachting in the Caribbean. It is less genteel than the French side, with cruise ships and duty free stores. We hiked up with a bunch of Aussie crew on one of the super yachts there, and had some fun times out, including a day trip back to Orient Beach. The guys were getting the yacht ready for the annual hop over to the Med. It seemed so foreign to our effort. The one time I got near to sailing to Europe was when I helped a friend sail across to the Azores, off Portugal. I resolved to one day make it to the south of France.
We parked the boat in the large lagoon that spans the west of the island. It was strange that a twenty minute trip in the dinghy brought us back to the French side. While we were driving over for dinner a beautiful girl was showering nude on the foredeck of a French boat, about 5 meters from the channel we were motoring down. She smiled and waved. I loved this place.

Painkiller Recipe from Jost Van Dyke.

2,3 or 4 oz Pusser's® dark rum, for a number 2,3, or 4.
1 oz cream of coconut
4 oz pineapple juice
1 oz orange juice

Shake or stir ingredients, and pour over ice in a tall glass. Sprinkle nutmeg on top, and serve.