April found us still in the British Virgin Islands.  After having friends onboard for almost the entire month of March, we got a couple days to ourselves and headed over to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  We needed to get our watermaker checked out, and that was the closest repair place.  We had a great time exploring (on foot) the area and stayed there until time to head back to Tortola to greet our next guests.  There are ruins of a sugar mill at Annaberg, as well as a school and a couple plantation houses, and Robert found numerous pieces of what appeared to be quite old pottery dishes (all blue and white ceramic) on the ground nearby.  The largest plantation house ruin is extremely overgrown, and we were talking about how much fun we thought it would be to spend a couple months on the island and try to reclaim the ruin from Mother Nature.

April 5

We are in Leinster Bay in St. John.  Came over yesterday mid-day.  We snorkeled Caneel Bay when we were there, and I’d never seen so many turtles so close together.  They were all green turtles.  Saw a couple adults and then younger, what I call babies.  Then snorkeled here and saw a couple more.  Very cool!  There are more of the big starfish in this bay than anywhere else also.  We hiked up to a sugar mill ruin and also to an old schoolhouse and plantation house ruins.  Having a great time!

The full moon the other night was awesome.  It was as if someone were shining a light into our bedroom.  Really beautiful . . .

Our friends, Phil and Kim Zeltsar of Tampa, came down to spend a week with us.  Phil is the chef at Bernini of Ybor, an upscale Italian restaurant from which Darlene recently ‘retired’ after ten years there as controller.  We thought Phil would keep busy preparing us meal after fabulous meal, but he thought he was on vacation, so we gave him a bit of a break and Darlene cooked a couple dinners.  When he’s away from the restaurant, he’s easy to please and was appreciative of getting to stay out of the galley.  We cruised both the BVI as well as visiting St. John in the USVI for a couple days.  The weather was glorious and we had a great time showing them around the islands, which we have come to know quite well after several weeks here.

Darlene continued monitoring the business at Bernini, and after reviewing files which Chef Phil brought her, it was deemed that Darlene needed to return to Tampa to help resolve some issues for the restaurant.  She left Robert, Shadow and the boat in Tortola, where Doyle Sails was building a new bimini and a couple sails for us.  After a few days in Tampa, Darlene discovered the new comptroller had been embezzling from the firm, which necessitated extending Darlene’s stay a few more days.  So Robert had to locate someone to help him get the boat from the BVI down to Antigua, where we had friends arriving in early May to do Antigua Sailing Week with us.