Leaving St. John, sailing back to St. Thomas

Took a bit of a break from the blog-o-sphere with the holidays upon us. Enough with the Christmas music and all that stuff. Shall we return to warm topical waters & blue skies? Why of course we shall.

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 As a quick reminder, we're picking up from the last blog post. Honeymoon Beach on St. John.

 After coming back aboard the Adventuress, it's time to head back to St. Thomas. Other boats of the Champagne Cat fleet have now joined us.

 Good-bye Honeymoon Beach. For now, anyway.

 Sails up! We're making way.

 I hope you did not think this was a dry vessel. It's not called a Champagne Cat just because the name sounds good. Cheers!

 Bit of fraying on the bottom of the sail from plenty of use. Not surprising since Adventuress is in high demand.

 Meet Capt. Joe, our skipper. He's got the job we all want. We've sailed with Joe previously when he was a mate.

 Parts of St. Thomas are not the low rent district. Rock stars, movie stars and anyone else with too much money have homes here.

Where's the Facebook "Like" button?

  Vamping for the camera. Still smiling from the last post.

 

 Heading in to the dock. We'll do this again because it's a lot of fun.

Next stop on the journey: Antigua.

St. John via St. Thomas

We've cruised to St. Thomas probably 10 or so times. For whatever reason, the cruise ship industry is determined to stop at St.Thomas whenever a vessel is in the Caribbean. What's the best thing to do when on St. Thomas? Why, go to St. Johns' of course! We've taken Thunderhawks' Eco tour & highly recommend it. For the last several trips we chose to sail over to Honeymoon Beach on one of the Champagne Cats.

http://www.cruiseshipexcursions.com/adventuress.html

Early morning. Very few people moving about the vessel. The ship is barely moving to our berth at the Havensite dock. These are some of the moments forever etched in my mind.

The hotels in the distance gear up for another day of tourist check-ins and check-outs. Bake till done, then go home.

Ok, enough about St. Thomas. We're aboard Adventuress, a 50+ foot custom built catamaran. Next stop: St. John & a very special little strip of sand.

 Anne & I have sailed aboard Adventuress previously. I would do it again.

 This is rigging. Large scale. Heavy duty steel cable that can withstand the force of the wind when under full sail.

 St. Thomas really is pretty when viewed from a distance.

How to make the girl smile? Put her on a comfortable sailing ship with good breeze and no worries.

 This petite young lady was one of two female mates aboard. It was not light duty.

She brought up this huge canvas while it filled with wind. No problem. She'd done this before.

 In the distance: our destination of St. John.

 Still smiling!

 Laid back, no worries, no problems. Life is good.

 Coming upon the mooring ball. Mate signals to captain, snags the line & we're tied off in seconds.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are here. Honeymoon Beach, pristine sand, sparsely populated & crystal clear warm water I could float in for hours on end.

At this point, I stowed the camera. Donned my snorkel gear. Stepped off the side of the boat & slowly paddled into shore.

Up next: Return to St. John.