St. Croix, Christiansted sooo scary!!!!

We had hoped to be able to sail with spinnaker to St. Croix, but there was no wind at all, therefore we had the most quiet crossing of our whole trip. I could take a long shower on the back of the boat, what normally is impossible when you’re crossing part of the ocean. And Murphy ’s Law came true again, you can have the whole day no wind and close to the harbor it started blowing. 

This time it came from a big cloud over Christiansted. We slowed down till the rain was gone and we could safely see all the buoys to get into the harbor. There was not much place to anchor here, so after 2 hours driving around and discussing we ended up near the entrance on a mooring ball. Not very protected and it started really blowing in the night. I was up at four and went to look outside, everything seemed fine, but I had in my head a plan for when something went wrong.

Jacques got up at six and checked, still everything okay, but 6:15 there came a big cry for RIA!!!!!!! I could hear something was very wrong, the line from the mooring had broken and we started to drift, the motors were running in no time and while Jacques started to get all the ropes on board, I steered the boat away from other boats and the wall, but the steering wheel did not move very much, so I steered with motors and looked backwards and saw that the rudder crossbar was attached with two ropes because the rudders were moving in the waves. I had them loose very quickly (broke half of my nails) and the boat was under control!

We put the anchor out and went first for some much deserved coffee. The rest of the day we stayed on the boat while it was blowing 25+ knots. Later in the afternoon Jacques swam out to check the anchor but couldn’t see anything because of the sand whirled up in the water. At least the entire area was sand ground so we were confident that with over a hundred feet of chain in about 10 feet of water under the keel we had a good feeling.

Christiansted seems to be a very nice place from the boat so today we will go on land and hope to do some chores. As a Dutch saying goes:  “Luck is with the fools” we are thankful that we are fools.

Talk to you later, Ria