My Personal Paradise

Friday February 6, 2015

The past few days we’ve been living in nothing short of a Caribbean paradise.

For starters, the weather is gorgeous.  The sun is always shinning, the temperatures are hanging out around 80 during the day and there’s always a nice breeze blowing through our hatches.  Secondly, we are anchored in the gorgeous Christmas Cove of St. John US Virgin Islands.  We’re surrounded by beautiful turquoise waters filled with sting rays and even a sea turtle that I was able to swim next to for a few minutes while snorkeling the other day.  And lastly, the icing on the cake, is I’m surrounded by friends.

Throw out the first two if you must (although please don’t, because I’m very much enjoying them), but being around people I care about and can bring a smile to my face is really the only thing in the world I truly need.  Yes, Matt does this everyday, but the more you have of this the better it is.  So it’s suffice to say I’m having the time of my life right now.  Totally worth coming back across the Atlantic for.

Yesterday evening we went over to s/v Kasablanca to enjoy a few sundowners and get to know our hometown cruisers Felicia and Steve a little better.  The vino tinto I tried to recreate for them from Montanditos didn’t quite turn out the way I hoped…I think we would have been better off drinking the red wine and Sprite separately.  What was great though was the conversation and comparisons on Atlantic crossings and attempts.

Felicia and Steve left the Great Lakes last summer with the plan to follow in our footsteps and make their way to the Med as well.  They left from much further up on the east coast and had nothing but terrible weather for their first few days and decided to turn their good ship around and head back to the US.  Instead of spending a few years in Europe, they made their way down to the Caribbean which they’ve been enjoying immensely.  Strange how we all ended up here at the same time even though both our original plans dictated otherwise.

Today was another great day where we were able to spend a few hours in the water with Jody and Peter going lobster diving.  Even cooler…Matt was able to try out their hookah diving system while doing this.  An air supplied device that allows a person to stay under the water while taking in air from the surface through a long hose, powered by a compressor.  Since we were diving for lobster in an area that was 40-60 feet deep, it’s adequate to say that he probably wouldn’t have been able to get down there with single breaths from the surface.

With only three hoses one of us had to be content just to float at the surface and watch the action below and  was fine for that person to be me.  I still haven’t mastered equalizing yet, and can’t get more than 10 feet down without the pressure forcing me to surface again.  So after a quick lesson, Matt followed Jody and Peter into the azure waters surrounding us as they poked in cracks and crevices looking for our dinner.  Matt was having the time of his life being able to stay down at the bottom of the sea floor among the rocks and coral for as long as his heart desired.  I had just as much fun following him from the surface and playing in the bubbles that floated up around me, banging on them like bongo drums as these huge spheres of oxygen rose around me.

In the end the guys were able to come back up with two lobsters, even though Peter said their catch was normally much bigger.  Our hosts for the day graciously gave us the entire haul and I was already picturing melted butter dripping from my mouth as lobster was being shoved into it.  If I was feeling generous, Georgie might even get a bite.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to enjoy our dinner with Jody and Peter and cook them up on Mary Christine’s grill since Peter had to be to class again that night for his Captain’s license and was just using the few free hours he had that day to take us out.  Such a great guy.

So I have found my little personal paradise and it’s called Christmas Cove.  I don’t think I ever want to leave here.  I’m not sure if there’s really any need to other than occasionally pick up groceries from Charlotte Amalie.  Except..there is.  Only another week or so in the Virgin Islands and we’ll be making our way directly back to Florida.  But hopefully this place and all my friends will still be waiting for us next year when we come back in our new badass aluminum boat.