Caribbean 2020

Our trip started on Friday afternoon, as Captain Frank Mummert arrived aboard GRATEFUL DAD, an Island Packet 465. The crew started showing up that afternoon and, by dinner time, Dave, Paula, Greg and John were all aboard and eager to start the trip. After dinner ashore, the crew did a quick inventory of the boat to determine what cooking supplies they had, then created a menu and provisioning list for the morning.

Saturday morning found the crew up and headed to Moe's Fresh Market to fill GRATEFUL DAD's larder for our week long trip. Since we would not touch land again until Wednesday, they had to make sure they had everything needed for every meal - it would be impossible to run out to the market to get a missing ingredient. After stowing the provisions aboard, we went over the boat from bow to stern, looking in every cubby for all of the required and suggested safety gear. In addition, we discussed how the boat would handle various problems and what our responses would be.

By noon, we were underway for the mooring field at Francis Bay, St. John. After tying up to the ball, the crew walked through the various sail handling tasks we would be doing during the next week. Everyone had a chance to set, reef and douse the roller furled mainsail, and we also set and furled the staysail, a new sail to our crew. The sun was preparing to set after all of this work, so dinner was served in the cockpit under the darkening sky and growing blanket of stars.

The next morning found us underway for the large open area of water between Saint John and Jost Van Dyke. This spot, with more than 15 square miles of open water, is a perfect playground for developing and improving sailing skills. Captain Frank worked the crew through tacking, gybing, using a preventer, sailing to various points and to a compass. Occasionally, we would get a squall line pass through and would reef and unreef the sails. At the end of the day, we motor-sailed up the Narrows to the mooring field in Watermelon Bay and had another comfortable evening, although passing showers did result in several mid-night hatch closing exercises!

Monday found us back in the waters between Jost and Saint John, but this time, Captain Frank sat back and took on an observer role. Each crew member, in turn, acted as the skipper and directed the crew through tacks and gybes, choosing where to go and how. We hove-to for lunch, then came out again afterwards to commence training in Crew Overboard recoveries. With the wind down to a negligible force, we worked on positioning the boat next to the person in the water and then using the grappling hook to retrieve our "unconscious crew member."

We returned to our first mooring field that evening, after discovering that the mooring field we had wanted to use, in Hawksnest Bay, no longer held any mooring balls. Since the mooring field we had to use was not positioned well for the prevailing light winds, we had an uncomfortable evening, relying on the boat's fans to move air down below.

We found ourselves underway the next morning for the Great Harbor in Jost Van Dyke, where we would be checking into the British Virgin Islands. On the way, once again our unfortunate "sixth crewmember" fell overboard and had to be rescued. After performing the rescue, we took advantage of the fact that we were stopped in the middle of this open area to do some navigation training and each of the three "104" students took a bearing on a point of land, which we then plotted on a chart to determine our location. While we were engaged in this exercise, we were visited by a patrol boat from the British Marine Patrol, who were apparently curious about what we were doing, sitting for so long. We thanked them for their concern and explained that we were simply doing some "schoolwork."

After clearing into the BVI and wandering along the entire main drag of Great Harbor, we returned to the boat and headed east. By this time, the wind had come up and we were able to enjoy a great sail over to Sandy Cay and around the eastern point of Jost Van Dyke, coming to a mooring at the bay connecting Jost and Little Jost Van Dyke. We fell asleep that evening to the plaintive calls of the feral goats that roam Little Jost.

The morning found us getting underway for Nanny Cay Marina on Tortola. Unfortunately, the wind had dropped to nothing (someone needs to explain to the "trade winds" that they are supposed to be "predictable"), so we were forced to motor the whole way, but this did allow us to take some cuts through the islands that would have been more tricky under sail. We had several close encounters with boats of various sizes, from small day fishing boats all the way up to inter-island ferries and barges. We arrived at Nanny Cay Marina and were given a berth in the "new" portion of the marina, where we ran into people from several of the boats we had been seeing for the past few days. It gave us an opportunity to talk to the people we had passed or moored near and was a great introduction to the cruising community. After having a discussion about the navigation for the next day, when we would complete our circumnavigation of St. John, Frank declared a "free afternoon" and the students all went ashore for showers, cold drinks and exploring the local area.

After breakfast ashore the next morning, we were off again. The wind was still uncooperative, so we had to use the "iron jenny" to drive us on our course. There was, however, just enough wind to help move the boat during the multiple crew overboard exercises and we were able to successfully rescue "Bob" every time. We did discover that, in certain places, the current was far stronger and in a different direction than the wind, so we had to consider it in deciding how to approach our victim.

Changing the watch every hour, each crewmember served as skipper, helm, line handler and navigator. Navigation was very important to us on this trip, since we needed to get more than three miles south of Saint John, in order to legally pump our holding tank overboard. After confirming our location by three bearing fix, we sent the contents of our black water tank to Davy Jones locker and made sure that we secured pumping before we returned inside the three mile limit.

We continued our circumnavigation of Saint John and ended up in the Caneel Bay mooring field, from which we dinghied into Cruz Bay and presented ourselves to the Customs and Border Patrol office. After getting readmitted into the United States, we stopped at the ice cream shop on our way back to the dinghy for sweet and, more importantly, cold treats. After we returned to the boat, we were visited by a couple of cruisers who were National Park Service volunteers. They stopped by the boat to ask if we had any questions and invited us over to their boat for "sundowners," cocktails in the cockpit, considered to be a vital part of the cruising lifestyle. Unfortunately, we had to decline and we wished our new friends well as they departed.

Friday morning started with testing. Dave and Paula had to do their ASA exams for 101, 103 and 104. Just so John and Greg wouldn't feel left out, Captain Frank presented them with a chart of the US and British Virgin Islands and told them to come up with a navigation plan for circumnavigating the US Virgin Islands...all three of them. By the time everyone was finished and the tests were reviewed, it was after ten and time to go on to our last set of tasks - anchoring. Because most of Saint John is a National Park, there are very few places where one is allowed to anchor. The best place on the western part of the island is Rendezvous Bay, on the southern shore. So, we dropped the mooring ball and traveled to Rendezvous Bay, where we spent more than two hours dropping the anchor and retrieving it. As in other exercises, each crew member got to be the person in charge, the helmsman and the anchor handlers. Repetition is the key to successful learning! After lunch on the hook, the crew performed one more anchoring exercise, dropping first one anchor upstream, then a second anchor downstream, ending up being held in the middle for security in reversing currents, called a Bahamanian Moor.

By this time, we were ready to head back to Red Hook in order to fuel up and get back to the home base. The plan was to be on the dock Friday evening, so that we could have dinner ashore and start getting the boat ready for turning back over to Island Yachts in the morning. As is always the case with a boat, not everything went according to plan. When we were fueling, Skip, our contact at Island Yachts, came by to let us know that the slip we expected to be in was occupied by another IYC boat and there was "no room at the inn." After we finished taking on fuel, we moved out to a mooring ball and hopped into the dinghy for our anticipated dinner ashore. Afterwards, we went back to the boat and settled into the cabin for one last bull session on boats and boating.

Dawn found us up and cleaning. By the time Skip was ready for us to come in, the boat was clean, garbage and luggage was ready to go ashore and the crew had finished up all of their last minute tasks and discussions. At the end of it all, as we said good bye at the airport, everyone agreed that the time was well spent and we were glad to be going home! Paradise can be exhausting!

Captain Frank Mummert
Aboard S/V GRATEFUL DAD
Red Hook, USVI
February 2020

2020 Caribbean Cruises