Shanannigans at Sea

Norman Island May 30, 2025 Our last full day at sea began with nerdy conversations about the molecular makeup of soap and the manner in which bananas ripen. While the former was simply conversation, the latter was brought on when I noticed the bananas were had bought on Sunday were not ripening any more at all. This was convenient because we’ve been on a hot, humid boat all week so none went bad but inconvenient because one of the bunches I had picked was green - I assumed it would ripen to perfection but instead they’ve stayed as green as ever. Apparently banana gas is used to start the ripening process and from there, it will continue on its own; they must not use it here and now we are left with some bananas unable to be eaten. If you’re curious on some more details, placing bananas in a bag with an apple can have the same affect as banana has on the banana.  After our little nerd session, we went for a morning snorkel post omelets. While we did not see anything new from the pre...

St. John’s  May 29, 2025 Lan, Rhianna and I all woke up before 7 this morning, and with Chris still asleep it was the perfect time to start concocting a plan. We really liked the plastic bar cups we kept that said Cooper Island and The Bitter End, and I found a Facebook post of someone who collected some from other island bars in the BVIs. We wanted to do the same, and we figured since Jost was only a short hop across the channel, we could stop at a couple of places there on the way to St. John (for coffee, not 7 am painkillers ;)). When Chris woke up we informed him of our plan. I told him that it was like Epcot and that we had to visit all the stops! After trying to talk us out of having to stop somewhere before our long 5 hour sail, he agreed that we could moor at White Bay for a little (but not before we had omelets, of course!). I'm glad we didn't have to mutiny!  We motored across the channel and found the bay to be quite crowded. The mooring field was snug between a ree...

 Cane Garden Bay May 28, 2025  It’s our third morning on the boat and we are finally getting past the anxiety that Chris installed in us about pooping on the boat. I was the first to break in the toilets last night and this morning Kerry and Lan finally followed suit. Thanks Chris, for making us scared to poop on the boat for so many days!  We had another early morning wake up and enjoyed relaxing for as long as the peace would last. The trash boat came by at some point and while we had that down to a science, he threw us for a loop when asking if we wanted a 20lb bag of ice for $10, which of course we said yes to. We then headed ashore to see what there is to see. Lan has actually been here 15 years ago and was curious as to how different it was. Seeing as Hurricane Irma ran through the BVIs in 2017 and destroyed many of the buildings, it was quite different. We ended up walking around a bit, grabbing iced coffees, getting free water bottle refills from the lovely woman ...

 Cooper Island May 27, 2025 We had an early start this morning. Mooring at Cooper Island proved to be a bad choice, as the boat was rocking heavily from 3 am onwards, and no one slept very well. Nonetheless we wanted to get to the Baths early to pick up a ball before they were all taken. We had a quick breakfast (no omelets yet) and were off.  We motored our way over since it was a short distance and arrived in time to get a ball. We dinghied closer to shore and swam the rest of the way in.  We made our way over to Devil’s Bay for a nice swim and snorkel before the Baths, which we found to be incredibly crowded with people, presumably from a cruise ship.  After our swim we did what was supposed to be a short hike through the Baths (a series of rock caves with small pools of water), but ended up taking around 40 minutes to get through. We were hungry, and someone (mostly Lan) would bring up the topic of omelets every 5 minutes. The whole thing was underwhelming, but w...

Cooper island May 26, 2025  It’s morning two and we seem to have already established our 6 am group wake up time which is quite lovely. The world is still mostly asleep (especially on island time) and it is marginally less hot and humid, although I did clock 82 degrees around 8 am. Strangely enough, the low every day is 79 and the high is 82, somehow even the sun going down doesn’t lower the temperature. It was our first night on the boat and we all slept pretty well with minimal rocking because we were at a dock and ac keeping us cool. Chris would call this glamping. We had to wait until 7 to get breakfast but the second that clock hit 7, we were at the door of the French bakery ready to get some ham and cheese croissants and coffees. Post breakfast, we hightailed it over to the grocery store where typical shanannigan shenanigans ensued.  We were all in uniform (our matching blue Hawaiian shirts) and immediately got comments from someone who worked at the store, saying he lov...