068 Not Quite British, Not Quite Virgin and Definitely not Puerto Rican

I am back on track with my daily word calendar, the two words for this week’s literary treasure hunters are: Scrumptious, which reminds me immediately of Dick Van Dyke in Chitty Chitty Bang! Bang! And raillery, not a word I often rail about. So go get em!

Sat in the bay at St Martin we hatched a plan so cunning you could brush your teeth with it. The last attempt to reach the British Virgin Islands had left everyone sick, tired and thoroughly miserable. So, after cleaning the hull, this time we would do things differently. We would set off in the afternoon, catch the sun and a nice breeze, everyone gets comfortable, then off to bed while yours truly sails through the night, arriving fresh and happy the following morning.

And for once, that’s exactly what happened.

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The Caribbean dawn was just breaking over Road Town Tortola as we nudged Sawasdeekat into harbour. Tortola, whose name means Turtle Dove in Spanish, is the largest of the British Virgin Islands and home to eighty percent of their population. The island wears its volcanic origins proudly, with Mount Sage punching seventeen hundred feet into the sky. We scrambled into the dinghy and went ashore to check into the country. Sunday in the BVI, it turned out, meant customs officers were enjoying their weekend with rather more enthusiasm than they were enjoying the prospect of processing paperwork. We followed our map from one customs office location to the next but found nothing open. The shops stood shuttered, the streets deserted, the entire capital seemingly taking a collective breath.

The following day we sailed south for thirteen miles to the southern tip of the main island, into a little bay by Frenchman's Cay. There we finally managed to check into the BVI and set off for Belle Vue on Jost Van Dyke Island. Jost Van Dyke is the smallest of the four main islands, barely three square miles of rugged beauty with a population of fewer than three hundred souls. Its name comes from a Dutch privateer who used its harbours as a hideout. Pirates, it turns out, have excellent taste in real estate. Here we planned to eat out in the evening, finding a nice restaurant and sampling whatever scrumptious creations the BVI kitchens could conjure up.

But before then we would enjoy the waters. My mother, not a strong swimmer, but keen to have a dip, lowered herself into the sea and floated around on a tethered rubber ring, bobbing gently in the bay like a contented buoy whilst soaking up sun and fresh air. Pookie started cooking, of course. Spurred on by a working kitchen the woman cannot help herself. Give her a galley and she will produce something magnificent. I started planning where to go next.

Puerto Rico demanded advance online notification of our arrival. For some strange reason, their website turned down our application. This left me perplexed. Puerto Rico, I learned, is little more than a USA outpost, an unincorporated territory since the Spanish-American War of 1898. What shocked me next nearly capsized my composure.

Now Pookie and I had previously applied for ten-year visitor visas in Trinidad. An easy and quick affair. This meant we could visit the USA and any of its outposts whenever we wanted. My mother, however, had applied for the much simpler ESTA visa. I discovered that while this allows you to visit the USA, you must arrive by Commercial Means. A commercially operated airplane. A cruise ship. A ferry. Our poor little Sawasdeekat, with her fibreglass hull and our hopeful ambitions, simply would not cut the mustard. We needed a resolution and we needed it fast.

While Pookie cooked and my mother bobbed around the bay, two things happened almost simultaneously. The sky turned a menacing grey. And I discovered that a daily ferry runs from the BVI to the USVI. (Seems there are a lot of virgins around here). The United States Virgin Islands, three islands of busier, more built-up energy compared to the quieter, more untouched BVI. The ferry crossing takes about forty-five minutes to an hour through the Sir Francis Drake Channel. It was as we say Action Stations!.

First we pulled my mother in using her tether and she climbed back on board just before the heavens opened, all of us exchanging nervous raillery about our near miss as the rain began its assault. Torrential rainfall started pounding the deck as we fired the engines back up and headed from Jost Van Dyke back to Road Town Tortola. The plan was that here Pookie would accompany my mother on a day trip the next day on the commercial ferry to the USVI and by way of her arrival on US soil start the clock on her ESTA Visa.

We anchored on the far right of the bay. That night, perhaps because of the storm's effect on the tides, Sawasdeekat seemed inches from the bottom of the sea. Occasionally she let us know as she rested down a few times, the hull groaning against the seabed in the darkness.

The following morning I took Pookie and my mother to the ferry terminal. They went inside just before the heavens opened once again. By the time I had manoeuvred my way through the thick rugs of sargassum that seemed determined to thwart my return, I reached Sawasdeekat drenched from the short trip. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has been growing since 2011, dumping increasing amounts of this brown algae along Caribbean coastlines. In June alone, levels in the Caribbean reached record highs. The stuff forms enormous mats transported by ocean currents, and it had formed a formidable barrier between me and my boat.

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Now BVI rain is torrential. This time it seemed determined to show us what it could do. I sat writing my notes, working, making warm drinks, while rain and lightning thundered onto the fibreglass roof and clacked loudly outside. The storm evacuation alarms started ringing on everyone's phones and the ferry company started tying their boats down to the port with extra vigour. Small tornadic waterspouts started to form nearby and I was admittedly getting nervous. Pookie and my mother, now stranded in the USVI, managed to run between shops, found a fridge magnet and a café, and spent the next four or five hours waiting to see what would happen next. They sat supping cocoa while I made sure all our windows were firmly closed and the bilge pumps were turned on for good measure.

Eventually the rain subsided and the alarms stopped. My mother and Pookie were let back on a ferry to the BVI and I collected them. By now it was getting dark again but we wanted to be on our way. The Exumas and Bahamas were waiting and this was the area of the world I wanted to show my mother. So, I made the thirteen-mile journey back down the coast to Fisherman's Cay again and just about managed to find a space big enough to take our boat. The bay was full of vessels seeking shelter from the storms and our late arrival meant we had to lay anchor in twelve metres of deep water.

Having been turned down by Puerto Rico, the following morning we set off for the Dominican Republic. Turns out their website did not actually scan the photo of the passport you provide. It simply entered details from your passport into random boxes. A small coding oversight with enormous consequences for us. Puerto Rico, I should mention, is home to three of the world's five bioluminescent bays, including Mosquito Bay in Vieques, the brightest one on Earth. Its also home to the coquí frog, its national animal, fills the night with its distinctive co-kee call. We would have loved to have heard it. Instead we were forced to sail on.

This was to be a 270-mile crossing, much farther than the 87 miles my mother had slept through getting to the BVI. A real test. We had an uneventful first day with good winds pushing us along at eight knots and touching ten point one. Pookie did twelve-thirty until four in the morning to let me get some sleep and the next day brought calm conditions, with no wind meaning we used the engine all the time. We had not long gone past the island of Puerto Rico when I noticed what looked like an upturned boat over to my left.

I diverted our course and got closer. It was indeed an upturned speed boat. No debris in the water. No one in sight. We took photographs and marked its location on the map and carried on. I radioed the US Coast Guard with what I had seen. After sending them the photos and describing it to them a couple of times, they put out an all-ships alert to look out for debris and people in the water. A helicopter later flew over us on its way to check inside the boat for survivors. Alas we never knew what happened.

We finally arrived at Bahia Marina near Samaná in the Dominican Republic. Samaná is a nature haven of palm-filled forests, isolated beaches, coconut plantations, tropical rainforests and rolling mountains. The province has an unexpected history. In the 1820s, freed African Americans from Philadelphia settled here, and their descendants, the Samaná Americans, still maintain English as a heritage language. The marina had a customs office on site so checking-in was a breeze.

The next episode takes you around the Dominican Republic and we find a fault with our newly installed Victron Inverter that had me fuming and Pookie almost in tears.

Until next time.