Little Harbor, and How to avoid getting "Rolly"

We are learning more about this "sailing life" and realizing how much the wind and waves impact our everyday decisions. Bays and harbors that face in a general direction of the winds and incoming waves can be very rough to spend time in, even if the conditions are fairly mild...last month we spent time in Charlotte Amalie harbor (USVI) and got reaaaalllly tired of the pitching and rolling of the boat (rolly) . It's a South-facing harbor, the winds were from the East which made the boat face into them but the waves were from the Southeast...think of it as an "E" ticket ride (for those of you old enough to remember Disneyland tickets) every minute. And I didn't even mention the non-stop ferry traffic adding their wakes to the fun! Little Harbor BVI is much more protected from the waves and wind and there are no ferries. We sure slept well there. When we arrived there from Leinster Bay, we discovered that all of the other 15 + boats were not only anchored off of the bow but also stern-tied to the shoreline. When in Rome...so we did too. This was our first time doing this method and we were glad we had studied it in the training books in September. We were a little nervous as too why everyone else was using this anchoring method...bad weather, high winds, something else? I drove the dinghy over to some of the other boaters and asked them why, and they said that they anchored that way because the others before them did it. Well, nothing came of the weather, so I can only figure that the reason was that it made for more space for other boaters; using this method keeps the boat in a very small space while using a single anchor off of the bow lets the boat swing in a radius of about 100' or so, depending on how much anchor chain is let out.  Anyway, about the pictures: While in the bay, Karen and I took the dingy to shore and walked up to an abandoned set of buildings. They appeared to have been built to start a resort complex or an elaborate home, but have been vacant for the last 15/20 years. Pretty sad shape. The top picture is of one of the bathrooms...the narrow brown lines are termite tubes. These were everywhere on the structure. We didn't walk on any of the wood floors for obvious reasons. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to build nice tile features on some of the walls, but vandals have ruined most of them, except for the one shown. The last pic is of the Westerly-facing porch, overlooking Little Harbor. The whole complex is overgrown with trees and shrubs, but the view must have been spectacular. We really had a nice walk up and down the trail to the buildings, creeping and forcing our way through brush at times. Karen noticed there were little yellowish spots all over me and the backpack when we got back to the boat, and they were moving. GROSSSSS!!!!! I was covered in termites, Karen didn't have any on her. Mosquitos like Karen and I, evidently, must attract termites. Maybe it's my logging background. Anyway, I stripped down to my b-day suit, jumped off the dinghy to rid me of pests, and left all of the clothes and backpack in the dinghy overnight.

The next day, some friends of ours (whom we met online) arrived in their boat...Jim and Katie Thomsen (their interesting website is attached in the sidebar) They are world travelers on their sailboat. We spent a wonderful evening with them and made plans to stay in touch. The next day they left for St. Maarten, then planned to work their way down island, eventually transitting the Panama Canal. Then they are headed to the South Pacific islands. How cool is that! Maybe someday we will travel in their wake...for now, we have a lot to learn still.

This is a picture of Jim and Katie on their boat Tenaya. We sure hope to run into them again some day.