It took us a day or two to recover from all the excitement of the bachelor party.  Although Red Hook anchorage can be somewhat rolly from wake caused by the numerous ferries that use the port, it suited us quite well as we could catch up on some internet activities and tidy up a bit.  We then had a lovely peaceful couple of nights in Francis Bay on St John where we enjoyed some walking, doing one or two little boat maintenance tasks and we managed to clean off many of the barnacles and slime from the bottom of the boat using a scraper, Scotch Brite and snorkel and fins.  Hank and Seal on Flash showed up the second night and invited us to join them and two other couples from other boats for sundowners, a very pleasant time.

Next morning we headed out early to check back into the BVI and be on the dock for a 9am appointment with B&G Marine as Todd is a Spectra agent there and we were having difficulties changing the filters for the watermaker.  That turned out to be an easy fix (for once) but we also wanted to have our fuel polished because we have been seeing water in our Racor filter.  That turned out to be a bigger job as we discovered a hole (caused by a misplaced screw) in one of the fuel lines so it had to be replaced too.  There was a beautiful red sunset that night, as you can perhaps see from the featured photo at the head of this blog.

Since then we spent a night in Great Harbor, Peter Island, where we enjoyed a drink (and wifi) in the lovely Peter Island Resort.  We took yet another tranquil sunset photo of the anchorage from the beach as we returned to the boat.  But the best was yet to come because the next night we decided to get away from the crowds by anchoring off the southern side of Cooper Island in Hallover Bay.  We were the first boat to anchor there.  A few others visited in the afternoon but only we stayed overnight.  There was little wind and the forecast was for light wind overnight with a little bit of North in the easterlies so there wasn’t much swell and we were confident we were in a good spot for the night.  I loved it as it made me imagine what it might be like anchoring in remote spots in the Pacific.  That afternoon, Howard donned his scuba gear and I my snorkel and fins and we had one more go at cleaning the remaining barnacles and slime off the bottom, the rudder and propellor.  Now the boat is ready to be left for almost a month while we head off to Oregon for Scott’s wedding.