2013-02-12

I decided to finally attempt to locate and visit the bubbly pool on Jost van Dyke, particularly as I could see that the north swell was making for some spectacular rollers smashing into the north side rocks of little Jost van Dyke. I started off and once again made the mistake of trying to walk across the mangrove swamp in search of a path; but fortunately I joined two other first-timers and we stuck to the outside and soon found a path – actually, more like a highway … I don’t know how I could have missed it last time.
I took a lot of pictures while up on the rocks and then at the bubbly pool, which was more of a frothing maelstrom today; so this page is rather graphic overloaded since it was difficult to prune down the more than 100 pictures to just a few.
After the walk to the bubbly pool I returned to Zanshin and decided to leave and get a good overnight anchoring position in Great Harbour on Jost van Dyke. While I was in Great Harbour early, I was rather dismayed to see the proliferation of mooring balls; the last time I’d visited there were just a couple of mooring balls, now most of the anchorage is filled and the only places remaining to anchor a boat with over 8 feet of draft is quite far outside. Unfortunately, that not only means a long dinghy ride to the dock but also that the boats out there are somewhat exposed to the seas and I found Zanshin rolling around quite a bit but had little choice (well, I could have taken a mooring ball, but that was what I was trying to avoid). On my first anchoring attempt I felt the chain drag but on my second attempt it held. I put on mask and fins and dove on the anchor to find that it wasn’t deeply dug into the rocky underground, but that my chain had somehow managed to get underneath a big coral head so I dove to move the chain away from that potential snag.
Dinner was a Corsair’s bar and their pizza was as good as ever, I even managed to eat more than half before being sated. The heavy meal plus Red Stripes put me in a mood for sleep and I did notice that my back was getting better, albeit moving around in a supine position is still occasionally quite painful.