Jost, White Beach, and Gertrude's

We had to motor in towards St. Thomas, around Inner Brass Island, in order to have the wind in a quarter that would allow us to sail into Great Harbour on JVD. We arrived at midafternoon.

Reed's is a series of information books for cruisers. It's 2008 Caribbean volume says the anchorage at Great Harbour is not very good, being largely rock. We learned this to be true. We tried to set the anchor five times. It finally held...sort of. WW hastened ashore to clear customs and immigration, leaving me with a radio in case Django dragged. When he returned, he announced we'd be moving. He said he wouldn't get a wink of sleep if we tried to stay there.

I thought he meant we'd sail over to Tortola and wasn't too happy. I really wanted to visit JVD. WW then clarified: he just wanted to sail to a bay we'd seen on our way in. White Beach, just west of Great Harbour, is beautiful. It's protected by reefs, but a clearly marked channel takes you in. Best of all, it has moorings. Half an hour later, we were settled in at a nice, reliable mooring and working on our RPs.

WW went ashore to explore a bit and returned saying we'd better go to dinner at once since things were set to close in a couple of hours. We went to Gertrude's. That's where I realized we'd arrived in the West Indies. Gone the Spanish, gone the Latino look; here were sing-song English and Caribbean black in all their glory.

Gertrude turned out to be a large, formidable woman. She sat behind the bar and took our orders. First we wanted prices.

"Everything is $25," she said. "The lobster is $45 or $50. Wine is $30 for a bottle."

A simple price list if, I thought, rather inflated. WW ordered grilled mahi mahi and I ordered a shrimp roti. I went to the bar for a bottle of white wine. Gertrude handed it over with the corkscrew. I said, "If I do a good job, will you hire me?" She gave me a look, then said, "Sure."

The food was delicious. We were both blown away by it. After we'd eaten, I went back to Gertrude. "You know," I said, "When you told me your prices, I thought you were nuts. But now I've tasted the food, I take it all back."

She almost smiled.