USVI-On-Line

Captain John Brandi of Palm Tree Charters is reporting that the Westin ferry, "Westin Breeze" is on the same reef that the car barge hit last week.
All passengers are reported to be off the boat now. I am following his reports on Facebook.

Shame on them for moving that reef into the shipping lane. That's the only explanation I can give. It's not like we are talking about pleasure boats that have never been to STJ.

JIM

Captain Brandi has just reported that the boat is now off the reef... no report of the extent of any damages.

Its global cooling, all the snow in the mid West and in Europe has dropped the water levels of the ocean around STJ

shoemak38 Thanks for clearing that up. I was worried that someone had pulled a big plug somewhere to make the water levels drop

I heard that a number of major league baseball players recently visited STJ and as they were passing near that reef a patrol boat approached them and in a panic they dumped their steroids overboard. The rest is history...

Just watched it being towed & escorted by 5 small boats past Cruz Bay! Looked as if it might be pumping off water! When we left the Westin earlier today, they said they have 50+ check ins today and over 150 tomorrow! I imagine some one''s not having a very good day!

What a mess - again. I really wonder what the story is behind these two boats hitting the reef (besides the explanation above !) AT least there are no injuries to people, not so sure about the reef.

See djmoms' signature for a clue to one possible explanation...

CariBert wrote:I just wonder...is it the reef or the rocks that they are running aground on? In the aftermath of all the storms this season, maybe the bouys been moved by the storms? Or have the rocks shifted from the earthquakes?
-Bert

These two possibilities entered my mind as well... but another possibility is that those golf balls rumored to have been driven into the bay when a Mr. Woods was rumored to be at the Presidio del Mar may have washed to the west around Cruz Bay and built up the Steven's Cay reef.


Interestingly, I found an article in the St John Source that an InterIsland ferry had hit Steven's Cay in December 2005. I have not read of any explanations.
http://stjohnsource.com/content/news/lo ... -cay-rocks

augie wrote:See djmoms' signature for a clue to one possible explanation...

LOL augie...very very possible.

I was also thinking maybe the island has floated off of it's normal spot, thus confusing the ferry pilots?

Or even more possible, someone swam under the island, bumped their head, jarring it from it's current position?

glad everyone got off ok