Our Stay in the BVI's

Our Stay in the BVI’s

The BVI’s are an archipelago of 40 islands, rocks and cays. They also are volcanic islands. One island Anegada is surrounded by the second largest coral reef in the world.

Checking into customs here in Soper's Hole Tortola was very straight forward.

We’ve decided to wait out the weather a little longer in Soper’s Hole. We’ve been hiking and generally relaxing and having a good time .

Randy being the good semaritan.

April 13th. We’ve noticed the CAT in front of us has changed it’s home port and is now flying a Canadian flag. Going over to meet them we find out they too are from Victoria.—Their names are Derek and Cathy. It truly is a small world.

Out for "Happy Hour" with Kathy and Kerry and our new Victoria friends Derek and Cathy.

April 12th Sat,

This morning we mentioned to Frances (the gentleman who comes around to collect our mooring fee) that it sure looked like we were in for some rain. He states: “No, no. No rain to-day.” Well, did we get rain. Not only rain but high winds and thunder with lightening. The next morning we were waiting for Frances to ask what happened with the weather. Instead a yound man came to do the collecting. We told him we wanted to joke with Frances about yesterdays storm. The young man said in his whole life he had never seen it as stormy as yesterday. “Must be global warming” he says. Where oh where have we heard this before????

April 15th .We had a little entertainment today. We watched as two passenger ferry’s raced to a dock. The smaller of the two cut off the larger ferry and proceeded to park right in the center of the dock. The captain of the larger ferry, not impressed, jumped out from his helm and proceeded to yell and scream at the smaller boat. It looked like he was going to ram the smaller ferry. The smaller ferry quickly unloaded its passengers and flew off allowing the larger ferry to finally dock. YIKES!!

April 16th. The weather has improved so we are saying good bye to Soper’s Hole and will tour as much of the BVI’s as we can in the next few days. Our first stop is Norman Island. We have been on a coarse of 160 degrees for over an hour . A good sail.

We are on a mooring ball in The Bight probably 150 feet from shore. Snuggled in the cove is a bar called Pirates Bight. We spent the afternoon snorkeling through a couple of caves.

April 17th.
Our next stop was to be Peter Island. We sailed at 4 ½ knots.. Arriving at the anchorage we took down our sails only to find it to busy so back up with the sails and press on to Buck Island. We sailed all the way averaging 6 ½ knots with 3 reefs in the main (due to the rip) FABULOUS!!! By 1225 hours we were anchored in 15 feet of water. By 1500 hours we have reset the anchor three times due to a shelf that causes us to drag. Randy dove each anchoring---Third time lucky and we’re set. We added a bridle to keep us into the swell. Donna and Barry (Sea Star eh) joined our anchorage and we had them along with Kathy and Kerry over for Happy Hour.

Buck Island is privately owned. Unfortunately for us and very disappointing was the fact the best protective anchorage was taken up by three, yes three mooring balls that all said private, which of coarse means not for our use. And not that we were interested in using them, but we felt they were only put there to deter boaters staying in the Bay.

April 18th.
0800hours and our anchor is up. Our bridle was not perfect last night. Rand had toget up during the night to adjust---the chain was rubbing against the bow a bit.
By 0930 hours we were on a mooring behind a large reef at Marina Cay. Marina Cay is now owned by Pusser’s Rum. We bought the DVD which tells the story about a couple- Robb and Rodie White who bought the island back in the late 1930’s for under $90.00 to homestead. It reminded me of when we bought the Malahat property with all our trials and tribulations.

Lynn playing bar tender at Marina Cay.

We went by complimentary ferry to Trellis Bay.

There were a number of these metal balls in and out of the water. Each month on the full moon they are filled with wood and set ablaze.

Our timing was good as we got to see a bit of an air show.

Can't get much better than this to check our emails.

Back at Marina Cay we went out for a delicious dinner with Kathy and Kerry.

Sat. April 19th.
0850hours—Time to move on to Virgin Gorda Sound. These past few days we have been spoilt by short island hops which we have thoroughly enjoyed. We’ve decided there looks like a good weather window Tues. or Wed. to jump off the NE end of Vigin Gorda for St. Martin so we are heading to Virgin Gorda Sound 12 nm away. The winds should be 10-15 knots; the seas 5-7 feet. We’ll see. We’ve decided to sail on the outside of the Dog Islands.
0925hours Motor off; 4.4 knots but we are sailing. YEAH!!

01000hours Sailing between 6 and 7.2 knots
01055 hours, Wind has died; foresail in, motor on—BOO!!
01215hours We’re in Leverick Bay and it took checking out three mooring balls before we found a good one.

We went on an adventure by dinghy down to see what was at Bitter End and there is a lot more to see and do so we’ll move tomorrow.

This is a fabulous Restaurant/Bar on Saba Rock.

April 20th.
01000hours. We’ve gone to the Leverick Bay dock. Included in our $25.00 mooring fee is 250 gallons of water and a bag of ice. We have not been on a dock since last June so this was good practice as the weather was perfect.

Moving up by Saba Rock we managed to anchor off the moorings.

We have also found out there is no bus service back to Spanish Town so we will have to back track in the boat to clear out of customs.

Enjoying a Sundowner at Saba Rock with Kathy and Kerry.

April 21st.

Our plan today is to pull up anchor at 0700hours and head to Spanish Town. Awakening at 0545 we see all the moored boats on our starboard were situated at a point where we had more room to pull up anchor.

We headed into the middle of Gorda Sound, enjoyed a cup of coffee and slowly worked our way down to where Kathy and Kerry were anchored. It is already boiling hot out. We’ve donned our 45 SPF sunscreen, hats and sunglasses. It’s approximately 6nm to Spanish Town which is in St. Thomas Bay.

Breakfast first and then we cleared customs and immigration and by 1140hours we were heading back to Gorda Sound. Customs asked us exactly what time we were leaving the BVI’s.

1500hours...Good bye to the BVI's and we're on our way to St. Martin. We've had contact with Song Bird and it sounds like we'll meet up in St. Martin.