After sailing in the Bahamas back in 2016, I have been hankering to go back. The combination of sailing, snorkeling, and warm weather was hard to beat. So for my 40th birthday I enlisted Angela to put together a similiar trip for Derek & Diane and us. With that, the trip to the BVIs was born and, after more than 6 months of planning, we headed out to the BVIs in early July 2022.
Our origional plan was to charter a monohull, but it was sold days before our trip. Instead, we were upgraded to a Lagoon 400 - a 40 foot catamaran with a generator and AC. A truely glorious upgrade. The boat was spacious and had some good features, but it was definitely a charter catamaran and had all the bugs and small issues that come with a boat that’s rotated through different captains/crews at a pretty quick pace for several years.
Derek & Diane also put together a series of posts about the trip, so checkout their blog as well for some of the details that I may have missed.
The day before we left, we said farewell to Sara who was off to spend the week in Taos NM with her grandma. It was bittersweet (as it always is) but Sara was very excited to head out with Grandma Joan onto a plane!
Day 1
We started our trip in the early morning (as most trips do) with Derek and Diane picking us up from the airport. Diane made us all new braclets with the BVI colors, which we all wore for the trip, and Angela made us some “Extreeeeme Ahoy” shirts to commemorate my birthday, which we all got quite a bit of use out of (especially during the travel days). Plane trips should be all about building up the excitment for the trip - which this one succeeded in. After some weather trouble in Charlette, we made it to Puerto Rico - our stop for the night. We stayed in a fancy hotel (a Vanderbilt hotel) and had a great nights sleep.
Day 2
The following morning we grabbed some breakfast, we were in a hurry so we didn’t fully take advantage of the breakfast options (but did end up paying for them :) - and headed back to the airport for our final 30 min flight from Puerto Rico to BVIs. The airport was under construction and we had a 0.5 mile walk through construction to get to our gate - which felt a bit like we were walking out of our real lives and into this new place we had never been before (very exostential… I know :)).
After our short flight, a demonstration of our negative COVID tests, and some a quick taxi/water taxi ride we made it to DreamYacht charters and the Scrub Island marina (where our boat was located).
As I mentioned above, our boat was a Lagoon 400 - called the “Silk Pants”. This, being a very odd name for a boat, always created confusion on radio calls - “what was that name again?”. We also did a bit of googling to figure out where the name came from. The decal on the side of the boat said “Stick with me babe and you’ll be wearing Silk Pants” - which seems like it might have been a line out of a movie (?) - but we couldn’t find the line in any movie quotes we could find online. Best we can guess it was either a funny line that the owner came up with or some obscure movie reference that doesn’t come up in Google. At least on first pass, we were very happy with the boat we got - with the biggest upgrades from our Bahamas trip being AC & a diesel generator.
We spent the rest of that day playing on the inflatable ocean trampoline, getting unpacked and situated in our new flowing hotel, and getting our briefing from the charter company (Carlton was our briefer) on how all the boat systems worked. We also got a good lay of the land and reccomendated places to go on our itinerary - which was super helpful. I took a picture of my cryptic notes which basically guided us through the next week of travels… We were still waiting for paddleboards and kayaks to be loaded aboard before we left, so our first night was to be at the marina before we headed out to sea the next day.
Day 3
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Day 3 was surprisingly easy start - Angela was the first up, she made some coffee and left for a walk while we waited for the guy to finish loading the kayaks/SUPs. We decided to grab a captain to help us off the docks (seemed like getting off the docks the first time would be a good time to get some help!) and it was all pretty anti-climatic - we just untied the lines and he turned the boat using track steering (where you have one engine forward and one reverse) and then threw it in forward once we were out from between the boats). I had not remembered/realized how much easier Cats are to handle once you the hang of the track steering. He maneuvered the boat to backup against the dock and hoped off - leaving us to our own demise… :)
After we got sufficiently out of the port, we threw up the sails and had a little cheer that we were on our way.
After a couple of hours of sailing, we made it to our first destination - the Baths at Virgin Gorta. The Mooring field was rather full, but we spotted a ball and started making our way towards it. Another catamaran quickly turned towards the ball and given their closer proximity, we let the have it. We motored around a bit more and saw another cat leaving so we moved in to grab their ball. After a little learning on where the mooring crew should be to grab the ball (center of the pontoons was a lot easier than trying to grab it on one or the other side), we grabbed the ball on our second pass - not bad for our first time as a crew. After getting our stuff together and getting our dingy down, we noticed that the first cat was still having trouble getting their ball and they had partially kicked their anchor loose (likely unintentionally). Bad day…
We then found our first major issue - the dingy fuel line was rusted and the ball bearings would not hold the fuel line to the fuel tank. This meant that someone had to hold the line onto the tank while we were driving. It was a bit annoying, but not so bad that we had to go back for a maintenance call. It ended up being funny more than anything as the driver had someone’s head in their crotch holding the fuel line… the brunt of many jokes.
We drove the dingy in and tied it up to a dedicated dingy line just outside of the baths. After a quick swim in, we found a small beach with shops and resteraunt and a sign taking you into the Baths. The Baths themselves were beautiful - large granite rock formations that created beautiful pools between them. The hike/scramble took you about 1/2 mile up and down stairs/ropeways/swims until we reached the Devil’s bay beach at the other end.
After a quick snorkel in the beach, we headed back through the Baths and back to our boat for lunch. We each swam ashore with a slightly different gear setup (we weren’t sure what to expect), but the one thing none of us brought was cash so we had to leave the beach cocktails for later in the day.
Getting out of the very crowded mooring field was slighly intimidating at first (first time doing it) but was very smooth and uneventful. We got our sails back up and started making our way to the bitter end yacht club on the other (northern) end of Virgin Gorda. We made our way past Richard Branson’s newest resort island - Moskito Island) and waved at his older private resort island - Necker island. Diane was curious and looked it up - you can reserve the island for the low price of $75k per night for you and up to 12 guests - practically giving it away! The wind was particularly strong for us Puget Sound sailors who had very little experience with trade winds. A consistent 15-20 knots and, when we got the sails trimmed, we easily hit 7-8 knots of boat speed - which is flying for a sailboat.
After an easy grab of the mooring ball (Derek had worked out quite the system at this point) and a little lounging/nap time, we headed in to grab some dinner to celebrate our first successful day - with some beer and appetizers at the bitter end. I believe (although I don’t have photo-graphic evidence) that this was the first Conch fritters we had on the trip - something that became a bit of a staple by the end of the trip.
This was the resort that Angela’s parents went to some 20+ years ago for a wedding anniversary, but it was completely destroyed in huricane Irma that hit 2017. Bitter end 2.0 (as they call it) incorporated concrete walls and wood roofs - which it seemed was the construction style of choice for a lot of the places we visited. I don’t know anything about construction to fend of hurricanes, but it seemed like a good choice to have a sacrificial roof (suction forces in strong wind can do a lot of damage) and strong walls/foundations that can survive.
We ended the evening with some planning for the next day - an evening ritual that became the captain’s briefing - and had some rum & cokes on the back deck before heading to bed.
Day 4
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So - it was a bit hot last night. When I came up to grab some coffee, I found that Diane had moved out of her cabin and up to the nets in the front of the boat to cool off. We had run the generator & AC leading up to bed time in order to cool it off and then shut the generator/AC down for the evening (thinking the generator might use up our fuel too quickly). After some quick math (that we really should have done the night before), we realized that the generator used very little fuel and immediately decided that we should run it at night (to power the AC) from now on. It was a unanimous decision… :)
Today we had our longest sail to Anegadas. The “sunken” island got it’s name from the relative flatness of the entire island (the high point was something like 25 feet above sea level). The island is known for it’s lobster and conch - which are both harvested and exported from the island. The island is farily large (15ish sq miles) but you can barely see it until you are right up on it. We left our moorning pretty early in the morning (7 or 8 am) and made our way past Saba rock resort and past Oil Nut bay through a narrow channel into open ocean.
We left about the same time as 4-5 other boats (although they left through the Moskito island cut where we entered the night before) and the race was on! Not really, but we were making great time and sailing in and around all of these other boats was a lot of fun - made you feel like you were part of a fleet (or maybe just a regatta). It took us about 2 hours to make our way to Anegadas (and another half hour motoring through the channel to get to the Anegadas mooring field). The seas were pretty big - our best estimate was 10 foot waves for the first half and dropping to 5-7 foot waves as we got closer to Anegadas (there was a reef providing some protection for the second half of the trip). We spotted a small flamboyance of Flamangoes (probably 6-8) flying about 10 feet above the water and heading to Anegadas. There are two salt water ponds on Anegadas that have flamingos (which we saw later) and it was fun to be sailing right beside them for the last part of our sail.
We grabbed the mooring on first pass and settled in with some snorkeling and SUPing around the mooring field before others arrived. It was only 10a and we had already finished our longest sail of the trip in no-time! As soon as we stopped - Diane spotted a turtle. And then another. This became a trend during the trip - Diane spotting turtles before anyone else - and we would always look to her before we went swimming to see if we were going to be treated with a turtle or two on the swim.
After a bit of relaxing (and ordering lobster dinners for “Silk Pants” - which needed repeating 4 times over the radio before they got it), we headed ashore to explore the island and try our hands at some scooters!
The first stop on our Anegada tour was the flamingo overlook - the Overlook was just south of the salt ponds (which used to produce salt for the british navy back in the day) and we saw a group of 30(ish) flamangoes around some nests. Apparently the Flamangoes were whiped out in the 1960s, although I can’t remember why - huricane or hunted I think - and they were brough back in the 80s. The location seems to be perfect for them - salt pond with plenty of brine shrimp to eat. It certainly could never support one of those huge Flamboyances that you see (with 10k birds) but this smallish colony seemed to be doing pretty well.
Our next stop was Loblolly bay - where we were told we could find beautify beaches and good snorkeling. Our first stop was the Big Bamboo beach bar where we found a new drink called the Diane Rum Punch. This is apparently a drink made across the BVIs - which we were unable to find the origin story for. The beach bar had peoples names and some jokes written on all of the pillars, roof, bar, etc - which we found to be a common occurance across the BVIs. I guess you leave your mark to commemorate your trip and it will last until the next hurricane. We didn’t put “extreeeeeme ahoy” on this bar, but we did on later ones.
After a drink and snack, we headed out for some quick snorkeling and we were not dissapointed. We saw some beautiful fish/coral, but the highlight of the snorkel was a rather large ray digging in the sand for food. Derek had his go-pro and we got some great photos!
Our next stop was the beach bar just next door - the “Flash of Beauty”. This place was amazing - The beach bar itself was fun (brightly painted but very low key) but the owner was the highlight. We realized after we ordered that they only took cash and we didn’t quite have enough for what we ordered, so we were forced to reduce our order to only one plate of Conch fritter (I know - the humanity!!). When she came back out with our order, she brought three plates of fritters and proclaimed “there are more important things in life than money”. The generosity certainly played a role - but I belive these were the best conch fritters we had on the trip - very light/puffy and just the right amount of Conch inclunded… After our snack/drink, a bit more beach time, and a second short snorkel, it was back to the scooters for the second half of the island loop.
We stopped by a place called “Fisherman’s Wharf” expecting it to be a tourist attraction of some kind but instead found what looked like a fishing dock where local fisherman would return with Conch they harvested to sell. The number of shells was somewhat mindboggling - until about 10 min after we left we ran across another overlook for Conch Island. This overlook had a telescope that spied a small island that was made entirely of conch shells. Evidence of the indigenous people (the Caribs), the island was formed from 200+ years of discarded conch shells from their harvests. The Caribs were apparently warlike and cannibalistic - apparently the word Carib transformed into Canibales which became Cannibal - making this island particularly dificult to colonize. Another interesting bit of history…
After this last stop, we finished the loop back to Setting point to return the scooters and head back to the boat to get ready for dinner. We had opted for a full lobster each so we knew we had our work cut out for us and we went light on the post ride snacks.
Carlton reccomended “Potters by the sea” for dinner and we arrived early to get some drinks before dinner. The place was relatively empty when we arrived, but it filled up quickly and was completely full by the time dinner arrived. Lobsters are prepared by bbq on Anegadas (somewhat exclusively I think) and they came out grilled to perfection. We each ate a hardy amount (along with rice for a side) and by the end of the evening we were all pretty stuffed with not a lobster left behind. There was a small dance floor with sand covering it that some of the customers were dancing on later in the evening, including a girl who was close to Sara’s age. Sara would have had a blast here, although I’m not sure what she would have thought of the lobsters…
We ferried back to Silk Pants for another cocktail and a lobster induced coma.
Day 5
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The following morning we were up early, feeling refreshed from a good nights sleep with working AC. We laoded up all our toys and started the longish motor out of the Anegata mooring field through the somewhat narrow channel through the reef. Some of the other boats leaving at the same time hoised their mainsails before they even left the mooring ball (when you are naturally facing into the wind), but we weren’t feeling quite that proficient and threw up the sail only after we got through the channel. The sail to our next stop (Monkey point for snorkeling) was smooth and fast with strong with and much calmer seas than the day before. The wind died when we got into the wind shadow of Gran Camanoe island with the infamous (at least to us) “Throw away Wife” bay - which we were never able to figure out the naming history of - but we did manage to sail most of the way to Monkey point, only motoring for the last 1/4 mile or so.
We were fortunate to find a moring ball right at the end of the Monkey point mooring field and had a wonderful avocado veggie bowl lunch created by Angela/Diane. We decided that we would kayak up to the beach vs taking the dingy (we have the kayaks, might as well use them right?) and found ourselves really working to get up to the beach through the wind (which ended up meaning we barely had to paddle on the way back). We arrived at a very rocky beach and pulled the kayaks onto the rocks before heading out for a snorkel. Monkey point was one of the places Carlton noted as having some of the best snorkeling and we were not dissapointed. Large schools of bait fish had attracted Pelicans, large Tarpin, and even a baracuda to the bay to feed. There was a small cave where the Tarpins seemed to like to hang out while not feeding and we saw several coming in and out throughout the snorkel.
After our snorkel, we went ashore and Derek discovered a rope going up the side of the hill and we decided “eh, why not”. The trail headed up off of the beach and onto a ridge above the mooring field - covered with cactus & sharp rocks (I was only wearing neoprene booties, where everyone else brough sandals - last time I made that mistake). We ran into another couple who was heading up the hill barefoot - they were on a trip with their kids and grandkids - so even grandparents can scamble up a hill barefoot, young at heart.
Our next adventure was to make sail for Cane Garden Bay where we were staying that night. I twas a very short sail, but we were all exhausted and everyone starts to feel a bit drowsy (including those at the helm) so the autopilot came off to keep us engaged until we got to the bay. This was a more built up little down (although they still didn’t have an ATM…) with a small grocery and numberous beach bars/hotels, etc. The view of the beach looked like one of those spanish coastal towns with the brightly colored buildings. We grabbed a mooring without much trouble and loaded into the dingy for a grocery run.
In classic form for the crew, we turned our grocery run into an adventure - walking through the town like we owned the place and stopping for a few cold beers on the way back home. There is something comforting about having a boat fully stocked on snacks/drinks… The beach bars here looked like they might not be our scene (more nightclubs than bars) so we opted for a dinner aboard the boat tonight. We also decided that with ~ 1/3 of a tank of water remaining that we would fill the water tanks at the nearby dock in the morning - which meant we went wild on the showers… :)
We did a quick face time with Sara and got some beautiful pictures of the mooring field as the sun went down. The blue undereffects on some of the boats made the view quite spectacular - like a small boat city right there on the water.
Day 6
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Last night was a bit rough - the AC went out in our cabin despite the generator being on and, not having the wherewithal to troubleshoot in the middle of the night, we suffered through. After some troublehooting the next morning, we discovered that the AC unit that supported the port side & common areas was not getting enough water to function (apparently there is a separate unit that takes care of the starboard side which we were unable to find). We finally called the charter company and they informed us that the seacock had an integrated sea strainer (which we were not aware of). All it took was a simple cleaning and we were good to go again - now, why didn’t we just do that last night!?!
After recovering with some coffee and getting a bit of breakfast, we headed over to the doc to fill up on water. After an odd encounter with a dingy who thought he had the right of way over a 40 foot cat (?), we pulled right into the doc without any issues - although perhaps a bit slower than the dock owner wanted (he was waiting for us to throw lines). Going perticularly slow for my first docking in this big cat seemed prudent, so it didn’t bother me much.
We didn’t have far to go today, ~7nm from Cane Garden bay to Diamond Cay on Jost van Dyke island, so we decided to circumnavigate the island and see if we could spot some dolphins. The seas got a bit rougher as we went around the north (exposed) side of the island, but our boat was quite comfortable in the wind/waves - but, no dolphins. The guidebook mentioned that this was the place to see them and the likelihood of us seeing any on this trip seemed to reduce over time.
With wind appraoching 25 knots in the squalls, we were really flying and hit 8 knots consistantly - with a very proud crew!
We arrived at Diamond Cay mooring field in the middle of a Squall and, instead of just waiting it out, we went for it. It was a rough grab, but we still got the mooring on the second pass (our first pass ended up being the wrong mooring ball - they are numbered when you reserve online but the layouts in real life don’t always match the map). Kudos to Derek! No more than 5 min after we grabbed the mooring, the squall passed and we had sunny skies again.
Our next adventure was to head ashore to the B-line bar. This beach bar was significantly talked up by another vacationer in the water taxi and, while it didn’t quite live up to the hipe, it was a fun bar with a very nice owner. We got some drinks (Painkillers) and lunch and then left our “Extreeeeeme ahoy” mark on the roof. On the way back to the boat we discovered that the dingy drain plug had poped out and the boat was full of water - not a big deal but we had to drag the boat onshore to drain it before setting off. The outboard in the dingy was counter-intuitive and Derek got his second “boat bite” of the trip (small cut on his palm).
With some sustenance, we headed off in search of the bubbling pools - a tide pool that filled from the bottom with bubbly water when the surf came in at the right angle. The pool is about a mile walk from Foxy’s Taboo - another establishment at the top of Carlton’s list for this area. We take our dingy into the beach bar and start our hike up the coast. We found a large painted sign for Jost Van Dyke island and of course had to take some pictures in every combination and angle possible.
We continued our hike along some inland tide pools and followed the signs informing us that the pool was “Dat Way” and “Up Da Rock” (and still managed to lose the the trail for a bit) until we found the pool. Right before we reached the pool, we saw one of the infamous poison manchineel trees. The tree produces a sap from it’s bark, branches, leaves, and fruit that can cause burning blisters if it comes into contact with the skin. The fruit looks just like apples and Columbus actually named them “Death Apple” trees - would not want to be the first one to find that out…
The pool itself was a bit underwhelming. It did bubble, a little, and it did have a pretty view - but perhaps the angle of the waves was off but the bubbling effect was minimal. There were some small fish in the pool and they liked to nibble at freckles/small moles on your legs - not painful, but a very weird feeling. We did some exploring to see the cliffs on the other side of the pool (and found a cool cactus (which I believe is called the Cap cactus) and then made our way back to Foxy’s for a refreshment.
We finish off Day 6 with some delicious bbq sandwiches and fries - hit the spot. The evening was beautiful and we got some great views of the sunset through long bay during the captain’s briefing. :)
Day 7
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Day 7 saw a full recovery of all AC units and sound sleep all around - despite some mild rolling from a more exposed mooring field. We had a bigger sail today, heading south through the Thach island cut and to the south side of Tortola island. We had an amazing breafast of omlets (using asparagus from the night before) and bacon before making sail. We got hit by a few squalls, but in the protected stretch between islands the seas were calm. We ended up motoring through the Thatch island cut where most other boats went around Thatch island - we quickly found out why as we lost all wind coming through the cut and had to motor up past Frenchman’ Cay before getting on a good tack down to the Indians.
Our first stop for the day was at the Indians for snorkeling. We got in fairly early (around 10a) and mooring was easy to find. This was easily the best snorkeling we had on the trip (although this was debated later) - Tons of fish, clear/calm water and interesting coral had us snorkeling here for a while. We didn’t see any big fish here (hence the debate) but the coral structures and the rock shapes were prestine.
Leaving the Indians we make our way to Privateer bay - just outside of Bight bay. We were warned by Carlton that Bight bay can be lound at night and so we opted for mooring slightly outside of the beaten path - and closer to the snorkeling at Treasure point. We grab a few moorings without eyes attached before grabbing the one we ended up at for the night. Diane immediately spots some turtles and we quickly grab our gear and hop into the clear water to see. We watch 2 different turtles swimming around for at least 30 min - quite the sight.
The next stop is the infamous Willy Ts. The guidebook makes crypic reference to tattoos, jumping off the top deck, and nudity but we figured we were getting there early enough in the day to avoid too much craziness - and we were mostly wrong. We tie up our dingy, order some food, and head upstairs to grab a table. About 20 min in, we started to see waves of ppl climbing over the banister and jumping into the water - a few of them choosing to go topless.
Despite all the craziness, we did enjoy some good food in the sun.
We finish up our meals and Derek heads down to pay. About 15 min later he heads back up to inform us that the bartender is occupied - which I assumed meant pouring drinks, but not so. Apparently the reverence to Tatoos in the guidebook was to temporary tatoos that the bartenders were applying to women’s butts beind the counter. All of this, and it was barely 2p. I wonder still what nighttime looks like at this place…
Angela and I decided to do the jump from the top deck - fully clothed of course. When in Rome, right?
After lunch, we headed back to the boat and got ready for our second snorkel of the day. Treasure point was supposedly where pirate treasure was hidden back in the day and there are numberous small caves up and down the coast where this was said to have been done. We swam from the boat up to treasure point (which took about 20 min) and swam around the caves for a while. Beautiful smaller fish and cool lighting effects from the caves were the highlight for this trip. Near the end of our Snorkel, I found some treasure! Small plastic coins floating on top of the seaweed. I grabbed 5 or 6 and took them back to the boat for the crew and for Sara (who I expected would be really excited about them).
We wrapped up the evening with a few drinks and a smaller dinner (snacks really) and enjoyed our decision to stay outside of Bight bay. We were entertained by a falcon flying around the steep hills above (probably a perigrin) rather than the woo-ing of the customers at Willy-Ts.
With our trip 75% complete, the rum was not gone!
Day 8
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We kicked off our last full day of the trip with a rather adventurous sail. We left Privateer bay and headed north to go around Peter island and sail between it and Dead Chest island. Dead chest island was named because of it’s resemblance to a coffin when looked at from the side and from it being the legendary location where Blackbeard marooned 15 men (“15 men on a Dead Man’s Chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”). The relatively calm 3-5 foot seas become 8-10 foot seas as we cross between the islands and I continue to be impressed by how stable the cat is even in these conditions. It was not a favorable tack and motoring is always rougher than sailing in big seas so things calmded quite a bit when we turned back toward Salt island and flipped the engines off. We sail right up to Lee bay and grab a mooring ball.
Lee bay is the site of the sunken HMS Rhone - a mail steamer who sank here back in the late 1800s while trying to escape a hurricane - seems foolish now, but if you didn’t know it was a Hurricane…). This was our first wreckdive of the trip and it was a very different type of snorkeling - much deeper and the coral reclaiming the wreckage is the main attraction rather than the fish.
We only have a quick motor left into Manchioneel bay and we make it up to the mooring field without any issues. This is where my luck ended. Boats were facing all different directions in the bay (likely because the wind and current were going in different directions). Either way, right as we were grabbing the mooring ball the wind shifted and pushed us forward onto the ball while I was trying to back away. Reverse was not fast enough and by the time I realized we were over the mooring, it was too late to shift into neutral and the mooring ended up getting fouled on the starboard prop - killing the engine and wrapping the taught around the prop. Derek dove in to take a look and with some careful reverse on the Port prop to slack the line, Derek was able to unwrap the line and set us free. Kudos to Derek once again! A small wire had broken free, but the prop was still secure and worked effectively - so all things considered, we did ok.
Our evening festivities were to go for a quick snorkel at the southern end of the bay (which was nothing to write home about) and then head into the Cooper island beach club for our last dinner from the boat. Right before heading in to dinner, I jumped in for a quick swim and forgot to take my phone out of my pocket. It was supposed to be waterproof, but it was an old phone and this was it’s last stand. Thankfully, I had backed up photos on wifi the night before, so I only lost photos from that day - and everything else was backed up. We head in to explore…
After a walk through the resort, we headed to the beach for some chelaxing and pre-dinner drinks.
Cooper island beach club was rebuilt after 2017 (like everything else) but it was built to be completely self sustaining with solar/wind power, on-site distilisation, and eco-friently construction. The resort was on a beautiful beach and they had their own microbrew beer, rum bar, and several small shops/spa/etc. After some drinks on the beach, we headed in for dinner. Dinner was delicious with the exception of the conch fritters, which were just ok.
The bar had a bunch of fun artifacts/chochkies. Nothing that needed to be brought home with us, but some fun memories.
Goodnight BVIs!
Day 9
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We all woke rested, but melancholy about our trip coming to an end. We had some chores to take care of this morning, so we sailed up to Spanish town on Virgin Gorda to fill up on fuel. It was windy for the docking, but I was getting much more comfortable with track steering and more confident steering the cat in tight places. We had a relatively straightfoward docking, filled up about half a tank of deisel (turns out the generator used even less than our estimate), and pulled back out without any issues.
Our last sail from Spanish town back to Scrub island was calm with good wind. We made great time and had a relaxing last sail into the marina. We called in as we got closer (expecting the company to send someone out to meet us - they had informed us that they would when we left) but we were instead given a dock to head to. It was particularly windy in the marina (~19 knots) and this ended up being the final docking test - success.
We spend the next hour or so packing up and checking out. The dock was particularly busy today and everying seemed to indicated we were not doing things the way they are normally done (despite following instructions provided to us by the last person). Still, the inspection went well and we were on our way. We took the water taxi back to Beef island and then grabbed a car taxi to take us to our hotel on the main island of Tortola (bridge connecting it to Beef island).
Fort Burt was a hotel that was built out of a converted dutch fort. Built in 1666, it was convered into a hotel in 1953 and rennovated in 1967. It had seen better days, but you could see how it was probably the place to be back in the 70s. Our room wasn’t ready yet and we were starving, so we headed across the street for a lunch at the nearby pub. The room was ready by the time we made it back and we got more of the 70s flare - the room had a roof top hot tub (which was drained and looked like it hadn’t been used in at least a decade) and the white/pink style looked like it was straight out of a movie.
We still had an afternoon to kill, so we opted to take the mile or so walk down to the Wickam’s Cay area and stopped at a pub called Pussets - which is the name used for an officer on a ship who acts like a quartermaster - taking care of crew/passagers. The bar was filled with sailing/boating memorabilia and they had a little shop in the back with sailing stuff. We had a couple of drinks - our last painkillers of the trip - and some early dinner before we headed back to the hotel.
Until next time BVIs!!
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