Finally we are going to the BVIs

Now we had heard a lot about them – the British Virgins, but we had never met them. They are supposed to be beautiful full of nice little cosy places to hide away... but you will never be alone, there is always someone coming along to snuggle up to these beautiful British Virgins, and from what we have been told – it is mainly charterers with all the known dangers associated with them – poor anchoring, aggressive mooring techniques and a certain agenda that doesn’t warrant or care about making sure their boat is securely hooked before departing for the bar.

“Not to worry” we said and invited Jon and Sam (Imagine of Falmouth) over for drinks and nibbles to tell us all about it – and it did sound nice. So the first good weather window we checked out of St Martin and did an overnight to Virgin Gorda. It was a beautiful, fast, downwind sail with a couple of gibes thrown in to keep us on our toes during the night and we arrived at Spanish Town Virgin Gorda and dropped anchor in a notoriously “bad holding” anchorage. Then we sat down and waited our hour to see we were holding before we headed ashore to clear in. So as not to waste this time, we checked for internet and got our emails. We got one from Rob and Kathy (Quetico) who had arrived in Virgin Gorda a couple of days ahead of us. It said BVIs are nice but crowded with charterers in every anchorage they tried to visit so they took off to St John’s USVIs.

As we were reading this a charter boat came in to the anchorage, proceeded to the small opening in front of us, threw all their chain over the bow, turned the engines off without pulling back, got in the dinghy and went ashore without even looking behind at us.

Well this and Quetico’s email convinced us this was not the place for us and we hauled anchor and motored around to the leeward side of St John’s and took a mooring in Caneel Bay. It was peaceful heaps of room and we knew that we had made the right decision, despite having only motored through all the beautiful British Virgins.

We got Debbie down and hightailed it around to Border Protection offices in Cruz Bay and checked into the US Virgins instead. After checking in, we decided we deserved a nice cold Margarita to finish the day off nicely and we did.
The next two days were spent exploring Cruz Bay (shops and restaurants). We thought the church parking bays we particularly well signed.



After lunch we ran into Dave and Colleen (Promise) and we all caught the bus around to Coral Bay and watched Colleen and Dave have their lunch at a bar there.



There was not much else to see there, so having been there, done that and bought the T shirt, we headed back to our boat and got ready to head to St Thomas for some more shopping.



In St Thomas we did the usual, Kmart, Home Depot and Cost U Less and relaxed a bit at the bars at the Marina, where we caught up with Rob and Kathy. Then before we left there was one more unusual stop... an Ice Bar! If anyone had told me I would be dressing in a parka in the tropics, I would have thought them mad... but here I am.



The bar was full of ice sculptures, of both local legend, Pirates and Nordic Adventurers (including Santa Claus) and all bathed in an eerie purple, blue and green light.



Karen was lining up next year’s presents with Santa whilst I was checking out the mermaids.



Of course it was only right that we sampled the local flavoured rum (it was included in the price of entry) so we selected the vanilla rum which even Karen enjoyed.

COMMENT: 

AUTHOR: Silke & Patrick 

URL: http://www.la-palma-sailing.com 

DATE: 5/13/2012 8:02:05 AM 

great to hear from you guys! keep on posting!

we'll leave for Azores next week to spend our "summer hols" there (till beginning of August), if you like - follow our blog. great waters!
"big plans" are still on for beginning next year.... keep in touch! XX

COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Andrew & Janice
DATE: 10/15/2012 8:29:05 AM
So...where are you now, how are we going to sail vicariously if you are not blogging - hope all is well Janice and Andrew (Melbourne)