Leg 23 – Caribbean – British Virgin Islands (BVI)

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) is an archipelago composed of four main islands, Virgin Gorda to the east, Jost Van Dyke to the west, Tortola in between these two and further away to north east the wild island of Anegada. In addition there are several smaller islands.

From Saint Martin, Virgin Gorda is the closest island with a custom and immigration office. This is why we chose it to make our first landfall in the BVI. When it was time for us to do our check-in, unfortunately for us and for the officials who were working on that day, Sailclear, the system that is used by immigration and custom offices throughout the Caribbeans, was not working. The entire arrival procedure must therefore be done by hand. As we were also many in queue it took very long time. After three hours waiting, patience paid out and we were clear to enter and enjoy the BVI !

After a relaxing afternoon on the boat, we enjoyed a wonderful evening with light winds and no waves, apart from those from the ferries coming in and out the harbour from time to time. Conditions that we had been dreaming about for a long time and quite unusual because Saint Thomas Bay is known to be rolly.

Being in the BVI felt very special to us as we anticipated those days to be the last full relaxing ones in the Caribbeans before heading back to Saint Martin to start the preparation of the boat for the long sail back to Europe. Exploring the BVI would have required more time than we actually spent but we felt anyhow very grateful that we could visit a bit of the archipelago.

The Bath, Virgin Gorda

The Bath is a National Park located south of Saint Thomas Bay where we were anchored the first days. It took us about forty-five minutes to walk there from the marina of Spanish Town where we docked the dinghy. On the way, we got passed by many tourist buses, all heading towards that place. So obviously on arrival, we found a long queue of tourists at the entrance of the park. That was not a very inviting scenery so instead of joining the queue, we chilled in the bar restaurant for a couple of hours and enjoyed a cool drink with the beautiful viewpoint toward Tortola.

At some point, the crowd got hungry and rushed back to the restaurant, leaving the park free for us to explore with calm.

Walking back to Spanish town we came accross an interesting road sign. How should it be interpretated? British humour?

The visit of The Bath felt like a great introduction to the BVI. After a couple of nights in Saint Thomas Bay, we lifted the anchor and set sail north toward Gorda Sound.

Gorda Sound, Virgin Gorda

Located north of Virgin Gorda, seven nautical miles from Saint Thomas Bay, Gorda Sound is a large bay surrounded by several islands, shoals and reefs that provide protection from the swell from all directions and winds up to some extent, making it a popular destination for boaters… and racers : three spectacular racing boats where moored at the Marina, Leopard 3, Black Jack 100 and Deep Blue that we saw earlier in Antigua prior to RORC 600 race.

Despite the nice surrounding, we felt quite isolated. It was blowing quite a bit so moving with the dinghy was not especially comfortable. The nearest village that we reached was a tourist village without that much to offer apart from a nice bar. We were actually afraid to sit at the bar and ask for a beer, who knows how much it would cost ? In many places in the BVI, shops don’t show prices. We suppose that money is not a concern for most of the tourists traveling there. Whatever the price is, they pay. But we are not that kind of tourists …

At the end of our second day in Gorda Sound, the winds decided to get back blowing 11 m/s continuous and 15 m/s in gusts. Even without waves, strong wind on anchor can be quite tiring on the long run as it creates a lot of noise in the rigging and moves the boat a lot.

In an attempt to find a more protected bay, we left Gorda Sound to sail to Trellis Bay, eleven nautical miles away, on March 15. Right before lifting the anchor, a squall passed over us and created a beautiful rainbow behind us.

Trellis Bay, Beef Island

It took about two hours to reach Trellis Bay sailing mostly downwind in 11 to 15m/s winds. Most of the bay was occupied by buoys but we found a narrow spot to drop our anchor. At first attempt, the anchor got entangled in a chain that was laying down on the bottom. Since it was only 3m deep, it was easy to free the anchor and reposition it. But after half an hour, we witnessed two rental catamarans crashing into other boats that were on anchor. Both boats collided because their helmsman went too close to the bow of the other boats that were on anchor and their rudder caught the anchor chain that was in tension because of the strong winds. That was not a funny spectacle and we got a bit worried ourselves because we were quite close to the main channel so we decided to move to another spot. We found one, more shallow but further away from the boat traffic.

When reanchoring, it took several attempts to find good grip with the anchor, considering we got the anchor again entangled in stuff laying on the bottom. There was quite a lot of junk actually down there, many old chains, old lines and old anchors. But we also spotted several fishes including a stingray that seemed to be very curious about the chain, a one and half meter tarpon and a spotted trunkfish.

Our stay in Trellis Bay was not as relaxing as we were hoping due the very strong gusts that swiped the anchorage but we got the company of a french sailor, Julien, sailing S/Y Desirade with whom we spent a couple of dinners on boat Lovisa and then onboard Desirade. We also hiked to Mount Alma. Mount Alma stands about 200m above sea levels and offers a fantastic overview over the Virgin Islands. We could see Virgin Gorda looking toward east, Tortola toward west and further away East End, part of St John Island that belongs to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

After our second night in Trellis Bay we sailed away once again in the hope of finding a more protected bay in which we could finally relax. We were initially thinking about going to Jost Van Dyke, but with wind blowing east south east we thought it would be rolly. Instead we made route towards Long Bay on the west end of Tortola but we stopped on the way in Cane Garden Bay further north as we found that anchorage promising.

Cane Garden Bay, Tortola

We sailed to Cane Garden Bay with winds constantly blowing over 12m/s. We were literally surrounded by catamarans. Monohulls are by far a minority in the BVI.

We found in Cane Garden Bay what we were looking for. Flat water and lighter winds despite a few strong gusts from time to time. Such a delight to be able to relax.

After two relaxing nights, we moved to Privateer Bay on Norman Island. The island belongs to the group of islands called the Little Sisters located south of Tortola. We sailed downwind in 6 to 8m/s wind until West End. Then we tacked our way along the border with United States Virgin Islands until Norman Island.

Privateer Bay, Norman Island

The center of the bay is quite deep but going closer to the southern part, outside of the mooring ball field, we found a big sand patch to drop the anchor in 8m depth. In other words, we managed to save fifty dollars. And that was the price per night …

In the anchorage, we again met Julien sailing S/Y Desirade who was also anchored there and we enjoyed a fika together later during the day.

Privateer Bay was an amazing place for snorkeling. It is actually quite an exercise to recognize the fishes we saw. Amongst the fish we were able to recognize we saw parrot fish, sergent major, blue tang surgeon fish, smallmouth grunt, angelfish, spanish hogfish, atlantic spadefish, halfbeaks, squirrelfish, barracudas including big ones over 1m with a hook in the mouth (apparently someone lost a jig), huge tarpons and several southern sting rays. Of course, turtles where also part of the landscape. In addition to this, it was possible to swim into a cave and out the other side, so cool. This place was a real gem, we loved it!

We ramained only one night on Norman Island as we decided to make our way back to Saint Martin already on March 21. We would have willingly spent more time in the BVI but sailing is also about compromising. It is quite easy to sail from Saint Martin to the BVI during this time of the year with trade winds blowing constantly towards west. Because the wind rarely changes direction in the area during this time of year, sailing back from the BVI to Saint Martin can be quite tricky. When we sailed to the BVI we were hoping for a change in wind direction that would allow us to have a smooth sail back straight to Saint Martin instead of a rough and uncomfortable passage sailing close reach in fully blown trade winds. And we got one, even though it was a bit earlier than we were hoping. After several weeks of strong wind blowing from east, on March 21, the wind started to turn slowly from east to south with strength slowly decreasing. The wind was expected to die during the night to then come back blowing from east a few days later. Between staying longer and having a rougher sail back to Saint Martin or coming back earlier with an easy sail straight back to Saint Martin, we made our choice.

From Privateer Bay, we sailed back to Saint Thomas Bay on the afternoon of March 20 in order to make our clearance out of BVI in Spanish Town early the following morning.

We left the BVI on March 21 right after our visit to the customs and immigration. Winds behaved exactly as forecasted and we could sail a direct route towards Saint Martin. The first four hours were very bumpy but the wind decreased slowly along the tour and the sea flattened.

The wind died when we were about 7 nautical miles from Anse de Marigot so we had to run the last few nautical miles on engine. We felt very grateful for such a nice sail back to Saint Martin, that was far from given…

We dropped the anchor in Anse Marigot in complete absence of wind a bit before 6 am. This was just before the first lights of dawn that we enjoyed while we were fixing the boat.

We cruised along the Caribbeans for more than three months taking care of Lovisa and keeping her in good shape along the way. In Saint Martin we will get Lovisa and ourselves ready for the next chapter of this whole adventure and the long sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and back to Sweden.