Category: BVI

It’s been 6 weeks since we arrived back to the British Virgin Islands. We took the first night in Soper’s Hole (West End Tortola) to recover and get some much needed rest. Then we headed to the Bitter End where the boats in the rally would gather through to US Thanksgiving.

This year in Bitter End we opted to anchor instead of taking a mooring (last year they were free to the Dawgs, this year it is a cost of $20/day). Yes, we are cheapo’s. Hey, I figure we can always use the money to eat out or take in a happy hour now and then.

Both Paul and I took in 10 days of yoga. Judie on Rum Runner arranged with a yoga instructor to come to the Bitter End pool deck and take us through our sun salutations, etc. for $5/person. A great deal for an hour of instruction and after 11 days on the water, we all could use a little loosening up.

Yoga feels good after 10 days at sea

OK now stretch

We also joined in on the pizza party, happy hour at Saba Rock and at the Fat Virgin, homestyle thanksgiving dinner at the Fat Virgin, and a lunch and hike down from Hog Heaven. We also had a musical jam session on our boat with Kalunamoo, Rum Runner and Destiny.

Salty Dawgs having a get together at the Crawl Pub at BEYC

Salty Dawgs loving the view and food at Hog Heaven

North Sound entrance reef with Mosquito island left and Anegada just visible at the top

Heading down, Bitter end (white roofs) at left look a long ways away and down

The greens and blues never cease to amaze

Happy Dawgs heading down from Hog Heaven

Getting steeper, shins getting sorer.

Maybe we should grab a cool one at the Cool Corner Bar

A bit steep coming down from Hog Heaven but getting closer

Paul took some time out of his day to aid a fellow boater who had hurt his fingers in a block on the passage and needed a few repairs done to his boat. Luckily for Pete his fingers recovered nicely and the repairs were manageable for Paul.

As our net controller, Bill from Kalunamoo, departed on Thankgiving day, I volunteered to take over as Net Controller for our morning net until the end of November. It was fun to do, Paul did the weather report for it and I did the rest.

As we tired of North Sound we headed over to Little Harbour on Peter Island. Here the water is clear and the snorkeling is terrific. It’s a harbour where you need to stern tie so you are close to shore. We love it there, but the bugs, oh my, we got bites galore, mostly from little flies. While in Little Harbour we got together on Blue Sky with Simplicity (Ralph and Kathy) and Accapella (Martin and Ellen). We had some great appies, followed by my Curried Cauliflower over rice and Kathy’s Apple Pie.

On December 10th we headed to Road Town and picked up a mooring for the night. These are new moorings to the east of the new cruiseship dock at a cost of $30/night or $10/hour. Let me tell you, you’ll never get everything done in Road Town in 1 hour, so even if you are not staying for the night, pay the $30 so you have all the time you need to get reprovisioned. It’s a short dinghy ride to the dock near BVI Yacht Charters, walk through the gate and cross the road to the large Rite Way store. There is also a hardware store and fuel station for Propane within a block of each other. Paul got the propane tank refilled and met me at the grocery store where we stocked up. We take a taxi back to our dinghy for $10. Well worth it when you are buying a lot of heavy stuff.

Later that day we headed into Road Town to the Salty Dawg gathering at Bamboushay Lounge. Here we enjoyed live music provided by the local college music program and might I say a very talented group. We enjoyed a delicious meal with about 80 other Salty Dawgs and their friends and family. It was good to be joined by Linda and Bill from Sapphire who were delayed in their departure and missed all the events in North Sound.

Since then we’ve wandered back to Peter Island, Soper’s Hole, Cane Garden Bay and back to North Sound.  We managed some snorkeling along the way at Peter and North Sound.

The shore at Little Harbor is just a hop away when stern tied

Just gotta love the great snorkeling from the stern in Little Harbor

Looks to be Charlie adrift on the SUP

Aha, Charlie is not alone – in tow

At least you often get rainbows after squalls

Another great rainbow

On Christmas Eve we watched the Lighted Boat Parade from Saba Rock Bar but were first entertained by an amazing kite boarder.  Sorry about the pic quality but it was dusk just before the parade.

First run directly at us in the bar – this guy is going about 25 mph!

Preparing for takeoff just mere feet from the restaurant

Take off!

Flying through the sky

Flying on by

And one more run with altitude.

Running at the dock again, ready for liftoff

Heading up above the roof

Just how high? a good 20 or more feet

Starting to descend

Heading for a landing

Finally the lighted boats!

Here comes the lighted boat parade

Merry Christmas!

Santa’s new ride for the BVI

We’re not sure where we are headed next, but we’ll be in the BVI’s until mid January as we have our son and daughter in law coming for a delayed honeymoon on Blue Sky (can’t wait).

Santa delivered on time despite a squall fading in the background

Full moon over North Sound

As usual, it was a bit of a mad scramble getting ourselves and the boat ready for the passage. G did a great job getting the boat provisioned early on but P kept running into issues prepping the boat. The biggest discovery was that the lithium batteries which have performed flawlessly for over a year were discovered to be a major noise source which made it difficult to receive distant calls on the SSB. Actually the EMS system on the batteries was the guilty party. Since this is critical to battery safety, it created a dilemma. For the trip, P wired a special switch to briefly shut down the EMS during radio calls. It worked so well that we were hearing all manner of other traffic on the radio that we had never been able to pull out of the noise. So that was a great discovery. The downside is a more permanent solution is going to be more complex.

But we managed to get all ready for the Nov 2 departure but that day didn’t look very promising so we delayed to the 3rd. The forecast winds were the wrong direction and a tropical storm was brewing which later became hurricane Kate. But delaying also had a nasty front brewing the following week, so we opted to go with the devil we knew rather than wait around another week. Many other boats departed on the same day and we seemed to roughly transit at the same rate so we had more company for the whole trip than we did the last 2 trips down to BVI. Of course on the ocean a “close” boat is one that is less than 50 miles away. We would occasionally spot another boat at sunset or sunrise when it was easiest to see or at night.

So off we set motorsailing out of the Chesapeake with a nuclear sub for a brief escort

We had delayed a day so the Northeast wind blowing against the gulf stream current would subside and make for an uncomfortable ride instead of extremely uncomfortable. Of course it didn’t help that the path through the gulf stream meant we had to sail to windward close hauled (most uncomfortable point of sail). Taking pictures of waves doesn’t impart a good view of the sea state, but a few of our fellow Salty Dawg sailors happened to be passing nearby and that should give you some idea of the uncomfortable motion. Kind of like riding that mechanical bull at a bar out west. Pics are a bit blurry due to the motion and getting late in the day but you should get the idea.

Going up

Coming down

Heeling a bit

OK, now flying a hull – oops

To exacerbate the situation, the wind clocked southeast as we were getting across the stream which meant we had to go northeast or southwest, both of which kept us in the stream. Didn’t take long for the captains to decide that despite having plenty of wind, staying in the stream was a lousy idea, so 6 hours of motoring later, we exited the stream and its steep waves but still had lousy sailing southwest in a cross swell, meaning the swell was coming from the northeast from the day before and now we got wind driven waves from the southeast all the while we were still sailing close hauled into the wind. What this means is that if the northeast swell meets a big wind driven wave at the same point as your boat meets them – well let’s just say we found ourselves still on the mechanical bull despite being out of the stream. The unfortunate part in retrospect is that we experienced this type of sea while sailing to windward for 9 out of our 11 day trip. Although we love passage making normally, this was one passage we were happy to be done with.

But we did have some fun along the way which is why we called it the “bird” trip. Our first passenger was a little guy/gal who showed up and just happily flew into the salon area of the boat. After exploring the boat a bit and driving Charlie crazy, s/he settled in to our mint plant and spent about an hour getting any little pests he could find off of it, thus earning his/her keep. Spent the night with us then reluctantly said goodbye and flew off to find another boat on his/her way to South America.

Arriving to check out the boat

Nestled in to the mint plant. Just pretend you can’t see him/her.

After a sip of water, back to work on the plant

The next day, Nov 8, P got up to make his normal coffee on shift at 5 am – no propane. Dang. But switching the tanks is relatively painless normally but made a bit more painful with the boat happily bounding over steep waves. But the coffee got made and the captain enjoyed a completely unspectacular sunrise.

Once appropriately caffeinated, P went to fire up the genset to charge the batteries, but it of course refused to run. Since the whole trip had been cloudy, we were not getting much from our solar. So, P decided to charge with engine instead only to discover that the starboard alternator had taken early retirement and wasn’t about to work hard enough to recharge our batteries. This is when you are happy to have a catamaran and fire up the port engine to get some electricity (not very happy at engine maintenance time, however). Since solar + genset + starboard engine = three strikes, but we were still not out, P decided that he had better set about fixing the genset. On a bouncy boat, not fun, but within a couple of hours and a new impeller installed, the genset finally fired up. Normally this would make me very happy, but no charge was going into the batteries. The charger had an I’m not happy, I’m too hot light turned on. However when P checked the unit, it was stone cold. Hmmmm. After much poking and prodding and resetting, P was happy to hear the genset purring and pumping 160 amps into our batteries again. Phew! But he didn’t know what he had done to fix it so it would surely haunt him later. But a busy shift of investigating and fixing had flown by.

As an aside, replacing the impeller is normal maintenance which is done once a year. But last winter the genset ran only 3 hours in 6 months and the impeller despite being almost new self destructed. Note to self, run the genset whether you need to or not every couple of weeks.

Now we are six days into the trip, still bouncing like crazy, impossible to read, so what else do you do on a night shift? Take a pic of what the salon looks like under way at night.

Nov 9 didn’t improve – got worse. Once again that little light came on and the charger refused to charge. P shut it down for a while then restarted again, and it worked. This is not a good thing. So the weather decided to distract us a bit with a very rough squall filled night and gusts to 35 knots. Are we having fun yet?

Nov 10th, didn’t even want to get up to check that little light. Sure enough it was on again and nothing P did would turn it off. The good news is we have a back up charger so we did charge albeit slowly. Also found our backup inverter for the AC. Gee what else could fail? Once again that night the weather tried to distract us from our worries and put on just a wonderful lightening show which we mainly successfully kept at a distance. But the winds weren’t as wild as the night before.

Nov 11 – light winds with the sea down quite a bit, a welcome break. Even the boat showed its appreciation for the much kinder sea state by refusing to turn on that little temperature light so we quickly recharged all the battery banks and thanked Neptune. The seas started to get squally later in the day. So what does it look like entering a squall you can’t avoid near sunset. Sometimes just very eerie.

Nov 12 – bird #2 day. We had another little bird come to rest on the boat for a while. It wasn’t as brave as the first so didn’t come into the salon, but found a happy spot out of the wind behind our dodger and got a good night’s sleep. G put some food up by it. Off s/he went the next morning. Gee nothing went wrong or broke – nice day!

Nov 13 – bird #3 day. Having said goodbye to bird 2, we were startled to find a cool dude just hanging out on our lifelines in the afternoon. Only a picture can say this:

After watching the dude for a while, we decided s/he was probably more stressed and caught than cool especially when his foot slipped off the toe rail and s/he was literally just hanging there. So we stopped the boat and G gently lifted his/her body with our boat pole until he was able to flutter away and settle in the water. He just sat in the water a while regaining his/her dignity, did not appear to be harmed so we continued on our way in deteriorating cross seas and headwind – par for this trip but we were nearing the end. Whoopee! Then as night closed in, we hit those trade winds for the first time. The cross seas went away by midnight and the boat acted like it wanted to get to BVI more than we wanted to. Our GPS arrival forecast went from 1500 the next day to 0800 as our speed built and the ride smoothed out. Now this is sailing:

It was the opposite of the rest of the trip! Although there were squalls all around that night, we seemed to zip along between them without hitting one. Even the next morning looked dicey for arrival.

Land Ho! Tortola being covered by a squall in the morning.

As squall starts to dissipate

Soper’s hole approach got rid of the squall before we arrived

Epilog

So this was our 3rd Hampton to BVI passage and quite surprisingly they have all been completed within 5 hours of each other. Each trip was very different, this latest trip being the roughest for the longest time but the least amount of motoring. We have never been in the trades for more than 12 hours on any of the trips so it makes me wonder how many times we have to do this before we hit the “normal” sail to 065W then go south on the trades.

But this passage was amazing in that every night we saw at least one meteor each and many more with a few long streakers despite a lot of clouds on other nights. G’s theory is that the passage was so rough we didn’t have our noses buried in books, crossword puzzles, etc during out shifts. P thinks she is right.

Of course after we had arrived, P had to repair our Torqeedo dinghy motor before we could get ashore to clear in. And so it goes.

In follow-up to our recent guest blogger’s blog, I thought I should add my take on the experience of having a mystery guest aboard. I’ll begin with the night of Leslie’s arrival, New Year’s Eve. I was excited to have a guest on board, even someone I’d never met, but felt at ease with through the Women Who Sail site and our Facebook chats and emails. We rarely have guests, and I was feeling a little melancholy when hearing our cruising friends boast about their numerous guests scheduled to visit during the season. Knowing the chances of family coming for a visit this season was unlikely, it was this nagging need of mine that inspired me to ask Paul if we could say yes to Leslie’s request for a sailing adventure during her break from daily mothering. I responded to her on Facebook and the following morning she’d booked her flight.

With that we cleaned up the guest room. Paul removed all his tools and I readied the bed, cleaned the head and put out our new guest towels. I love the look of our guest room when it is ready and awaiting a guest.

Leslie arrived on New Year’s Eve around 7pm. I had made chili and rice, knowing that she’d be hungry after her travels. We then enjoyed a few cocktails as we got to know each other better. Fast forward a few hours and Leslie is asking, “can we swim?” I’m thinking, it’s dark, we don’t swim in the dark. But anyone who knows Leslie, knows she can be convincing and she got both Paul and I to swim with her. Yes, I was nervous stepping into that dark water, and I only swam to the bow of the boat and back, but I did it. I stepped away from my fear and went for it. Would I do it again, probably not, but I’ve done it and it was exhilarating.

Shortly after our swim, Leslie retired for a rest in the hopes she’d wake back up for midnight. Travel has a way of wearing you out. She slept straight through to the next morning. Paul and I enjoyed the movie ‘Almost Famous’ on the computer, which Leslie kindly brought along with her. We made it to midnight and then also retired for the night.

Speaking of bringing things, you’ll find if you are ever visiting a cruiser, you’ll likely be asked to bring something with you from the mainland. I asked her to bring a few movies along and some onion powder. Yes, I have trouble finding certain spices and this was one I didn’t think I’d run out of so didn’t have a second one on hand when I ran out.

Since Leslie explained in her blog the places we went, I’ll focus on my joy in having a guest on board. First, I’ve found since cruising that I really do enjoy cooking and have found many recipes that I like making and sharing. Leslie did tell me she wasn’t a fan of curry so she missed out on 2 of my very favorite recipes, but I had plenty of other recipes to cook up. She asked for a few recipes, and rather than write them out for her and for others who’ve asked in the past, I have since had Paul set up a recipe tab on the blog, so I can now share these as I go along. So for Leslie, fellow cruisers, and friends on shore who want to try a few new recipes, feel free to try some of those I post and let me know what you think.

Back to the joy of having Leslie aboard, it’s like I’ve known her all my life. Strange as that sounds, she was a lot of fun. Her enthusiasm for sailing and being here was pure joy. It made us feel good, but it also reminded us of how lucky we are, to be floating about, exploring places, and experiencing things like night sailing. Leslie showed us our life through her eyes and that was a gift.

That night sail was one of the best sails we’d ever experienced on this boat. I remember back to the days when this was just a dream and night sailing was a fear of mine. That last night sail was so far from being fearful and I now wonder what all my fussing and fear was about. Just another of those tricks my mind plays with me.

We went places we normally wouldn’t have gone (Soggy Dollar Bar), did things we normally wouldn’t have done (swim at night, swim ashore), and made a new friend out of pure faith. From the bottom of my heart, I’m so grateful for the Women Who Sail site, for Margaret who invited me to join the site about 1 year ago, and for Leslie for putting it out there and asking if anyone would be willing, for my wonderful husband who said sure, let’s go for it, and lastly for Leslie, bravely coming into unknown waters with us and inspiring us to step out of our norm and see this wonderful life through her eyes.

After spending 5 days doing as much as possible for our guest, P and I needed some down time. This means, let’s go somewhere, drop the hook and not move for a bit. We headed to Beneurs Bay on Norman Island. Here we sat for 8 days and nights. We got ourselves into some yoga, snorkeling, swimming, making water, reading, taking Charlie ashore, taking hikes over the island to the Bight, and star gazing. This is how our days are when we are just us.

The hike from Benures Bay to the Bight:

Blue Sky in Benures with Peter Island in the background

Many butterflies on the hike to the Bight on Norman

Many butterflies on our hike

Stopping for a breather on the ridge between Benures and the Bight

Beautiful south side bay on Norman just before we got to the Bight on the North Side

At last, coming down the bill into the Bight. St John’s in the background

Hiking the ridge between Benures and the Bight

Coming down the switchback nearing the end of the hike

Charlie after a gecko. What he can’t see is it is on this side of the tree laughing. Can you spot it?

[Paul] And some fish from the snorkeling.  What is missing is an amazing encounter with a peacock flounder.  I didn’t have my camera but pictures on the internet are great.  I was watching some fish on the bottom when suddenly the flounder appeared out of nowhere and grabbed something, startling me.  It turned a brilliant purple, swam along for a little ways then settled into the sand and if by magic turned into a textured version of the sand barely visible – purple gone.  And once you turn your head away, you couldn’t find it again.  Who knows how many flounders I have seen while thinking I was looking at sand and this was in about 12 feet of water.

Fish convention in Benures

Hiding in the coral

Crab Gwyn spotted about 30 feet down in Benures

[Gwyn] We also spend time trying to get on the internet and update the blog. This can be a long slog in the islands when the internet seems best only in the very early morning hours or the very late evening hours. Everything in between is a slog that we’ve resigned ourselves to. Our friends from Chill joined us in the bay after their return from Christmas in the US. We’ve since followed them back over to North Sound where we are now as I write this.

It’s been a wonderful start to 2015. I look forward to stepping onto new islands this season and having more visitors. For now we are readying ourselves to make a passage to St Martin/Sint Maarten, weather permitting, we hope to leave the afternoon of Monday the 19th of January.

[Paul]  Just recently received some more photos from Leslie that had gotten missed in the first post.  As Leslie explained in her post, on Jan 3 she and Gwyn took a hike from Bitter End to Byras creek and back after which we sailed from North Sound through Trellis bay to Cane Garden Bay then explored ashore that evening and the next AM before sailing to Jost (photos are in chronological order).  Be sure to click the photo for a larger lightbox presentation that you can then cycle through.

A view from Byras Creek Resort (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Leslie at Byras Creek (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Enjoying the view of the windward Atlantic at Byras Creek (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Peekaboo look into North Sound from the Byras Creek resort (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Beautiful walk at the Byras Creek resort (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Quaint cafe at Byras Creek end of hike (Virgin Gorda means fat virgin) (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Who needs a stairmaster! Part of the hike from Bitter End to Byras creek (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Gwyn waiting for P in the dinghy to get back to Blue Sky after the hike (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Passing by Marina Cay and its protective reef as we head into Trellis Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

A little maintenance on a unique boat in Trellis Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Small house on the hill in Cane Garden Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Brilliantly colored homes hanging on the hill in Cane Garden Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Sun heading down in Cane Garden Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Running free at Cane Garden Bay – happy boy (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Sunset from Cane Garden Bay after a very busy day (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Small homes on the hill in Cane Garden Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Moonrise over Cane Garden Bay (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Some “greenery” by GreenVI glass studio (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Stunning Christmas tree created from Heineken bottles by GreenVI Glass Studio (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)

Having fun grinding in the genny (courtesy of www.fraserrustics.com)