Mark & Debbie’s Travel Journal: An introduction

For those readers who have been following us on one or both of our other blogs, welcome to the “new” blog: our travel journal.  Our “Riding Two-Up” blog’s image collection has nearly filled our library, so it seemed like a good time to further sub-divide our blog content into yet a third volume dedicated to our vacation trips, given they tend to be photo-rich in content.  While this is technically the “first” entry in the new on-line journal, I’ve back-stopped it with three other vacation trips just so it doesn’t feel so lonely out here as there won’t be a lot of entries in this journal. 

Our original WordPress site, The TandemGeek’s Blog, will continue to be used exclusively for tandem cycling related content as a courtesy to our long-time readers from the previous TandemLink website and various forums to which I previously contributed.

Our follow-on WordPress site, Riding Two-Up, will continue to be where I publish my weekly journal and various entries related to our motorcycling adventures, where the vacation / trip report entries will only be linked going forward.

Thank you for your readership and support….   

Mark & Debbie

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Our 2019 Catamaran Cruise of the British Virgin Islands: An Overview

So, yeah…  We did the unthinkable and took a 10-day vacation.  I say this as vacations of 5-7 days have been our norm for us, with 4-day extended weekend trips still being smack in the middle of my comfort zone.  Thinking back, I believe I’ve only taken two or three other trips that have been longer than 7 days, including a 14-day tandem cycling trip with Debbie from San Francisco to San Diego California in September 2002 and last year’s 8 day tour of Utah by car with our friends David & Deb.  We also went double-down on this trip in that all 10-days were spent aboard a French-made, Lagoon 42′ cruising catamaran, which meant tight quarters on par with a motorhome but without the ability to leave the coach since we were surrounded by water most of the time.

However, all that said, we had a wonderful time and are truly grateful our friends Ryan & Jeanette extended an invitation to join them for their annual two-week vacation where they celebrate both their anniversary on the 23rd of July and Ryan’s birthday on the 27th of July each year.  It made for a very intimate trip where the only other person we shared the yacht with was our captain, John Shirley.  John runs his own chartering company,  Go Sailing BVI and stepped in to take the captain’s role when the original captain was unable to support our charter. We lucked out with John as he is around our age, a seasoned sailor, a British Virgin Island native and sincerely added invaluable insights to our journey around his islands as he expertly managed the large yacht with minimal assistance from Ryan or I.  But, beyond that, he became a friend and member of our vacation family and that made the journey ever more satisfying, at least from our perspective.

Anyway, the following is a graphic that gives you an overview of where all we sailed each day between the start and end of our journey at the East End of Tortola Island in the British Virgin Islands (BVIs).  You can click on the image to enlarge it so it is readable but, even without doing so you can get a pretty good idea of just how busy we were given we sailed on 9 of the 10 days we were in the BVIs, noting each of the small icons (e.g., triangles or diamonds) indicates where we either snorkeled, hiked or engaged in some type of “special” activity during our trip.

In an effort to make this ‘trip report’ a bit easier to digest, I’ve broken it down into two parts: the balance of this 1st installment, Part 1, covers Monday, 22 of July through Friday, 26 July.   On the following graphic I’ve added a short summary of the highlights for each of those days during our first week in the BVIs where, again, I’ve keyed certain activities to locations on the map so you can begin to have a feel for where we were as you read through the narrative and see photos from those activities.  You’ll also find a few more graphics like these for the individual islands where we made several stops or spent more than one day, e.g., Virgin Gorda and Anegada Islands.  Part 2 will include its own graphic covering Saturday, 27 July through the end of our journey on Thursday, 1 August.

With that, here are my day-by-day recollections from the first week of our adventure.  All told, it’s about 4,300 words with lots of photos.  Here’s hoping you enjoy reading about our travels at least half as much as we did making the journey.  It truly was an experience of a lifetime for us.

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Monday: Traveling to Tortola & First Night on The …ish

Miracle of miracles, I actually was able to get several hours of sleep last night.  I was up around 3:00am, but stayed in bed and drifted in and out of sleep until 5:00am when Debbie’s alarm went off.  We were up, packed and on the road by 5:45am, which put us a good 15 minutes ahead of the morning rush hour.

Our GPS route planning software, Waze, led us astray on our way to the Park & Ride Plus airport remote parking lot by sending to a private home in a suburban community 2 miles from the parking lot. Thankfully, Google Maps got us the rest of the way to the parking lot and using self-park instead of they very backed-up valet parking, we were in the shuttle bus and on our way to the airport 5 minutes later.

The airport’s terminal areas were a mess due to construction so we were dropped on the North side of the terminal instead of the South which meant we’d have to hike a half mile across the terminal and down to the Delta Skycaps to get our bags checked in: still far-better than standing in line inside the terminal.  Next up was the TSA screening line which took about 50 minutes to get through: the TSA jobs-program is one of the reasons we don’t travel by air all that much.

Thankfully we arrived 3 hours ahead of our flight which meant our wait in the queuing lines wasn’t even longer.  After making our way to Terminal E by 8:00am we found a TGI Friday’s where Debbie enjoyed a Mimosa and I had a Tequila Sunrise to get our day started.  It was around 8:50am when we made our way to gate 11 and 9:15am when they started boarding what ended up being a very full flight.

It was a 3-hour and 40-minute flight that went fairly quickly. I did a little work on the computer via the aircraft WiFi service, we split a little lunch that we had to pay for ($10.99 for a chicken wrap and fruit) and then I watched the movie Bohemian Rhapsody right up and until we landed in St. Thomas around 1:15pm.  Once we were on the ground in St. Thomas, as first timers… things became interesting.

Note: The following indentured section includes a lot of travel-related detail for our future reference and/or expectation management for any other non-seasoned travelers who might be planning on making a trip to the BVI’s: feel free to skip past, we won’t mind. However, it does truly convey the travel experience as well as some observations on the conditions you’ll see traveling around St. Thomas and Tortola.

• After deplaning at St. Thomas’ Cyril E. King Airport we collected our two checked duffle bags from baggage claim after about a 15 minute wait and then found a taxi to take us to the The Edward Wilmoth Blyden IV Marine Terminal. It was a short $24 cab ride over to the ferry boat landing. The scenery and road conditions reminded me of Cancun, something akin to what we saw in the non-resort areas around Cancun and Costa Rica and it was really strange having left-hand driven cars driving on the left-hand side of the roads: that somewhat violates logic since you really want the driver’s to be closer to the center of the road not the gutters.
• After arriving at the ferry terminal, we discovered the 2:30pm ferry trip to Road Town Ferry Terminal in Tortola had been cancelled so there was a very long line for the 4:00pm ferry. Ahead of us were locals in line with bags of groceries, merchants sending cases of strawberries and dog food along with tourist like ourselves and all of their luggage waiting for the ferry.  After patiently waiting and keeping or eye on the clock since we were technical behind schedule for our planned arrival at The Catamaran Company (aka, CatCo) docks on Ber Bay at the East End of Tortola given the cancellation of the 2:30pm ferry, we finally handed-over our passports and credit card and received our $50/pp tickets for the 55-minute trip over to Tortola. It was just 2:15pm once we had our boarding tickets in hand and our two large bags checked for $5/ea (i.e., the total ferry trip cost one-way was $110 for the two of us), we headed upstairs to the Petite Pump Room restaurant and bar where we had a few cocktails and a very tasty Mahi Mahi sandwich to pass the time.  In doing so, we also quickly learned that sitting at a bar for 90-minutes or so, plus food, would easily rack up a $90 bill, something we’d be reminded of throughout our visit.
• The ferry departed at 4:10pm and after a somewhat choppy cruise, we arrived in Tortola at 5:10pm where we off-boarded “Native Son,” collected our bags and were put into a queue to clear British Virgin Islands’ immigration – about a 20-minute wait.  After immigrations we went into another queue to go through the metal detectors at customs and then followed our bags to another station where we were asked the usual questions and asked to pay a $10/pp Natural Resources Levy before being “released into the wild” in Tortola.
• After exiting the ferry terminal we told the waiting taxi divers we were looking for AC Taxi — the ground transportation our friend Ryan had arranged to bring us to CatCo docks at East End… about a 15-minute / $25 drive around the island. Once again, the scenery was something more or less on par with what we saw in urban areas around Cancun and Costa Rica, made more so by the still very obvious devastation Hurricane Irma wreaked on the Caribbean: there were dozens of rotting hulls of what once were $100,000 to $750,000 yachts still sunk in harbors, moored or sitting busted-up against the shoreline on our short drive, never mind the damage to structures, landscape and debris: one can only imagine what it looked like immediately after the hurricane back on 6 September 2017.

Our friends, Ryan and Jeanette, had been on Tortola since Friday, enjoying some alone time at a cottage along the somewhat secluded Lambert Bay on the north side of the island and spent today gathering provisions for the first few days of our cruise. As you might expect, food and beverages were expensive.  So, we were pretty much ready to go when we arrived at our 42’ catamaran, the “…ish” registered out of Montgomery, Alabama: I’m guessing these are privately owned yachts operated by CatCo in much the same way the yachts were operated by Calypso Sailing Charters in Southern California back in the 1990’s, a firm where we’d occasionally take a 26’ to 40’ monohull out for a weekend cruise with our friends Paul & Andi.

As for the layout, on the main deck we’d spend most of our time in either the open cockpit, usually sitting around the pedestal table, or in the enclosed main cabin which included a galley kitchen, seating around another pedestal table, a map table & control panel area and a counter with a sunken freezer.  Below decks there were three state rooms, all with double beds.  Ryan & Jeanette had the master stateroom in the starboard hull which included a desk area and more counter space in the bath, while we occupied the aft stateroom on the port side and our captain, John, occupied the forward stateroom.  There is also a small, single bed under the port bow area affectionately referred to as the “coffin” where no one with claustrophobia would ever want to be, but that went unused.  In retrospect, it would have been a good place to store travel bags, etc.

After stowing our bags in our state room (similar to what you see at the right) we changed into our swimsuits, gathered around the table in the cockpit for cocktails and then grilled some fish and veggies on the …ish for dinner.  Sadly, as I was walking around in the main cabin I neglected to see the oddly-placed stairs leading down to the port side staterooms that encroached on the galley counters and top loading freezer I was directed to and took a tumble leaving me with a banged-up left shin, ankle and foot: whoops.  Thankfully, it wasn’t anything other flesh wounds; well, ok… a severe hematoma and some sprains that will likely take several weeks to heal.  After icing down my shin, we called it a night around 9:00pm.

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Tuesday: Sailing to Norman Island, Snorkeling & Visiting the Willy-T

I must say, we both slept really well on the yacht.  The sun rose around 5:00am and that’s what woke us up, along with the various pump noises associated with the operation of the yacht. We had a leisurely morning at the marina eating breakfast on the boat waiting for the CatCo office to open so Ryan could execute the various documents associated with the yacht charter and then for our captain, John Shirley, who arrived a bit after 8:00am. John immediately got to work getting his gear stowed, checking out the …ish, and then spending time with us so he could understand what all we wanted to see and do and on any specific days so he could develop a plan for the next 9 days. Even though my left calf and foot were quite swollen, I had good circulation and was very mobile so just assume it was a non-issue for the trip and that’s all I’ll say going forward.

After waiting for the divers to finish cleaning the hulls, we motored out of the marina and then John popped the jib for the sail over to Norman Island.

It was a beautiful day with a stiff breeze so the jib was all the …ish needed to make good time to Treasure Point with its caves where Debbie was able to make her first-ever snorkeling dive. She did great and really enjoyed it, so good we made the decision to acquire and bring along the snorkeling gear and, in particular, the full-face mask for Debbie.

After snorkeling John took us into the mooring area in Bight Bay to anchor the …ish and from there we took the dinghy over to The Willy T for cocktails.  We did the surfboard shot thing, Ryan & Jeanette jumped off the 2^nd story of the Willy T a couple times and both Jeanette and Debbie received their Willy T tattoos from our barkeeper, Mark. We got to visit with some of the other patrons and got a couple of the other gals to get their faux tattoos; just really fun people to be sure.

From there we stopped by the …ish to see if John needed anything or wanted to go with us to Pirate Bight restaurant for a few more cocktails and nachos. Once again, we met some folks at Pirates Bight and had a really nice time before heading back to the …ish where Jeanette made some zucchini pasta with red sauce for dinner.  After that it was just relaxing and chatting before everyone retired to bed relatively early by ‘at home’ standards.

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Wednesday: Sailing to Jost Van Dyke, Snorkeling & Bar Crawling in the Caribbean

After yet another great night sleeping on the …ish we were up with the sun and made our way to the main cabin around 6:30am where Ryan was doing his morning readings while Jeanette did likewise down in their stateroom.  It was around 7:30am when we had our orange-juice with a kick and 8:00am when I had a BLT for breakfast: I could live on those!

John pulled up the anchor and motored us out of Bight Bay to the rock formation known as the Indians next to Pelican Island where he caught a mooring ball so we could snorkel around the Indians. The Indians are a small archipelago of islets so named because from a distance they were thought to resemble a Native American’s head dress. Once again, just some amazing coral and sea life rested just under the surface of the water.  We snorkeled around the Indians in some heavy chop and against a stronger current than we encountered at Treasure Point yesterday, but it was still a great time and Debbie is now snorkeling like a pro.

From the Indians John set the sails and we made our way over to Jost Van Dyke and White Bay where we dropped anchor with a goal of being able to wade ashore where we’d visit the Soggy Dollar bar and the other bars along the beach for a while.  It’s this tradition of wading in with cash in your pocket that gives “The Soggy Dollar” its name.

We actually spent the most time at Ivan’s Bar a bit further east along White Bay.  John was kind enough to collect Debbie with the dinghy and take her around to Ivan’s Stress Free Bar while Ryan & Jeanette make the short hike over the hill.  It was sort of humorous in that as I was swimming out to the …ish with the intent of getting the dinghy to collect Debbie, John had gotten in the dinghy and headed to the beach not even realizing I was swimming out to the catamaran.  He came back by the …ish and collected me, then dropped us at Ivan’s.  As if to prove how small the world is, the barkeeper at Ivan’s, Darlene, has a sister who watches after her son in Marietta, Georgia, and lives within a mile of Ryan & Jeanette.  Her kids have all gone to the same elementary, middle and high schools as all of our collective kids.  As I said, we had a good time there, left our names and “ANTDOLES” on the bar and a chuck of wood from the grand old Sea Grape tree that sat on beach until Hurricane Irma knocked it down.  As we walked along the beach back towards the …ish John came and collected us: he’s the best!

John motored the ..ish around the point to Great Harbor where we dropped anchor for the night and spent the better part of the afternoon relaxing, dancing and just have a grand old time on the …ish before taking the dinghy over to Foxy’s for a cocktail.

We returned to the …ish and got cleaned up for dinner, motored back to the pier and headed to Corsairs Beach Bar and Restaurant for our 7:30pm dinner reservation.  Pizza Dave was the biker/barkeeper and made for good conversation.  The rest of the staff… not so much. They didn’t seem to be all that interested in doing much of anything aside from sitting in the back of the restaurant and staring into their phones.  However, our conch fritters, the blackened sea bass and the pizza all four of us shared were all very good, pricey, but good.  We also met a group from Auburn, Alabama, and had a nice time chatting with them.  From Corsairs we walked down to Foxy’s where we’d heard they had a good DJ.  We probably stayed there for 45 minutes of dancing but after playing a few good songs the DJ just started playing this Caribbean “thumpty-thump” music one after another and that sort of killed it for us.  So, we decided we’d just return to the …ish and pick up where we left off with our own little dance party.

When we returned to our dinghy, we found it had been crowded out at the pier by a boat and 6 other dinghy’s to the point where it was now sitting partially under the pier. Moreover, somehow the drain plug had been pulled and there was a foot of water sitting in the dinghy: really!?  We removed our shoes, I hiked up my pants and we made our way back over to the …ish where after getting everyone off the dinghy I bailed out the water.  That was something of a coup de grace for the night time party mood, so Ryan & Jeanette and Debbie & I paired off and had some quiet time into the evening.  Debbie and I finished off our day sitting on top of the …ish and looking at the stars for a while before heading down to our stateroom for the night.

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Thursday: Sailing to Cane Garden Bay with stops for a hike to the Bubbly Pools & snorkeling

I was up around 6:00am and headed up to the main cabin so as not to disturb Debbie and began working on the blog update, checking mail, etc.  Around 6:30am the skies opened up with a very short but very hard rain that gave everything a wash-down and sent me to a drier end of the chart table.  But, as I said, it was gone as quickly as it had come.

It was around 7:00am when Debbie came up to the main cabin to get her tea, followed shortly thereafter by Ryan and then John who immediately got busy stowing the dinghy, pulling up anchor and then motoring the …ish over to the North Latitude Marina where we picked up some ice and 50 gallons of water for the holding tanks which suggests we can go for about 2 days on the 80 gallons of water held by the …ish.

John motored the …ish  to Little Jost Van Dyke Island and Long Bay at the East End of Jost Van Dyke.  Once at the East End we took the dinghy to the dock at Foxy’s Taboo where we hiked out to a natural sea-formed Jacuzzi, aka “the Bubbly Pool,” a rock formation that at one time had foamy surf blasting between the rocks to create a “bubbly” surge of water every few minutes and a lovely little beach surrounded by a lush wetlands area and lake.  It suffices to say, Hurricane Irma made a mess of things and the Bubbly Pool wasn’t bubbling all that much, especially at this time of year, the beach is gone and the surrounding area was stripped of its tall foliage and is now a tangle of dead tree trunks and branches.  That said, nature is beginning to bounce back so we saw all kinds of interesting new growth, hermit crabs, cranes, goats, cactus and the like along our walk to and from the Bubbly Pool.

 

We stopped in at Foxy’s Taboo after our walk for some beverages and to sit-out several passing rain showers.  We met a nice couple and their 8-year old from the Chicago Area and had a fun time chatting with them before we headed back to our respective lodging locations: they were on shore back in Grand Harbor.  After a little lunch on the …ish we all hit the water with our snorkeling gear to explore the coral along Little Jost Van Dyke.  Ryan went out ahead of us and made it as far as the B-Bar but, sadly, had no soggy dollars in his pocket for a cocktail: probably a good thing when you’re snorkeling.  Jeanette, Debbie and I followed shortly behind and I’d guess we were all in the water snorkeling for a good hour or so.  The undersea scenery wasn’t nearly as captivating as what we saw at the Indians, but it was good to spend some time in the water and Debbie continues to enjoy and excel at snorkeling.

From Long Bay, John motored the …ish the short distance to the Sandy Spit where he dropped anchor so those of us who were so inclined could swim over the little patch of white sand. Ryan and Jeanette made the journey while Debbie and I stayed on the …ish and relaxed a bit on the trampoline.  After pulling up the anchor, John popped the sails and we had what I’d characterize as an invigorating sail over to Cane Garden Bay at Tortola.  In fact, when we started out Debbie had decided to relax on the trampoline for the sail and within 5 minutes looked like a drowned rat given all of the spray and splash coming off the hulls from the chop and wind.  I rescued her and she spent the rest of the journey in the comfort of the well-sheltered cockpit while Ryan & Jeanette took naps and I kept John company at the helm.

When we arrived at Cane Garden Bay it was apparent “Christmas in July” – a Puerto Rican celebration in the BVI’s – was still underway with no less than 36 Puerto Rico-flagged boats of various size lined-up and barging along the first row of mooring balls along the beach.  Almost as soon as John had us anchored he headed ashore to make dinner reservations for the four of us plus he and his wife, Sally, at Quito’s for 7:30pm.  We decided the plan for the evening would be to skip a pre-trip to town for cocktails and enjoy those on the …ish, then head to town around 5:00pm with umbrellas at the ready to spend a little time at Pusser’s / Myett’s before making our way to Quito’s.  It was around 7:00pm when John & Sally arrived and, as you’d expect, John knows everyone.  We had a wonderful time with them at dinner and it really made for a really special evening on a really special trip.  The food was very good, but I somewhat regretted going for the healthy blackened tuna instead of the amazing looking “Wicked Tuna” John ordered.  After dinner we all headed back to the …ish around 9:15pm and then John headed home for the night with Sally around 9:30pm, at our insistence.  We’d be fine by ourselves for a night on the boat.  Ryan & Jeanette called it a night a little before 10:00pm while we decided to enjoy the sights and sounds of Cane Garden Bay from the roof of the …ish until calling it a night around 11:00pm.

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Friday: Sailing to Marina Cay with snorkeling at Guana Island along the way

My Friday began with a “bump in the night” at 2:02am that woke me up and sent me topside as I had no idea what could have caused it and was afraid another boat had lost its mooring and bumped up against us.  Thankfully, there wasn’t anything obvious like another boat anywhere close to us and as I made my way around the …ish I saw the right (starboard) front guardrail where we’d been hanging towels and what not was now laying on the trampoline.  After getting all of the clothing unpinned from the guardrails I could see the turnbuckle on the guardrail had become unscrewed, allowing the wind to blow the guardrail with towels attached into the top of the hull and the short but heavy end of the guardrail with the turnbuckle still attached to fall against the hull.  It suffices to say, I was relieved I was able to find the source.  I brought all of the clothing back to the main cabin, folded it and then headed back to bed.

It was 6:00am when I finally got out of bed and headed up top to post some photos to Facebook and begin updating my journal on what was a cloudy, rainy morning.  However, by 8:00am the sun was now high enough to start burning off the cloud cover and everyone else had emerged from their staterooms. John arrived a short time later and Ryan and I headed back to the dock on the dinghy to pick up a few provisions from the local market before we headed off along the north coast of Tortola with two stops today: White Bay at Guana Island for snorkeling, then on to Market Cay & Scrub Island where we’ll spend the night.

The sail north along the coast was once again a bit invigorating with a strong 14mph wind and moderate swells.  John kept the …ish close to the coast to give us the best views of the island, moving through several of the bays along the way.  The coast was dotted with private homes on the steep cliffs of all shapes and sizes, up to and including AirB&B type homes with guest houses and cottages as well as palatial estates with infinity pools including one with it’s on helipad and helicopter sitting there under a custom fitted cover: first time I’ve ever seen that.  John noted that during the winter Tortola’s north coast offers up some top surfing conditions which provide a vastly different-looking sea scape to what we were enjoying today, where waves crash 100’ up in the air as they slam into the rocky cliffs overlooking some of the secluded bays.  There are even a couple of 18^th century garrison ruins along the coast, one the locals knew of and another that emerged from the overgrowth after Hurricane Irma washed it away.

After our hour-long sail we crossed over the narrow channel between Tortola’s Greenland area and Lambert Bay to Monkey Point at White Bay on Guana Island where we grabbed a mooring ball and spent the next couple of hours snorkeling around the coral-lined bay.  John had said this is one of the dives where you’d want to have your cameras and he was spot-on: there were thousands of small fish swimming in schools with smaller schools of larger fish shooting about.  They didn’t seem bothered by our presence in the least.  Once again, Debbie did great in the water, albeit still using her water noodle for added flotation.   Ryan & Jeanette are definitely more adventurous than we are and made their way to the small sandy “beach” near Monkey Point where they rested on the rocks and sand for a bit before making their way back to the …ish.  With all back aboard, John motored us the short distance to an anchorage just off Market Cay where we’d spend the night.

 

Once anchored I made hot wings for lunch while we considered our options for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Something Debbie, Jeanette and even Ryan had thought about doing was heading to the Scrub Island Marriott Resort and Spa for a little spa time… which had been part of the original plan provided to John and then we’d be making dinner on the boat.

Well, after lunch and relaxing a bit Ryan and Jeanette were both feeling the lingering effects of a long day in the water, time in the sun and a filling lunch and gave in to afternoon naps.  Debbie and I spent a little time up on top of the …ish getting some sun (like we needed more sun) and then relaxing a bit in the main cabin while our friends napped.  The afternoon spa visit fell off the agenda and then dinner on the …ish became dinner at Donovan’s Reef at the Scrub Island Resort.  It was around 6:55pm when we boarded the dinghy and made our way the half mile or so to the Scrub Island marina’s dinghy pier across a fairly choppy channel where West End and West South Bay’s intersect at Marina Cay.  We found Donovan’s without too much trouble and had a very nice but casual dinner with comfort food where Debbie and I split a burger and Ryan & Jeanette split some ribs.  The dinghy trip back to the …ish in the dark of night at 9:00pm with only a small flashlight to let other boats know where we were was a bit sporty.  However, we successfully made it to the …ish with only one close call when a mooring ball suddenly appeared in our path but that was it.  Ryan and Jeanette retired shortly after we were back aboard while Debbie and I stayed up and chatted a bit, then Debbie retired while I did a little catch-up on mail, etc. and then headed down around 10:30pm.

Go to Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of our Cruising the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) vacation journal, which picks up where Part 1 left off: Saturday 27 July through Thursday, 1 August.  Sadly, we didn’t get to do as much snorkeling this week as overcast skies and storms moved in on Sunday night and stayed with us until late into our last night in the BVIs.  The lack of sunlight coupled with the sargassum problem along the north side of Anegada meant there just wasn’t much to see even if we did brave the choppy waters and rain.  In fact, we ran into a couple folks who had just been snorkeling at Cow Wreck Point along Anegada’s north coast on Tuesday and all they’d observed was dead coral and sea grass.  So, yeah… the “adventure” element suffered a setback during this 2nd week which gave us a bit more down time that we filled with more sedate activities such as playing Jenga at the Anegada Beach Club on Tuesday and Gin Rummy at Pussers on Marina Cay on Wednesday.

Regardless, it was still a great time and, as with Part 1, here’s an graphic that provides an overview of where we went each day and what we did.

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Saturday: Sailing to Virgin Gorda, Visiting the Baths  & celebrating Ryan’s birthday at Coco Maya

As for the night on the boat, this was probably the most boat-like night we’ve experienced.  We were on a mooring ball in what was essentially a channel instead of a sheltered bay which had the …ish pitching and rolling throughout the night with the associated lapping water against the hulls and creaking rigging sounds generated by a sailing yacht.

It was around 4:00am when I first got out of bed for a bio break and to adjust the air conditioning a bit.  However, 30 minutes later the diesel-powered generator on the …ish shut itself down after the inlet valve that circulates water to cool the generator became clogged with dead sea weed (sargassum) and other debris, a nuisance that has been plaguing all of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic and even African coasts for several years.  We encountered it in Cancun last year during our July visit and the dead and rotting sargassum with it’s sulfur odor had essentially covered all of the formerly white sandy beaches and would re-collect as fast as workers tried to haul it off.  For some reason Marina Cay seemed to be a magnet for the sargassum while we were there which almost guaranteed the inlet filters would be clogged, and they were.

It was around 5:30am or so when John began making his rounds on the …ish taking care of all the things that needed to be taken care of each morning, in addition to the generator/sargassum issue.  I came up at 6:00am and found Ryan was also up and busy with his morning reading and wished him a happy birthday before picking up my laptop and headed out to cockpit to begin my journal updates, etc.   It was around 6:30am when both Debbie and Jeanette came up and Jeanette immediately dove into making a breakfast casserole for Ryan’s birthday. The casserole was delicious and John joined us for breakfast.

I should note, it can be a double-edge sword with the contract captain since you collectively pay an extra $50/day in per diem for his meal expenses per the contract agreement, above and beyond his per day captain rate.  So, on one hand you want to be inclusive but, on the other, well…. yeah.  However, we noticed John paid for the water and ice on several mornings and declined to be reimbursed, so he was clearly mindful and appreciative of our hospitality: again, a great captain.

After breakfast we motored over to the Marina Cay pier where we took on 60 gallons of water and a couple more bags of ice at 8:00am when they opened.   From there we motor-sailed over to the Baths at Spring Bay on Virgin Gorda where we grabbed a mooring ball and, from there, John took us to the edge of the swimming area in the dinghy where we hit the water and swam the rest of the way in to the beach. We carried our shoes in zip-lock bags I essentially “pressurized” and it worked quite well.  Once on the beach we had a pre-hike beverage at the Poor Man’s Bar and then went exploring.

We did some initial investigating at the world famous Baths of Virgin Gorda: formed over millions of years, the Batholiths or “Baths” are a series of interconnecting boulder formations creating unique grottos with pools of crystal clear water.  We found them to be filled with a tourist group so we decided to reverse course, hike up the trail to the National Park Station and adjacent restaurant where we found the trail heads for hikes to Stoney Bay, Devil’s Bay and the Baths.  We took the long route to Stoney Bay and were treated to some beautiful views of the small islands — Blinders and Fallen Jerusalem — where moderate waves were breaking against the rocky coast lines.  We found the same thing once we arrived at Stoney Bay – aptly named – and then made our way across some coral fields to the path that took us to Devil’s Bay, a far less dramatic scene but a lovely place to enjoy the beach and water.  From there we headed into the grottos and baths: amazing.

   

It was a little before noon when we swam back out to John and the dinghy for the ride back to the …ish where we cleaned up a bit as John motored the yacht 30 minutes north to Spanish Town at St Thomas Bay where he dropped anchor just outside Spanish Town Marina so he could take the dinghy into the marina and firm up our slip mooring reservation for the evening.  We stayed at anchor for lunch, hot dogs cooked on the grill and boy did that hit the spot: more comfort food!  Once again, John joined us for the meal.  By the time we had everything cleaned up John had the anchor up and we motored into the marina where John did an amazing job of negotiating the …ish into the tight quarters surrounding the slip: definitely not something for amateurs.

Our priority for the day was to be at Coco Maya on the beach for dinner at 7:00pm.  So, between the time we were in the slip at 2:30pm and 6:40pm when the cab would pick us up for the short drive through the not-so-nice areas that now surround the marina, the only must do’s were for the girls to get their hair washed and showered while Ryan and I picked up some groceries.  Although, I should note I took a 1.5 mile walk around the “neighborhood” looking for a pharmacy that was no longer in business, a walk that confirmed Spanish Town was very economically depressed. The taxi ride to the Bank’s Wholesale Store, aka, the grocery store, confirmed my initial assessment about the economic conditions: very much on par with the urban areas around Cancun and in Costa Rica.  I can only hope the price they charge locals for provisions are heavily discounted from the marked retail prices they charge folks just “passing through” like us based on what we paid for our groceries.

Once we were back at the ..ish in the Spanish Town Marina we spent the afternoon relaxing, having a few cocktails and towards dinner time Jeanette and Debbie grabbed showers, washed their hair and got “fluffed-up” for Ryan’s birthday dinner at Coco Maya.  We met our cab driver, Patsy, promptly at 6:40pm and made the short drive over to Coco Maya, a 10-minute walk but not along a road you’d want to walk.  However, I must say, Coco Maya was an oasis of luxury dining at Spanish Town.  It bills itself as a Caribbean /Asian Fusion restaurant that serves its meals tapas style.  The view from our patio dining table out over St. Thomas Bay was spectacular and our 7:00pm reservation coincided with an amazing sunset.

Our server was Anastasia and so long as we reminded ourselves, we were on island time and at a very busy and popular restaurant catering to high-end guests, the pace of the evening remained perfect.  Ryan, Jeanette and Debbie all experimented with custom cocktails, e.g., a Jalapeño Margarita, a Reverse Cosmopolitan and a Smokey Hibiscus: the Smokey Hibiscus had to go back but the other two concoctions were very good, unusual but very good.  I stuck with silver tequila.  As for the meals, we began with Edamame, followed that up with Jerk Chicken Won Tons, Flank Steak, Spicy Tuna Rolls and finished with a Cobb Salad and it was all exceptional!  Jeanette was able to arrange an equally amazing five-chocolate desert with flaming candle to top off Ryan’s birthday dinner and, if that wasn’t enough, they had an exceptional DJ playing our kind of music, music you could dance to. If only they’d had a dance floor; however, we did our best at dancing in the sand and had a grand time.  The Coco Maya’s hostess was kind enough to call Pasty to come and collect us at what was probably 9:00pm.  It was a short and safe drive back to the marina where we all called it an early night on the …ish.

Just an Observation:  As mentioned earlier, our cruise around the British Virgin Islands coincided with “Christmas in July” an annual celebration by folks from Puerto Rico who either motor/sail here on their own vessels or who charter yachts and other types of vessels in the BVI.  Quite frankly, while the media seems to focus only on the worst aspects of Puerto Rico’s economy, the Hurricane Irma devastation and more recently political corruption, the hundreds of folks we saw on their luxury yachts, deep sea fishing boats  and charters would have easily blended right in with the Miami South Beach crowds; they appear to be doing quite well. I wasn’t surprised by this, just reminded perception management is an interesting thing.

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Sunday: Sailing to the North End of Virgin Gorda & Hiking Gorda Peak.

As expected, being moored in the protected harbor gave us a very calm night with minimal boat motion which translated into a good night’s rest.  We heard a heavy shower during the night but there was little evidence by the time we came up top at 6:30am. We motored out of St. Thomas Bay and then John popped the sails for our cruise north to Leverick Bay before 7:30am.  Jeanette was busy making shish kabobs for tonight’s dinner on the …ish as we sailed around the southeast tip of Virgin Gorda and we both had a bit of a “yikes” moment when the wind suddenly came around the end of the island and gave the …ish a severe side strike, sending a lot of things tumbling including a nearly full bottle of Cointreau. We saved about 20% of it after the bottle fell into the sink and broke.   But, that was about it for excitement on the morning cruise to the northeast end of Virgin Gorda.

After grabbing a mooring ball, John gave a lift to the dock where we began what would be about a half-day land excursion.  The first order of business was securing a rental car we’d use to make the short, 15-minute drive up to Gorda Peak National Forest for 90-minute, 3-mile hike up to the lookout tower location. Gorda peak is the highest point on Virgin Gorda at 1,370 ft.  The 240-acre park was donated by Laurance Rockefeller in 1974 and it is one of the last remaining examples of Caribbean dry forest in the region, which makes it a high priority for conservation internationally. We opted to rent a car since it allowed us to easily make our way up to the park, spend as much time on our hike, stop at Hog Heaven (an homage to BBQ, not Harley’s) for lunch before heading back into the marina for less than it would have cost in cab rides, about $75.

It was about a 15-minute drive, all up hill on very narrow roads in poor to fair condition.  We entered the park at the lower trailhead which gave us about a 50-minute hike up to the location of the observation tower.  I say location as the very tall wooden tower that gave you panoramic views of the entire British Virgin Islands was knocked down by Hurricane Irma and has not yet been cleared or rebuilt.  Sadly, that meant there really wasn’t much to see since we had no opportunity to stick our heads up above tree level.  Regardless, it was good to get in the hike up to the Gorda Peak. For the hike back down, we headed to the upper trail access point, about a 30-minute hike all downhill, a steep downhill.  From the trailhead we walked another mile or two back to the car at the lower entry point.  Thankfully, it was a well-shaded trail, we had a nice breeze and some cloud cover so it never got overly hot as feared by our captain, John.

From the trail head we went in search of a small, mountain side restaurant called Hog Heaven, known for its very good BBQ’d meals all cooked on an outdoor gas grill that’s not all much different from the ones we all use.  We arrived early enough to beat a tour bus and enjoyed a delicious lunch: Debbe and I had the chopped pork, Jeanette had the pork ribs and Ryan went with a burger.

After lunch we returned to the Marina, dropped off the rental car and at 2:00pm Jeanette and Debbie headed off to their spa appointments while Ryan and I returned to the …ish and relaxed. Sadly, John let us know there’s a potential weather system moving into the northern Caribbean that could bring us wet weather over night, all day tomorrow and on Tuesday morning with lingering scattered showers through the end of our cruise on Wednesday.  Not the forecast we’d been hoping for, to be sure.

Of note was that we were able to get the WiFi router on the …ish reset, noting we’d lost our Internet connection early yesterday.  So, good to be back on-line, eh?  I used that outage as the motivation to go ahead and subscribe to the BVI’s roaming cell service for $10 a day with unlimited phone, text and data. Yup, yet another 1^st world issue in a 3^rd world location.

We had a very enjoyable and relaxing afternoon back on the …ish and the girls returned from their spa visit around 4:15pm.  The plan for the evening was to stay on board the ish and grill the shish kabobs Jeanette had made earlier in the day, which is what we did.  It was a lovely dinner with wilted spinach and rice as our sides and John joined us as well.  Our companions headed down to their stateroom around 8:00pm, so Debbie and I relaxed a bit in the main cabin and then finished out our night watching “Triple X” a really, really bad move – perhaps the worst I’ve ever seen – via Netflix. The rain began around 10:00pm and we could tell the sea was beginning to churn a bit.

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Monday: The Sail Over to Anegada and Dinner on the …ish

It had been a bumpy night as the expected weather came in and winds picked-up suggesting we’d have an invigorating sail over to Anegada today.  It was around 10:00am when we pulled away from the water dock at Leverick Bay after taking on ice and another 40 gallons of water, so our daily water consumption had steadily increased since the start of our trip.

John raised the sails as we headed west along the coast of Virgin Gorda, taking advantage of the sheltered bays with their flat water and lighter winds.  As we headed across the Necker Island Passage John put me on the helm so he could trim the sails.  John had to tutor me a bit on the use of the navigation instruments on the …ish and, ultimately decided I’d do best to just “sail the boat” by feel and use the compass to navigate our way to Pomato Point at the harbor entrance on Anegada.  It all went rather well for the next 90 minutes at the helm, as best as I can tell, other than the two times swells breached the windward hull, sending a surge of salt water across the main cabin’s roof and bridge and soaking John and me in the process.  The girls and Ryan were unfazed down in the main cabin. I was truly in heaven being back on the helm of a sailing yacht but, clearly, was just the helmsman since John was setting sails and telling me where to go, i.e., he was the captain and I was ballast!  But, I think I must have been doing a pretty good job since he headed down to the main cabin to relax and enjoy the sail over to Anegada while checking on me and our heading once and a while. My biggest challenge became “finding” a visual landmark in the hazy and rainy horizon on Anegada so I could shift from pure compass navigation to a landmark.  I had it in my mind Anegada was similar to the rest of the Virgin Islands, with at least a few mountains but, no… it was dead flat with the highest elevation being 28’ above sea level.  So, when I finally accepted the fact the “scrub” I was seeing was, in fact, land… John confirmed that he’d seen it 5 minutes before I called it out.  To be fair, I didn’t want to be wrong.

Regardless, with a visual target the sail into Pameto Point where John dropped the sails and then we dropped anchor so John could ferry us to the beach on the dinghy. From there we walked the mile or so to the various club and bars just before Setting Point where we did some exploring.

While we were initially discouraged by what we found, we eventually arrived at Potters Restaurant and Bar and met Sam and he became the savior of our 1^st visit to Anegada.  Jeanette was looking for either Absinthe or Jägermeister and had been striking out throughout our visit.  Sam didn’t have it either, but he sent someone off to find it and 10 minutes later he and Jeanette were doing shots of Jäger while the rest of us had less toxic cocktails.  When we discovered they didn’t have any snacks, I walked to the nearby grocery store & liquor store where Potters like sourced the Jäger and picked up an $8.00 bag of Tostito’s chips.  Sam had no problem with me bringing chips to our little party at Porters.

We retired to the …ish around 4:00pm where we spent the afternoon relaxing a bit before Jeanette cooked up the rest of the shrimp we’d not finished the night before scampi style that we had with salad, left-over zucchini salad, left-over spinach salad and left-over rice from the past few on-board dinners.  Debbie cleared the table and cleaned up while the rest of us – Ryan, Jeanette, John and me – had a wonderful conversation covering a wide range of topics.  It was a grand night back on the …ish.  Everyone retired before 8:30pm and Debbie and I finished out the night down in our stateroom streaming another movie – Murder Mystery – via Netflix.

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Tuesday: Exploring Anegada and Lobster on the Beach

We had another very rough night with storms moving across the northern Caribbean that had the …ish constantly pitching and yawing in the water with some accompanying banging and knocking from the rigging.  I don’t think Debbie slept much and I didn’t sleep all that well either since she was restless and there wasn’t really anywhere for me to go other than the main cabin and I’ve tried to avoid doing that: its habit forming.  We were probably both wide awake by 6:00am but did our best to try and rest until 7:30am before heading up to the main cabin for her tea, my Diet Pepsi and a little light breakfast to start our day.  The weather was not exactly all that inviting as it was overcast with thundershowers moving through the area all day and we did our best to stay under cover when the skies opened up now and again.

We’d thought we had a dry spot and had John take us ashore on the dinghy at 9:00am when the car rental offices opened but, sure enough, the skies unloaded as we were on our way.  We didn’t get soaked but we also didn’t stay dry.  Anyway, the gentle lady who owned the Anegada Beach Hotel and just about every other business around it took care of getting us in a rental car for $85 and from there we headed out to explore the island.  Our drive took us out to the west where we stopped at the Flamingo Observation Platform and saw literally hundreds of giant Flamingo’s huddled on the backside of the salt ponds near the original settlement area.  Our observation stop was cut short by gnats that suddenly descended on us.  From there we headed towards Lublolly Bay and its restaurants and bars.  We drove by Flash of Beauty which was back in business but looking a bit sparse.  However, Bamboo Bay Restaurant and Bay was in very good shape, meticulously maintained and getting ready to open for business when we arrived just before 11:00am. However, their beaches were inundated with the dreaded sargassum and that was just a buzz kill with its Sulphur aroma and the toll it takes on underwater life.  Well, and a strong storm was rolling through so we took shelter in our rental car and headed further north until we reached Anedaga Beach Club; wow!  Talk about a diamond in the rough, we could easily come and spend a few days here.  The folks at the bar were great, I scored a couple of decals as mementos at the gift shop and after running a bit further north along the coast to the Cow Wreck Resort – which was a ghost town – we returned to Anegada Beach Club to have lunch.  There was some Jenga blocks games, cocktails and socializing along with our delicious Bacon Lettuce Lobster and Tomato sandwich.  But, nice food and drink at a nice place in the BVI’s doesn’t come cheap: lunch was $183 for the four of us but, as always, $100 a lot of that was cocktails. As an interesting aside, imagine our surprise when John and two of the other captains also came to the Anedaga Beach Club for lunch: guess we picked the right place!

After lunch we returned to Setting Point to figure out which of the four restaurants that serve lobster for dinner we’d patronize.  The Wonky Dog didn’t score high for interest in our business, the Lobster Trap suggested they were nearly booked-up with 60 guests, Potters wasn’t really “on the beach” as they served their guests on a covered patio adjacent to the dock so Anegada Reef Hotel won-out for a variety of reasons, including being most-interested in our business, being on the beach and having only about 3 other tables reserved, i.e., not being overwhelmed.

After heading back to the …ish to clean up, John took back us to the dock on the dinghy for cocktails and dinner and the dinner did not disappoint.  We ended up sitting next to the same family we met at the Anegada Beach Club playing Jenga and had a wonderful conversation with them.  They were down from Connecticut with their three children, ages 11 – 19: all good kids.  The meal itself was wonderful and the setting perfect.  That was about it for our evening: John picked us up around 9:00pm and Debbie and I finished out the night watching another silly movie just so we didn’t go to sleep too early.

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Wednesday: A Stop at Marina Cay On a Rough Sail to Cooper Island

Sleeping on the …ish has been hit or miss. Some nights have given us a solid night’s rest, whereas others.. not so much.  And, when you’re in tight quarters on even a cruising yacht finding a place to go in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep isn’t the easiest, especially when it’s been raining in the evening over the past few nights. Such was the case today.  I found myself up at 2:00am, slept for a short while and then tossed and turned from 3:00am until I finally got up at 6:00am.  Debbie actually slept pretty well.  However, given all the noise and movement associated with John casting off from Anegada and raising sails at 6:30am so we could be at Marine Cay by 8:30am, she and Jeanette both gave up on getting an extra hour of rest and came up to the main cabin at 6:30am.  The reason for our early departure was to allow our captain, John, to catch the water taxi back to Tortola for a Board Meeting; yes, we were more than OK with that.  Again, John has been a treasure on this trip and his background, experience and standing in the BVI community has definitely made a few things a lot easier for us.

Anyway, after arriving at Marine Cay we relaxed a bit on the …ish before heading over to the Pussers Bar & Grill on Marine Cay where we had a light lunch and played cards from 10:30am until 12:30pm when John returned from his board meeting.  Just before he arrived the skies began to open up so I’d just make a quick trip to the …ish on the dinghy to close all of the hatches and windows before the hard rain began to fall.

We stayed at Pussers for a while longer waiting for the rain to let up before returning to the …ish for yet another invigorating sailing leg as we were still dealing with angry wet weather as we sailed to Manchioneel Bay at Cooper Island where we grabbed a mooring ball for the night.  We had our final dinner at the Cooper Island Beach Club with John and were able to get back to the …ish before the skies began to unload again at 7:45pm; perfect timing.

As has become the norm over the last half of the trip, everyone pretty much retired to their staterooms around 8:00pm.  Debbie and I stayed in the main cabin for a short while before following suit and finished up the night watching another movie on Netflix so as not to go to sleep too early.  We would have much preferred spending a few hours up on top of the roof of the main cabin star gazing but the weather just didn’t want to cooperate.

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Thursday: Returning the …ish and heading home

It was another restless night for me and I finally headed to the main cabin at 5:00am so I could do some banking, etc. and catch up on the blog.  Ryan came up briefly around 6:00am, followed by Jeanette and then John shortly thereafter.  I decided to let Debbie have the stateroom to herself, noting I’d already done a lot of pre-packing yesterday while we were moored at Marina Cay.  The lynchpin in our packing was Debbie’s overnight bag since that was the 1^st thing that needed to go into our large blue dive bag before the two large beach towels we didn’t need to bring (ugg) and our clothing.  The smaller black duffle bag is also an easy pack as it swallows our snorkeling gear, shoes, the GoPro camera gear and footwear, all of which I pre-bagged in the 2.5 gal Ziplock bags yesterday. So, again, it won’t take me long to get us packed during our sail to Road Town.

John dropped the mooring ball and unfurled the jib for the short sail from Cooper Island back to Tortola around 7:45am, noting the fueling station he wanted to use where diesel was only $3.50 a gallon vs. $5.00 a gallon at most others did not open until 8:00am.  After getting underway we all finished up our packing and had our bags up in the cockpit so we could police up the linens and towels and have those ready for check-in back at CatCo; our goal was to have a fast check-in so we could catch a taxi to the ferry terminal and catch the 10:00am ferry to give us plenty of time for our 3:50pm Delta Flight check-in process: the latter proved to be fortuitous.

Much to our amazement, John’s thrifty use of the generator and engines throughout our 10-day sail resulted in our needing only 10 gallons of diesel for the fuel cell used to run the generator and 60-gallons of diesel for the fuel cell that power the two engines on the …ish.  Seriously, that’s pretty amazing considering how much water we covered during the trip and speaks volumes about how much time we were under sail vs. motoring around the British Virgin Islands.

Once we were back at CatCo John finished up the paperwork for the return of the …ish while we off-loaded our bags for pick-up by AC Taxi at about 9:15am.  We thanked John and gave him a card with our gratuity for all of his companionship, generous sharing of knowledge about the BVI and, of course, his world-class skills and tutoring as a captain.  Seriously, when I think back on our trip to the BVI’s my personal highlight was my time with Debbie and our friends, and I now count John as one of our friends.  He was a gentleman of the highest order who always enhanced our experiences: he was the perfect host and a true ambassador for the British Virgin Islands. I seriously believe I’m a better person because of my time with John: I should only hope to be as good of a man as he is: that’s not hyperbola.

Note: The following is provided for any readers who have not yet traveled to the Virgin Islands who might now be considering it.  There’s a lot of detail here, even more than you found for our trip “to” the Virgin Islands, because I like to manage expectations.  I was not aware of just how convoluted the process was, hence my fascination with it and all of the related detail in this blog.

Anyway, we were whisked away by AC Taxi and arrived at the very full very terminal around 9:30am only to find a very large line queued at the Tortola Fast Ferry window trying to get their baggage checked and tickets for the 10:00am ferry

• Our taxi ride was $10/pp with a $5.00 gratuity and as the bags came out of the back of the taxi the luggage hander for the ferry line grabbed and tagged them for the 10:00am ferry, earning him a $2/per bag tip from Ryan: doing the math and counting all of the bags, if the baggage handler doesn’t’ have to pay kickbacks or share his tips he’s doing pretty well.
• We were in the ferry ticket line for 20 minutes before handing our passports, the return portions of our BVI customs declarations and my Visa card over to the agent so she could “clear us back in” from our visit and then issue us the same $50/pp ferry ticket and $5/per bag fee for the return trip to St. Thomas.
• From the ticket office we next moved to the BVI “Departure Tax” collection window at the terminal where we were each charged $20 for the privilege of having visited the BVIs.
• Next was queuing up for the customs check point where yet another check of our passports and confirmation we’d purchased ferry tickets and paid our departure tax was made: it was 10:15am at this point.
• It was 10:30am when nearly all of the baggage had been loaded aboard the BVI Patriot for our sail back to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, at which point the 100 or so passengers were boarded followed by the last few bags of luggage, including our own.
• Our actual departure time was 10:40am for the hour-long trip from Tortola to St. Thomas, putting us at the Edward Wilmoth Blyden IV Marine Terminal around 11:40am, where the next round of clearing customs began:
  • Phase 1 was clearing US Immigration vis-a-via U.S. Customs & Border Protection at the ferry terminal, where after a 20 minute queueing line they looked at our passports, asked a few questions and signed-off on the declarations form I’d filled out on the trip over from Tortola.
  • Phase 2 was collecting our bags so they could be X-rayed as we once again presented our passports and turned in our declaration form and were finally allowed entry to the US Virgin Islands.
  • Next up was the 2^nd $10/pp taxi ride to the airport where we were huddled together with five other “fares” in an 11-passenger van for the short drive from the ferry terminal to the airport, noting our driver apparently had a trainee in the forward passenger seat.
  • Phase 3 was “checking bags” at the Delta counter and it was a bit odd in that after waiting in line for 15 minutes watching people struggle to convert their checked baggage to “carry-on” since arrived too late to check their bags, we finally got our 2 large bags “checked” only to find we’d need to carry them to the TSA scanners just ahead of the TSA passenger and carry-on bag check-in point. Yes, a word of caution to travelers, don’t arrive within an hour of your flight’s departure time as they won’t accept checked bags at that point.
  • Phase 4 was, as noted, once again showing our passports and boarding passes to a TSA agent who then directed us to drop our check-on bags with the TSA agents moving the bags through the x-ray machines.
  • Phase 5 was finally reaching the passenger screening area with it’s 15-minute queuing line and vastly different instructions on what goes in plastic containers (pretty much laptops, liquids and something else we didn’t have) with shoes & carry-on bags on the belt: this appears to be their way of dealing with plastic container log jams as their body scanners are set to very high levels: I neglected to realize I had my passport in a side pocket and even the “foil” seal on the face of the passport triggered a body pat down. Our friend Ryan, who had nothing in his pockets, went through the pat down, a wipe down and another “deep” pat down before being allowed through the check point.

Having cleared TSA and being determined not to be an existential threat to U.S. National Security by around 12:40pm, we found a snack bar where we had some lunch and a few cocktails to take the edge off before moving over to our gate around 2:40pm to position ourselves for the 3:10pm start of boarding.  Thankfully, the flight was heavily booked which allowed Ryan, Jeanette and me to check our larger carry-on bags for the fight to Atlanta: always a coup when it’s offered since we know the bags will get there and we don’t have to pay the additional checked baggage fee!

Our flight departed a few minutes early and it was an uneventful flight.  We arrived about 20 minutes ahead of schedule at 7:10pm and by the time we made our way to the baggage claim area Ryan & Jeanette had already been there a good 10 minutes ahead of us given they were sitting right at the aircraft exit door on row 10, whereas we were back at row 30.  Amazingly, all of the bags for the flight had already made it to the carousels and they’d pulled our two large duffle bags and cooler out and had them sitting there for us.  After a short walk to the off-site parking lot shuttle bus pick-up zone and a short wait for the bus to our lot we were well on our way towards home.  The shuttle bus driver was clearly a new hire who was still finding his way with operating a large coach as well as learning the parking lot which added a little more anxiety to the end of our journey.  However, once we finally made it to our truck, we both let out a big sigh: we were almost home!  Thankfully, there wasn’t any traffic given it was nearly 8:30pm as we made our way around Atlanta on I-285.  We opted to go home and made dinner there vs. eating out as we just wanted to get home, unpack and relax.  Tomorrow we’ll begin the transition to “normal” life for the next six weeks before we head off for a tandem rally in South Carolina.

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Final Thoughts:  We had a great time on what has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us and hope the same was true for our friends Ryan & Jeanette as this was their “big trip” of the year.  I don’t believe there were many moments when the four of us were not in sync on the original plan nor all-in on any of the activities, lest wading ashore to the Sandy Spit after our snorkeling at Little Jost Van Dyke. We all took turns either making meals or cleaning up afterwards and enjoyed a drama-free week, notwithstanding my stumble on the first night. We’ve seen and done things we’ve never seen nor done before and had some amazing moments with our friends we’ll cherish for a lifetime.

However, it was probably a few days too long for us as I believe “vacation fatigue” started to set in at Virgin Gorda.  This was one of our concerns as neither of us have ever been keen on taking trips longer than 5-7 days at the most, to include family visits.  Coming on the heels of our 7-day trip to Key West and an 8-day trip to Pennsylvania that included a 3-day tandem rally and 3 days of work around my folks home to keep me busy, stacking the 10-day trip to the British Virgin Islands and living on a 42’ catamaran with three other people, may have been a bit much.

That we had less than ideal weather for our last three days didn’t help since it precluded snorkeling and/or hiking which would have kept our minds and bodies far more active than they were with more sedentary activities.  But, we were thankful for the earlier days of the trip that did give us those opportunities and that’s what we’ll remember the most.

Most of the costs were what we expected, relative to the yacht lease, captain’s expenses and related water, fuel, ice associated with the yacht’s operation.  The taxi, ferry and rental car fees stacked up a bit and the cost of eating and drinking on the economy here in the BVIs was, as we expected, quite high.  If we could have held off on having adult beverages until after 5:00pm everyday we’d have done quite a bit better but, well, that’s not what you do on vacation!  And, as noted, once the less than ideal weather set in we found ourselves sitting at restaurants or on the …ish during  late mornings and afternoons with idle time and that always invites a bit more social drinking with it’s added expense.

In terms of the most memorable moments, that’s easy: it was the time we spent with our friends, Ryan & Jeanette, sharing the adventures, meals and otherwise just enjoying life.  Our captain, John, also brought another element of enjoyment and satisfaction to the trip. By all means, if you’re considering a sailing vacation in the BVI’s and are looking for someone to arrange a stress-free, enjoyable experience get a hold of John at Go Sailing BVI. John made life on the …ish easy, his suggestions and assistance in making dinner reservations for our on-shore activities were always spot on. He was just a true gentleman, an exceptional host and ambassador for the British Virgin Islands and yes… a friend throughout our time on the …ish.  Yes, at the end of the day there were a lot of great moments, but it was sharing those moments with dear friends who we truly love and enjoy being with that made it such a great adventure.

So far I’ve created two videos from the clips I collected with my GoPro cameras.

This first one is a montage of our 1st day under sail on the …ish sailing from East End on Tortola to Treasure Point at Norman Island.  I think it does a pretty good job of capturing the therapeutic nature of cruising on a 36-ton catamaran in the Virgin Islands.

This second video is a 2-minute compilation of our 4 snorkeling dives at Treasure Point & the Indians near Norman Island, Long Bay at Little Jost Van Dyke and Monkey Point in White Bay off Guana Island. Sadly, the weather and sargassum precluded our dive off Anegada’s north coast.

I was working on a 3rd compilation when my 2011 MacBook Pro 17″ experienced a video processor failure, so that one’s on hold for now.  I think I can finish it on my Samsung PC laptop… when I have some spare time, that is.