Sailboat Discovery

Zipping thru the BVI

After having such a great time in the US Virgin Islands we were anxious to move on to the BVI just a few miles east of St Johns! Back in Arkansas during the 15 years we spent on Greer's Ferry lake friend after friend would come back from chartering with stories of their week in Paradise. We on the other hand would comfort ourselves with the promise that we were saving and moving up to bigger boats so we could live the lifestyle permanently. Finally our time had come and we could not wait! First stop was Soupers Hole on Tortolas western tip, its was the charter boat central for a while in the BVI and is home to Pussers Bar, we took a mooring ball and spent a day and a night soaking up the ambiance! As ever mindful of our need to reach Grenada (some 500 miles south) by June 1, we moved on, next stop was trellis bay and the Full Moon party!
    Every month during the season the bars and restaurant's have a big [arty the night of the fullest moon, the highlight of which is the lighting of the wood filled steel sculptures that are all about the beach and even in the water. it makes for a spectacular sight to see these flaming balls and other sculptures blazing in the full moonlight.
Equally exciting is the show the charter boats put on in their attempt to take one of the dozens of moorings in the bay. This was our first real opportunity to sample the wild and sometimes very scary show that inexperienced captains put on, both in racing to the ball and then the often times futile attempt to pick it up. These weekend cowboys send us to the rails to fend off the boats or to alert them to how close they are to running over our mooring line (or Anchor chain)! Seeing these 50 foot catamarans racing thru a mooring field at 7 knots to beat another 50 foot catamaran to a mooring ball sends shivers down the spine of those of us who do this full time! we have seen our share of near misses but thankfully no actual catastrophes'!
     After the full moon party we headed off to the next stops in our journey thru the BVI, Jost Van Dyke and the famous Soggy Dollar bar and its gorgeous beach and the beautiful people that populate it! We also hit Foxy's bar another BVI icon and great example of Caribbean beach bar!
We did the snorkeling at the Indians, the Caves where we enjoyed some of the most fishy reefs and walls that we saw anywhere thru-out our first trip thru the Caribbean.

     Racing thru the BVI we finally reached our final destination, the island of Virgin Gorda, home of the Bitter End Yacht Club, this is another center for chartering and a really wonderful place to finish our time in BVI. This would be our jumping off point for our sail across the Anagada passage to St Marteen. We had a great time exploring all the neat bars and eating places that populate this protected spot. The Bitter end Yacht club is not to be missed, but we were looking forward to missing the 30 bucks US that it cost for a mooring ball every night! Next trip thru here we now know that we can anchor in many of the areas and have just as good a time so hopefully we can do the BVI with out so much pain to the pocket book! Oh well on to our first French Island ST Marten