Here are some valuable lessons I learned as a first time captain last year on our way to Cooper. We spent the prior night in White Bay, Jost in front of Ivan's, and the primary reason we wanted to stay in Cooper the next night was to have a good launching point for the Baths the following morning. My wife and daughters wanted to eat lunch at Pirates Bight, so I thought it would be perfect to take the southern route around Tortola (by Sopers) and head for the Bight. The wind was out of the southeast at 15 knots. For the seasoned people on this board, you know what we hit as soon as we entered the narrows in our 38 power cat. I backed down to 5 or 6 knots and we still took a few over the nose. I ended up traversing over to St. John and weaving in and out of the bays for protection. We arrived at the Bight with little appetite and then got the last ball in Cooper after racing a sailboat for it. The lessons learned are that I had too much packed into that day and we should have taken the northern route around Tortola with a different launching point for the Baths (maybe Marina Cay or Scrub).

Regarding Cooper, our opinion may have been affected by my mistakes, but we felt it had been over hyped. I liked their beer, but we are not into the beach club scene and the beach is just okay compared to others in the BVI. The food was pretty good that night, but we paid for getting there late with an outer ball and we rolled all night. I thought the snorkeling was decent, but again over hyped. When we got home and discussed changes for this years trip, the first thing we all agreed on was to drop Cooper from the itinerary. If you like the beach club scene and being in a bay with a lot of other boats, then you will probably love it. This is just not our preference. I hope this helps!

Steve