Excellent tips from the other posters, as to handling strong weather situations.

We always sail the BVI in may, but one time, in St, Barts, we ran into a rather interesting and not forecast situation. .

Sailing into Gustavia Harbor, Erica and I on a 37 ft, Centurian Sloop. Strong , well found vessel.

The weather had been great, No worries. However as we sailed into Gustavia harbor a huge dark wall of clouds was headed our way. No moorings were available
and we stayed well clear of the starboard side mooring field. We anchored on the port side of the fair way in about 25 to 35 feet or so of water. Had 150 ft of chain, and 150 feet of line ..
.total 300 feet of rode.

Erica went below to take a shower and I stood anchor watch. She wanted us to go ashore for Saturday night party down in St Barts.. I am very concerned about that approaching air mass.
Well, she is all set to go ashore, and says she will stand anchor watch while I shower and get ready We had all the chain, and much of the rode out. Holding just fine.

I get out of the shower, dripping wet, and pour myself a Mt. Gay rum, naked and drying off.

I feel the boat move, Erica shouts, " Den ' we are dragging ! " . I toss on my board shorts, no shoes, no gloves, and up I run to the anchor locker.. The wind is howling
and the rain is pelting down . The engine is running at 1500 RPM since we were charging up the batteries. This is good.
I had Erica remain at the helm and I head up to the anchor locker to pay out more scope and reset the hook.

I am paying out the line section of the rode, and a huge blast of extremely powerful wind hits us, I now, cannot hold on to the anchor rode, it it burning thru my hands.
I shout FULL POWER, FULL POWER !!! to Erica

She is at the helm, and she answers back ALL AHEAD FULL. We are running out of rode, This is not going to be good if the bitter end of the anchor line line tears out the screwed in anchor locker
U - bolt. The force would rip it out of the anchor locker bulkhead. Then we have the anchor, chain, and line laying on the bottom of the harbor. This is not good.

Even with the engine at full power, we are not moving forward much, but took enough pressure off the line that I could get wraps around the windlass, and secured the line
with proper a cleat hitch on the starboard bow cleat and backed it up with another cleat hitch to the port bow cleat.

The winds are now super strong, visibility is a few feet, due to the wind, We cannot see any boats, moorings or land due to the strong horizontal rain, and the spray picked up off the water.
We ran the engine in gear to take some of the load off the anchor , turned the VHF to Channel 16. it was now about 3:pm. in the afternoon,
The dink was double secured to the stern cleats . Chl 16: People not in the harbor were calling for help off shore. "We are just sunday sailors , we do not know
what to do, help us !.

Well folks, there is nothing that anyone can do for you. You have to use your seamanship, knowledge and experience, to handle the situation. There is no USCG, or Sea Tow . Your are on your own.
Those were my unspoken thoughts. There was a lot of people on Chl 16, all shouting at once. Not a good situation.

Winds came up to 64 mph plus gusts, and did not abated until about 2:00 am in the morning. 73 mph is hurricane force winds, Cat 1.

1:00 am : The visibility returned to maybe 50 yards and we could see that we were staying put. The winds continued to drop, and visibility increased, we hit the rack about 2:00 am in the morning.

What the heck happened ?

10:00 am: Ashore the next morning St Barts was sunny and calm.

We went to the Port Captains office to find out if this system was done. Yep, it was not forecast as the beast formed over the Islands of the French West Indies in the Caribbean.
Goes back to mother nature does what she wants to do, when she wants to do it, and those of us who chose to sail, or motor upon her oceans need to
have the skills to work with her. We certainly cannot beat her down.
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In the BVI you are going to have excellent weather reports, and with all of the computer help, you should be advised well ahead of time.

Other great advice by the posters here: : For the BVI, we agree to get a slip, Leverick or Nanny Cay, not in any open roadstead .
or if not available a good hurricane hole and extra bow anchor. Bahanian moor. If in a slip, extra lines is excellent, as is getting to cozy shelter ashore
until the storm passes . Important : Lots of rum, also a great idea.

Later, upon returning to Sun Charters Oyster Bay ( now gone from biz) base in St. Martin,, we found that they were also caught by surprise, and had dock staff , office staff , charter captains, etc,
on the their boats, dock lines wrapping around props and over lapping, boats crashing, etc.

The Airport at St. Martin was closed down, and passengers on landing jet liners were not allowed off the aircraft as the Terminal Roof was ripping off and debris was flying around .

Main thing ' for us ' , is to avoid hurricane season , that is why we generally select may, Also , it is before the kids are out school, less people and better deals on boats and air fare..

Others think quite differently, and that is fine for them .

Stay safe, have a grand sailing vacation in the beautiful BVI..