Really enjoyed our bareboat vacation. Here is my report. Will post photo's when I'm motivated.

Day 1, Thursday June 2nd: Spent the night at the Westin San Francisco airport as we had an early 6 am flight to catch on Friday. I did this so we could get a little more sleep and not have extra stress getting to the airport early.

Day 2, Friday June 3rd: Crew took the Westin airport shuttle to SFO at 4:05 am. We waited for the sky cap to open at 4:30 and checked our bags with him. We had one checked bag for four people. Quickly through security. Departed on time at 6 am for Miami. Three hour layover which was fine. We had a nice early dinner. Next flight was also on-time and arrived in STT at 8:30 pm. We checked in to the Best Western Emerald Bay for one night.

Day 3, Saturday June 4th: Easy morning. Crew on their own for breakfast. Checked out at 10:30 and took a taxi to the CA ferry terminal. Got our tickets and then ate a fantastic lunch at the Petite Pump Room. 1st time eating there but it was as good as everyone on this board said it was. I had the cheeseburger.
Ferry departed on time and we had a nice ride on the Bomba Charger. We sat up front and the fumes were not bad at all. Relaxing ride. Made it through customs with no problems and then caught a ride over to Sopers Hole and Voyage Charters. Checked in with Voyage around 1:30 – 2 pm. They were still readying the boat so we had to wait until a little after 5 pm to board for our sleep aboard. The crew took the time to explore Sopers Hole and relax at Pussers over beers, painkillers, and starters.
Checked aboard the boat around 5:15. We scheduled Bobby’s to deliver a large ($1800.00) provision order. They arrived at 6 pm…not bad. Got the provisions stored and then took the dingy over to the Jolly Rodger for our 7:30 pm dinner reservation. Had the jerked prime rib. It was good…not great, but good. Everyone enjoyed the dinner.
The adults turned in around 10:30 pm. The youngers stayed up watching a movie.

Day 4, Sunday June 5th: Cooked a full breakfast onboard the boat (bacon, eggs, toast, potatoes). Did our checkout with Kimo. Went quick as we had sailed the 440 in the past. Kimo and the Voyage staff are AWESOME. We are underway by 12 pm. Kim drove the boat out of the slip and then jumped aboard a dingy he had tied to our boat and we are off on our own. Not much wind. We had about 9 to 12 for an hour but it died off. Lowered the sails and we motored over to the Indians for a snorkel, then to The Bight for the night. Ate dinner aboard – filet mignon, potatoes, etc. All good. It started to rain very hard so the kids cancelled their plans for the Willy T. They were not happy.

Day 5, Monday June 6th: I got up at 5 am with my wife. We slipped off the ball and motored over to the Caves for an am snorkel. Plan was to snorkel the Caves and head to Cooper Island for the night. Crew woke up around 8 and we all had a great snorkel. Due to the weather forecast we decided to skip Cooper Island and head for Leverick Bay. Called ahead and they had a slip available. Motored the entire way…not enough wind to enjoy sailing (under 10 knots true). Got in to Leverick Bay around 3 pm. Had dinner aboard (cooked chicken in the galley) and the crew enjoyed time ashore. Rained really hard overnight.

Day 6, Tuesday June 7th: Overcast but very windy. Looked at the forecast and the winds were expected to be around 20 to 30 knots. That’s what we call “sailing weather” in San Francisco. We departed Leverick Bay for a sail down the Sir Francis Drake Channel. It was a beat to Scrub Island, a reach over to Spanish Town, and then a broad reach back to Gorda Sound. We had sustained winds around 22 to 25 knots with gusts to 30. I did put a reef in. My family enjoyed the sail. The other family with us stayed down below and did not enjoy it as much (sea sick – should have stayed topside). We caught a ball at Saba Rock around 4:30 pm and once again had dinner aboard. We did go ashore to Saba Rock for drinks and starters and I ended up going back for some late night pain killers after dinner.

Day 7, Wednesday June 8th: Overcast with light winds (9 to 12 knots). Weather was not great but seas were expected to be relatively calm with scattered showers. It was expected to clear early afternoon. We decided to make a run for Anegada as planned. Skipped taking on water as we had topped off in Leverick Bay the day prior. Raised the sails and things were going well but the wind died off about 2 to 3 miles out. About 5 other boats were making the trip. Then the rain started…torrential downpour. About 30 minutes from the half-way point there was a pretty good squall line to the South that appeared to be heading South West. I mulled over in my mind turning back but decided to press on. It was wet but we had decent visibility, a good chart plotter and radar, and my personal GPS. The weather slowly got better and the rain stopped for good about 45 minutes out. We identified the buoys and entered the anchorage. We decided to drop anchor in the western part of the anchorage. Had not problem getting it set (verified by diving the anchor).
Contacted Dean Wheatley so we could pick up our truck. Made dinner reservations at Potters and took the crew to Cow Wreck. Great time…everyone had lunch. Really enjoyed ourselves.
Dinner at Potters was very good, especially for those that got the lobster. We have eaten lobster at Neptunes, Cow Wreck, and the Anegada Reef Hotel. Potters in our opinion is #1.

Day 8, Thursday June 9th: Spent a second full day on Anegada (we always do). Spent most of the day at Loblolly. Had a phenomenal lunch (I ordered several different starters). On the way back to the boat we visited the Purple Turtle and a few other souvenir spots. Was a bit surprised when I saw how much (as in A LOT) my wife and daughter spent when I looked at the credit card statement online yesterday.
We ate dinner at Neptunes. Best plate was the swordfish my daughter had. It was very very good.
Day 9, Friday June 10th: Forecast called for a clear day but little wind. I was up at 4:45 and underway at sun up. Decided to head for The Baths as we missed it early in the week when we had to skip our night at Cooper Island. We motored the whole way. Got there around 8:30 and took a ball at Devils Bay. After a pancake breakfast (cooked by me) the crew went ashore for several hours while I hung out on the boat. After everyone returned we had some chicken roti for lunch and then motored back to Leverick Bay. We had reserved a slip and were planning to meet some TTOLers and enjoy the BBQ and Mocko Jumbie show. Met up with Dave (Warlock) and his crew at Leverick. Dave is a GREAT guy, really enjoyed talking with him. We ran into each other a couple of more times along the way.

Day 10, Saturday June 11th: Off to Jost Van Dyke today. Met with Nick briefly and let him know how much we enjoyed our stay. The dock staff was awesome at Leverick Bay. Departed around 11 am with light winds but enough to keep the sails up. We did a broad reach to Little Harbor around the outside of the islands. My daughter had too many banana colada’s the night prior and was pretty much sick the whole way. It was a long sail only because of the light winds…but we were still the fastest boat out there. Stopped at Sydney’s Peace and Love for some quick shopping then off to Great Harbor. We got one of only 2 or 3 balls available as we arrived around 4 pm. Dinner aboard and then spent the evening at Foxy’s. Had a great time…pretty good crowd but most of the people started to leave around 10 pm.

Day 11, Sunday June 12th: After breakfast we motored over to White Bay and found a mooring ball. Spent the morning and early afternoon at the Soggy Dollar. Ran into Queen Fifi and another TTOLer (sorry…forgot who). Enjoyed lunch at Jewels Snack Shack. Left around 2 pm and sailed over to Cane Garden Bay. On the way one of the girls got off her beach mat and it went overboard. My son noticed it going by and we quickly ran a well-executed man overboard drill to recover it. Met up with Manpot and Warlock + crew at the Elm for BBQ and listened to the Elm Tones. Good time. Mal did well dancing to some “Bugs Bite” or something like that .

Day 12, Monday June 13th: Dropped the ball around 9:30 am and headed for Monkey Point. Got lucky as a ball was open and we had an excellent snorkel. Lots of fish, good light so the reef was very colorful. We then had a nice sail around the north side of Guana and Great Camanoe with Scrub Island our destination. We had arranged for a slip awhile back at the Scrub Island Resort. We backed into slip C4 which is perfect, close to the showers / bathrooms and small market. Highly recommend C dock if you can get it. We spent the day at the pool. Davide stopped by for a short visit. Was nice to see him – happy as always. One of the girls did a spa treatment. My wife and I took a quick dingy trip over to Marina Cay and then Trellis Bay and had a few beers at the Mongoose beach bar. Went back to the boat and then the whole crew went to the resort for dinner. Monday’s are Caribbean night. The food and menu was AWESOME. Huge selection of salads. Chicken, jerked pork, fish, carving station with pork loin, potatoes, Johnny cakes (my first…those things are great), fresh baked rolls, and much more. It was by far our best dinner of the trip. The only dinner I’ve had better in the BVI was with Davide at Brandywine. Word of caution…be careful walking down the stairs. The lighting is poor and my wife did take a hard fall. She was ok…but it took awhile to recover.

Day 13, Tuesday June 14th: Last day on the boat. We sailed down the Sir Francis Drake to Road Town. I never go to RoadTown (unless my boat is based there) but I wanted to visit Capriccio di Mare for lunch. We took a guest slip at the Village Cay Marina ($10.00 per hour) and walked over to the café. I love pizza and have my own wood fired oven in the back yard. The pizza and pasta at Capriccio di Mare is fantastic and the price is very good as well. A pizza margarita is under 10 dollars. We loaded up on pizza, calizone, pasta, and salads. The kids (and Dad) were very happy. This was the perfect stop after 10 days onboard. We then went back to the boat and sailed over to Cooper Island. Winds were good – 10 to 15 knots and then building to 20+ as we got closer. Enjoyed this sail. We went ashore and ran into Dave (Warlock) again. Both of us on our last nights. Enjoyed the visit with Dave washing down a few pain killers. Dinner on the boat only because we had food to eat (I wanted to eat ashore but the Admiral out voted me). The forecast looked great for a sail back to Sopers Hole in the am.

Day 14, Wednesday June 15th: Light breakfast. Departed Cooper at 6:30 am. Perfect conditions - around 12 to 15 knots true wind. Broad Reach…Voyage 500, yes, that’s pretty much perfect. First reach took us all the way to the south end of St. John. A few gybes and we were into Sopers Hole before 8:30 am. Great downwind sail. Boat check in with Kimo was a breeze. We were off the boat by 10, lunch at Pussers and on the ferry to St Thomas at 12. Stayed at the Best Western for one night.

Day 14, Thursday June 16th: Heading home today. Checked out and at the airport by 11 am for our 1:30 pm flight. We used a sky cap to assist us (excellent advice) and were quickly moved through check in, customs, and security. I was offered an upgrade for 135 each (4 tickets) from STT to MIA and took it. Departed a little late as TSA did a full bag search at the gate (this is rare). No worries as we have a 3 hour layover in Miami. I was wrong on that. First we switched gates from one side of terminal D to the other. D is HUGE. Supposed to take off at 7:30. Delayed to 8:15, then 8:45. Maintenance issue. Ended up being an icing probe for an engine (important) which they can’t fix. Luckily they have another plane for us. We ended up leaving late and arriving in SFO at 3 am Friday vice 10:30 pm Thursday. I had arranged for a stretch limo to pick us up (surprise for the kids…fitting way to end the vacation). They were waiting for us and whisked us the home from SFO to Pleasanton.

The Good:
-Voyage Charters
-Our Boat
-Sunny days 7 of 10 days after initial rain and overcast skies
-Meeting up with TTOLers
-Scrub Island dinner
-Capriccio di Mare lunch
-Sail from Cooper Island to Sopers Hole on the final morning

The Bad:
-Poor weather early…but we overcame it
-Inconsistent wind. We had 4 really good days of sailing.
-American Airlines very slow to give updates on the issue with our return flight.